We prove you can get the staff these days
Last week we celebrated the beginning of our 10th year at Tummies, our Continental-style bistro. Ten years! They say time flies when you're having fun, but that is not exactly how I would sum up the nine years of hard slog. However, we've come a long way from the first day when our wine bar, as it was then, sat 30 people at a push.
Tummies has been through the full cycle of restaurant life. It started with a mere trickle of people, which turned into a stream and then into an enormous waterfall, ending as a strong-flowing river. The product and service today are better than they have ever been, and most of this is due to the hard work and creativity of our young management team.
Have you ever been in an interview situation where on first sight you've not been sure if the applicant would be the right person? But as the interview progresses there is a strength and bond that begins and you leave the interview asking yourself why you had not noticed it in the beginning. That was how it started when I first met Jo Lowe in January 1996.
Jo is our restaurant manager at Tummies and with her husband James, who came on board as head chef only six months ago, she has helped to rebuild Tummies to its former glory. How many of us actually like to eat in our own restaurants? You see every mistake and are on the edge of your seat for the whole meal. But not so at Tummies. In fact I can't wait for an excuse to go and eat there.
Employees of this calibre are so difficult to come by. So few are willing to invest time and effort to run your business as if it was their own. Why is it that employees do not realise that if they help in the smooth running of your business and help you in the enormously difficult task of growing the business, at the end of the day they, too, will profit from its success? This success does not mean only that better salaries will be on offer but, more importantly, a better lifestyle, with regular holidays and days off.
When I look back over those nine years, there are many that have worked for us and many that I probably don't remember, but there are those like Jo and James that have given something that will never be forgotten. Indeed, at Tummies we still have two of our original employees: the cleaner, Jill, who has just about never had a sick day and who still annoys us by smoking her "fag" in the ladies' toilets; and good old Olive who does the vegetable prep, and must have cut, by hand, enough potatoes to feed the whole of England for a day.
This industry is all about people, and without people like these where would we be today?
However, all this said, I still cannot understand why it is so hard to find the "right" people and why so many do not have a care in the world whether they succeed or fail. It's all to do with attitude, and unfortunately all you need is one of the spokes in your wheel to break and the rest follow.
Next diary from Tammy Mariaux will be on 17 April
