Cafe

lincroft1710

dazco wrote: »

You need to read/watch/be careful what you say, or you could look a little daft here.
What you have essentially wrote is that the OP cannot take over a cafe in a Spar shop because the OP does not have a Michelin star or have a mentor that does have a Michelin star. :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

NO!! Gothic Stirling did not imply that in his/her post. The employer knew how to run a restaurant and also happened to be chef with a Michelin star.

dazco

lincroft1710 wrote: »

NO!! Gothic Stirling did not imply that in his/her post. The employer knew how to run a restaurant and also happened to be chef with a Michelin star.

Don't you dare start shouting at me. Gob on a stick.

Gothic Sterling said he/she had worked over ten years in catering. During this time, amazingly, GS did not progress enough in his/her trade to comfortably run his/her own cafe. GS has admitted this.

In an extraordinary coincidence ALL the different people GS has worked for/with "did not have a clue".

So GS "did not have a clue" despite over TEN YEARS in the trade, "and so many" cafes, bakeries and restaurants (seems to go through jobs a lot) also "did not have a clue".

The ONLY person, out of all these people in the catering trade that have crossed GS's path, that had a clue was a Michelin starred chef. Now there must be significance in the fact that he was a Michelin starred chef otherwise it would not have been mentioned.

So, yes, the implication is that everyone in catering is a numpty and you can only progress forward if you have a Michelin chef as a sage.

Though why you need a Michelin star chef to tell you to sell a 20p sausage for 60p is beyond me.

Normal people from normal backgrounds have done very well for years in Cafes and such like.

dazco

In fact, GS, would you be kind enough to share with us potential caterers three radical things that the Michelin chef told you that you did not already know. Then we can all learn.

lincroft1710

dazco wrote: »

Gob on a stick.
.

Sorry don't understand this one!

lincroft1710

dazco wrote: »

Don't you dare start shouting at me.

Wouldn't dream of it, old boy.

GothicStirling

I didn't say the rest didn't have a clue, what I said is a many don't have a clue.

I've worked in places that thought it was acceptable to re-heat meat products; if a customer returned something they didn't like, refuse to replace it; places that routinely sent out burnt meals and unwashed salad. I could make your hair curl with stories of poor hygiene procedures.

What I learned under the Michelin star chef is that you can run a catering business on the cheap, you can't have the minimum amount of staff, they need to be well trained and know their products. Oh, that I also hate the crap that most catering suppliers send out pre-prepared/frozen. We used local produce, fresh fruit and veg all from local suppliers.

And the customers certainly new the difference, and appreciate it. One customer even commented that 'they had never been in such a clean restaurant before.'

That business had made a £200,000 loss the year before. We came in, took over the franchise and we made a profit in excess of a million. Not bad for year one.

dazco

GothicStirling wrote: »

I didn't say the rest didn't have a clue, what I said is a many don't have a clue.

I've worked in places that thought it was acceptable to re-heat meat products; if a customer returned something they didn't like, refuse to replace it; places that routinely sent out burnt meals and unwashed salad. I could make your hair curl with stories of poor hygiene procedures.

What I learned under the Michelin star chef is that you can run a catering business on the cheap, you can't have the minimum amount of staff, they need to be well trained and know their products. Oh, that I also hate the crap that most catering suppliers send out pre-prepared/frozen. We used local produce, fresh fruit and veg all from local suppliers.

And the customers certainly new the difference, and appreciate it. One customer even commented that 'they had never been in such a clean restaurant before.'

That business had made a £200,000 loss the year before. We came in, took over the franchise and we made a profit in excess of a million. Not bad for year one.

Well done, :T:T:T

What business is this, I will have a look.


To be fair, everything you have said is complete common sense, or at least it is for me. I have been looking for a pub for ages and everythng you have said would be employed at the pub.
It looks like I am not going to find a pub so a cafe looks to be on the cards, where the same values will be employed.

Easy

paulwf

dazco wrote: »

To be fair, everything you have said is complete common sense, or at least it is for me.

The financials for catering are very easy...get the gross profit margin and the staffing costs on target and you'll make money The problem is putting in the effort to keep an eye on these figures. That means logging all sales properly, doing a monthly stocktake and using bank statements and daily takings sheets to come up with monthly management reports. It's very easy to know what your GP target should be but knowing whether or not you've met it is something else.

dazco

GothicStirling wrote: »

I didn't say the rest didn't have a clue, what I said is a many don't have a clue.

I've worked in places that thought it was acceptable to re-heat meat products; if a customer returned something they didn't like, refuse to replace it; places that routinely sent out burnt meals and unwashed salad. I could make your hair curl with stories of poor hygiene procedures.

What I learned under the Michelin star chef is that you can run a catering business on the cheap, you can't have the minimum amount of staff, they need to be well trained and know their products. Oh, that I also hate the crap that most catering suppliers send out pre-prepared/frozen. We used local produce, fresh fruit and veg all from local suppliers.

And the customers certainly new the difference, and appreciate it. One customer even commented that 'they had never been in such a clean restaurant before.'

That business had made a £200,000 loss the year before. We came in, took over the franchise and we made a profit in excess of a million. Not bad for year one.

Hi GS

Please can you tell me what business went from -£200,000 to +£1,000,000.

That is a remarkable turnaround and I am quite interested to see how they did it.