Sitting in a field numero something

Haven't sat in many fields this year. Only 5 or 6 since I fell out
with one of the guys that bids for the catering rights at these
events - he said my coffee was too good. There are usually two people who tender for the rights to place the catering outlets at events - Steve from Steves' Ice creams, and Jack Trickett, an old fairground owner who I've talked about before. I phoned Jack at Easter to enquire about the coming seasons events, only to be told that he wouldn't be needing me this year.

Saddened and somewhat surprised, I asked why.  He told me that his
sons were basically running the show now, and they wanted to do decent
coffee themselves, so they didn't have to lose any income to me.  I
pointed out that my customers weren't theirs and most wouldn't buy a
coffee from a burger van piled high with fried onions and the like.
And anyway, he would be better off just taking the rent from me.  He
agreed after a fashion and said he would have a word with his sons.

I called back after a few days and was told I could attend their
events this year, at a cost of a minimum of £100 per day.  I declined.

That left Steve's ice creams.  At least I've got him trained.  I give
15% (20% max) of my income at an event as a fee, and Steve knows this.
 This meant that I only had 6 or 7 events this year.  I can trade 7
days a week in Portsmouth anyway, so I'm not bothered.  I do enjoy
sitting in a field, especially as we are always praised for the
quality of our coffee and get to meet new people.  It's also much
easier, since I don't get the china out, and don't do any hot food, so
no washing up or prep.

I've considered adding one killer food item, but can't decide on what.
 People have mentioned Salt beef on rye more than once, so I'm
looking at that.  Trouble is, I would want to do it as well as I do
the coffee, so I need to get it right.  That means getting the rye
bread from Golders Green or elsewhere in London, and also finding a
good recipe I can give to a butcher for the salting process.  Work in
progress.

Work routine in the market has settled down to the usual stream of
regulars, with a slight change during the last month since there were
many outsiders in town for the Festival of the Sea and Trafalgar
celebrations.

I'm impressed with the maintenance-free aspect of the lever machines.
 A daily scrub of the PF's and showerhead rinse sorts that.  We clean
the wands regularly through the day (after each use), so thats OK, but
they are cheap wands and fittings we are getting these days, so steam
knobs and wands haven't lasted more that six months or so.

Apart from the major descaling job a few weeks ago, after a small leak
turned into a major stripdown.  Luckily a large hammer and some rope
got the elements out and a large soft hammer got all the scale out.
Time to investigate new anti-scale solutions....

Since then the water debit on the left group reduced to almost a trickle. I'd never taken a complete group off so I was a little nervous. A quick call to the parts place and the next morning a jiffy bag of gaskets, gicleurs and o-rings arrived, along with more showerscreens etc to make the postage worthwhile...I now have a nice collection of spares.

I had bravely removed the group the night before in anticipation and just found some minor scale. Sat in the garden with a container of formic acid, sloshing the feed pipe to the group and all was clean. Reassembled and normal service was resumed ready for work the next day. I noticed that I could peer in the boiler with the group removed and that there is already a thin layer of scale on the boiler wall, despite my fitting a new scale cartridge two weeks ago...

I also noticed that the hole into the boiler from the group is large, with a small take up pipe that dips into the water. This would seem to allow steam to penetrate the rear of the group, where there are two small holes. This may be active group heating or something...


As I mentioned in another post, I weighed the group on it's own - 7kg. That explains why I'm happy with the temperature stability where many other people don't understand how a 16 litre single boiler machine at 1.2 bar doesn't overcook the brew water.

Annoushka, my saturday girl, has left, enticed by variable hours at McDs - she wanted to work some evenings etc, something I can't offer. Enter Connie. Connie is a very nice girl - switched on and interesting from the customer perspective - she's a bit "Goth" - OK, quite a bit Goth, with piercings etc and a strange choice in dress. We had spoken earlier when she was going up and down the road trying to get a job in a shop, but didn't understand why her appearance was costing her even the application form. I explained that some people wouldn't want her in a customer facing role, and to prove the point I asked one of the regulars - a local shop manager - if he would give her an intervies - he declined, due to her dress and piercings. I said Connie could work with me, since I would be more concerned with her customer service attitude than her presentation, as long as the latter was clean.

Connie has done well and I will start teaching her to pull shots this week. I couldn't start before since the uneven water debits for each group meant some artistic shot pulling. Now things are back to being constant on each group I can teach her.

I have kept a high percentage of my original customers whilst adding many new, so things are fine. An old regular came back last week and said that she had been on holiday but was missing my coffee - she freely admits she is hooked on my cappas and can't drink anyone elses.

I have recently managed to get some Trucillo branded items, after trying for 2 years. In the end, my italian supplier of the coffee sent his brother in to see Trucillo directly. They apologised that they hadn't responded earlier and he returned from Salerno laden with china ashtrays, napkin dispensers (complete with 2k napkins) Coffee clock, trays and a nice Italian espresso Bar menu. I can't sell some of the items on the menu (beer and spirits) so I'll have to wait and see if I can use the menu. It would be neat, since it's all in italian...

