A better cup of coffee for our staff
The pace is hectic. Three restaurant makeovers have now been completed. They have all been finished on time, with little disruption to trade and with no major hiccups for our staff.
The customer restaurants at our two most recent makeovers have both been coloured very differently. The scheme at Brent Cross is bold, using grey, purple and orange; whereas at Trewins the colours are less dramatic, using yellow, blue (to me this looks more like lilac), green and grey - all very muted, but stylish.
Some of us in the project group have gone through a steep learning curve during the past five weeks, and these are a few lessons we have learnt:
Small swatches of fabric and patches of paint do not always look the same when applied in big sections.
Using different contractors for similar pieces of work in different locations throws up different standards of workmanship, which needs careful monitoring.
Good control is needed, with regular communication between all parties.
Insist that you are kept informed of design changes.
Watch the money - it quickly disappears.
The final group of branches will start receiving restaurant makeovers this coming week. It will be full speed ahead to achieve a finished result before back-to-school commences.
Completion of the restaurants at Solihull is slow. We have only just received handover of the staff dining room, main kitchen and wash-up. Hopefully, we will take responsibility for the main customer restaurant this week. With six weeks to go, we badly need to commission the equipment and start training new partners (our staff), the bulk of whom start in a couple of weeks' time.
One item of equipment we have introduced into the dining room at Solihull is a bean-to-cup coffee machine. Previously, partners using the dining rooms were able to purchase coffee only from instant-coffee machines, which, while popular with a number of customers, did not provide a choice. So in our two new shops - Southampton last year and now Solihull - bean-to-cup automatic coffee machines have been added and, I am pleased to say, are already well used. Hopefully, over time, we will be able to introduce more into our other dining rooms, so offering the choice to all of our partners.
CAROLINE MORTIMER is general manager, catering, for the John Lewis Partnership Next diary from Caroline Mortimer: 30 August
