It's goodbye to the pink and green
A LOT has been achieved by the caterers at John Lewis in the last month. A new servery was installed over the Easter weekend at the Waitrose head office in Bracknell. The schedule over three days was exceptionally tight (distribution centres for supermarkets do not shut) but the architects, servery manufacturers and caterers pulled together to perform an absolute miracle, transforming an extremely institutional-looking area into a restaurant we are now all proud of.
This is a huge project involving eight branches and nine restaurants, managed over a very tight timescale. We have assured branches that as far as possible we will have made over the last branch by our summer clearance.
Communication will have to be spot-on if we are to avoid delays or mistakes which could affect the programme. Thank goodness for e-mail and other forms of technology.
The designers have come up with three colour schemes, ranging from the lively, vibrant scheme seen at our shop in Reading to a very cool, crisp and contemporary scheme.
We have had the current pink and green scheme for a number of years, so it is going to be quite a transformation both for our caterers and regular customers whom I suspect have become quite used to the existing colours.
Removing the pink and green involves a large amount of work in most of the nine restaurants. We have pink and green wall tiles, pink and green carpet, green trays, green table bases, green seat covering, pink and green clocks and crockery with a green band.
I think that our staff dining rooms are going to inherit a lot of crockery and trays but, they will be pleased to learn, not the clocks.
I also spent an interesting and informative day with one of our major suppliers. I was delighted to find that this supplier had spent time to find out what John Lewis customers want, in terms of product and service.
Visiting a number of smart restaurants and hotels recently reminds me how important it is to match service, style and spend. A balance must be found between cost and service but it is a very fine line, and if you cut staff levels too far or your pay does not attract the calibre of staff you require, service levels will fall and customers will not return. n
CAROLINE MORTIMER is general manager, catering, for the John Lewis Partnership
Next diary from Caroline Mortimer: 21 June