Talking of which - some people can't even understand my english menu. I sometimes get people looking at the menu and then coming up and saying "I only wanted a normal coffee". This would be an Americano, but I've now added a menu item -

I only wanted a normal coffee.......    £1.00

Yesterday (I'll have to work on reverse chronological order since previous events haven't been remembered yet) a regular couple were sat at the table with their friend, who is a bit of a heathen. I've never liked him, and he came up for an americano with steamed milk. He reached in front of another waiting customer, in a pushy way, and removed half the contents of the sugar stick bowl- easily 20/30 sticks. I offered to put sugar in for him (we have it on the counter as well) but he said he wanted the sticks. I slightly lost it (we were a bit busy) - and said "why do you need all that sugar, neither Kevin or Elaine are having coffee and neither of them take sugar anyway?" He said that he just wanted it. I told him to rip McDonals or some other large corporation off if he wanted a private stock of sugar sticks at home - my prices are good value and can't include people taking far more sugar than they would need in their coffee.

The next lady smiled after he had gone and asked for a coffee, whilst promising that she didn't need any sugar...

I bought two more tables, since I already had spare chairs at home, and had worked out that when busy each table earnt around £50. The internet is a wonderful place as I was explaining to the pet food stall holder (Stuart, a near retirement chap who prides himself in never spending more money than he can and saving money, probably by nicking sugar sticks when out...) that although he didn't believe in this new fangled technology it must be usefully nice to browse the net for a few minutes, find the difficult-to-find flip-top tables, in stock somewhere in the north of england and have them delivered the next day by courier. Not impressed that one was missing a vital comonent but luckily the vital component (threaded bar) was in stock at the local hardware store.

Got new tables out on Saturday where they would have proved their worth had it not poured with rain from 2pm onwards.

Had plenty of European visitors - quite a few Italian ladies have made us their home whilst they visit, as have the Portugese.

I continue to struggle with trying to meet the needs of the predominantly not well off local population whilst being told by other visitors that I'm far too cheap. I haven't raised coffee prices at all since I started, other than 10p on americano and tea. Costs have gone up - cups and other disposables by +5% or more. My best friend used to run a restauarant and he was continually worried about losing trade if he put his prices up and I was always telling him that if calves liver in orange sauce went from £8.15 to £8.95 no-one would mind. Easy when it's someone elses' business. I don't think that £1.40/1.70 for a small/large cappuccino would be unreasonable but the likes of Greggs and Subway nearby virtually give coffee away (85p for anything). Ho-Hum...

Later..

I had Connie working today. I had shown her how to pull shots and tried to stress the importance of grind etc, but due to being busy I hadn't taught her anywhere near enough. Anyway, at 4pm I told her that whilst I went to fetch the car (5 mins away) she should serve customers and if she felt brave she could make an americano if ordered but not to steam milk. I came back to find an Italian sat at a table with an espresso and Connie dancing round the trailer. "I made an espresso and He liked it!" she exclaimed with a wide grin on her face. I was dubious and was desperate to get a look at the cup. I didn't have to wait long as the gentleman came back to the counter - "that was so good I'd like another one" he said. I couldn't argue with Connie as she prepared the 2nd espresso. It gushed. In her excitement she'd forgotten nearly everything. She'd hardly tamped and I asked her if this was like the last shot. She said no, the last one had been slower. I asked her what she thought might be wrong and she knew it was the tamp. I suggested she try again with a harder tamp, and the next shot was serveable....

A valuable lesson that everyone gets to learn in the trailer. They always spend ages learning, then they get quite good, then they get complacent and I have to remind them that espresso is almost a living drink - each one is different, each one requiring the same attention to detail as the last. It was the same with Carly last saturday. She has been pulling shots for over two years on and off, but when she came in to give Charlotte a saturday off it was like she'd forgotten everything. The milk was horrible dry foam, coffee everywhere round the grinder, shots too fast, so I had to spend a little time re-acquanting her with the job, whilst not deflating the skill level she thought she had - I just said that she'd got a little rusty with lack of practice.

Towing the trailer is still a sod with the Jeep Cherokee - boy, do I miss the Landrover. The jeep is unstable - trailer snaking everywhere, so I'm not up for doing events more than a few miles away. I've fitted a stabiliser which has helped a little, but the Jeep is going. I see an Isuzu Trooper (Bighorn) in my future. 2 ton and a 3.1TD intercooled engine. Either that or a Toyota Hilx Surf, but they don't seem as agricultural, and I like agricultural. Wouldn't mind a VX Amazon but they are like rocking horse doo-doos round here...

Well, that's about all for now. We've had some lovely sunny mornings lately. It's so nice in the early morning, between 6-8am when the local traders tend to gather for a morning chat and coffee before the days' work. That's what it's all about for me - the social aspect of it being a meeting place as well as a provider of decent coffee. I witnessed that in a cafe in Lisbon I frequented one year when on a job there and wanted to emulate it here. Almost done it.





--
Regards,
Danny

http://www.gaggia-espresso.com (a purely hobby site)
http://www.dannyscoffee.com (UK advert for my mobile espresso service)
http://www.malabargold.co.uk (UK/European online ordering for Malabar
Gold blend)
swap Z for above characters in email address to reply

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