We’re so close to one year. No small achievement in the current climate. A successful cafe owes most of its success to its regular customers. Ours are proudly displayed on the wall next to our coffee machine. We’re lucky to have such a charming, intelligent and rather good looking bunch. Not to mention a group that has impeccable taste.
So as well as celebrating a year in the life of a cafe we’ll be making some improvements and thanking those regular customers for getting us here. Expect some new edible treats, more great coffee to sample and a couple of small tweaks to our pretty interior. I might even get a hair cut.
So I’ve said that now so I better do it. There’ll be a party in early May. If you’re on The Wall then you’ll probably get an invite. Loyalty is rewarded.
Good bye to the sunshine. A glorious week of afternoon’s outside Joseph Pearce drinking wine is now behind me. And so begins the usual chat about living in a warmer part of the world. Sigh. We’ll forget that for now and get lots of soup ready for what will no doubt be a cold, wet, miserable week. Here’s to the rain!
In other news, the sandwich of the week has been fairly popular since we started it a few weeks ago. I am resisting the urge to do a chicken sarnie every week as they’re always a winner. Maybe we just need to get a chicken sarnie on the main menu.
Black Crowdie this week. A soft cheese wrapped in pinhead oats and crushed black peppercorns by Highland Fine Cheese of Tain. A little cheese maker in the north of Scotland where I worked at the age of 15. Not crafting gorgeous cheese but mopping floors and folding little boxes to put cheese into. Small things back then but now their range is available in most supermarkets and delis.
Click on the Sandwich of the week to go to Highland Fine Cheese’s Website.
And come in this week and enjoy the sarnie!
x
Doors Open Day 2011
Dovecot. Open all weekend.
“As the building which housed the first public swimming baths in Edinburgh, Dovecot Studios are well placed to develop this year’s sports theme for Doors Open Day to mark the forthcoming Olympic and Commonwealth Games. The baths are fondly remembered by many locals and former residents of Edinburgh and we are keen to gradually record the history of the building’s previous use, including the experiences of those who used the swimming and bathing facilities and those who were employed here. ” via Dovecot
Big News Day.
I have the same routine every morning. Arrive late, turn on laptop and check phone, dishwasher on, grab the baker’s delivery from the store, wipe all the tables, sugar bowls, ’Shit, I haven’t turned the coffee machine on’, then potter about until I open at 8. The morning routine is always ruined if something interesting appears on the laptop or worse still someone has @’ed me on twitter and I need to check it’s not mean.
Yesterday morning was a review. A very lovely one from Katey who writes the Edinburgh foody blog Edinburgh Eats.
Follow the link if you want to read it. http://is.gd/eF5kgU
Having just read that I find an email from Roanne at Dovecot linking me to a google alert (still need to work out how to set them up). I’m a local hero apparently. The photograph above is dear horace, found on the Dovecot doorstep. The Evening News piece below fails to mention the best part of the story. I found Horace on the door step half wrapped in black bags. I thought it was a ruddy dead dog. I stood looking at the damn thing for about ten minutes wondering who at Dovecot deserved a dead dog. I drew a blank, honest. I kicked it and it rocked so def not a dead dog.
A link to the Evening News. http://is.gd/svrmrC
All in all a good news day.
Click on the photo to go to Jungle City
![I hate new staff.
I hate writing the advert. Reading the (mostly crap) email applications. Interviewing them (urgh, the worst bit). Then bringing them around to my way of thinking.
I mostly use gumtree for the advert side of things. I want to say the results are good but they’re not. They are certainly plentiful but mostly crap. I now right a great deal of ‘guff’ then finish off with 3 or 4 questions. 2 of which are completely pointless but if I open that email application and there aren’t at least 4 lines of text I just assume they haven’t read it correctly and delete it.
In the last advert the first line was ‘Independent Cafe’. The first 2 words. Nothing else. The first question? - where in Edinburgh did you get your last great coffee? The NUMBER of people that told the ‘Independent Cafe’ that their last great coffee was from their favourite cafe Starbucks was ridiculous. Someone even acknowledged the fact that it was a bad answer but offered it up anway. *delete!*
Well I interviewed (talked at them for 5 minutes) this afternoon and the joyful trial shift takes place tomorrow after the interviewee enjoys the ‘Bogan Party’ at their hostel tonight.
At least she doesn’t like Starbucks.
[a Gold Star (but no interview) went to the guy from Dublin that didn’t answer Question 2 because it was ‘shit’ - ‘What was the last song on your iPod?’ Fair point.]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrsez4zIWP1ql6jk6o1_500.jpg)
I hate new staff.
I hate writing the advert. Reading the (mostly crap) email applications. Interviewing them (urgh, the worst bit). Then bringing them around to my way of thinking.
I mostly use gumtree for the advert side of things. I want to say the results are good but they’re not. They are certainly plentiful but mostly crap. I now right a great deal of ‘guff’ then finish off with 3 or 4 questions. 2 of which are completely pointless but if I open that email application and there aren’t at least 4 lines of text I just assume they haven’t read it correctly and delete it.
In the last advert the first line was ‘Independent Cafe’. The first 2 words. Nothing else. The first question? - where in Edinburgh did you get your last great coffee? The NUMBER of people that told the ‘Independent Cafe’ that their last great coffee was from their favourite cafe Starbucks was ridiculous. Someone even acknowledged the fact that it was a bad answer but offered it up anway. *delete!*
Well I interviewed (talked at them for 5 minutes) this afternoon and the joyful trial shift takes place tomorrow after the interviewee enjoys the ‘Bogan Party’ at their hostel tonight.
At least she doesn’t like Starbucks.
[a Gold Star (but no interview) went to the guy from Dublin that didn’t answer Question 2 because it was ‘shit’ - ‘What was the last song on your iPod?’ Fair point.]
