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Isn’t it interesting how no one is the slightest bit interested until there is some juicy gossip to be had!!
I have been inundated over the past week and a bit with text and phone messages asking whether it was true we have closed down.
Suffice to say no we haven’t.
I did take the decision to close the restaurant for one week whilst we did a little refurbishment and also to buy myself a little time to find a replacement chef.
That has now happened and all is back to normal, with the exception of a gaping hole in the rotunda wall between the shop and restaurant. This means from the front door you can now see all the way to the back of the premises. No longer will we accept the ‘I didn’t know you had a restaurant’ excuse!
It also means that there should be more atmosphere in the restaurant with the natural light from the rotunda stained glass as well as some noise from the shop when we do tastings. Hopefully this will address the sometime lack of atmosphere the main restaurant had in the past.
Our cause I guess wasn’t helped by the photo in the
Wiltshire Times of a shuttered shop window. As always a photo speaks
a thousand words even when if they had waited ten minutes the shutters
would have been up. But then would it have made the news? I guess not.
Interestingly though the article focused on the lack of available chefs
with various restaurants complaining of the same problems. A lack of
good quality staff.
The conclusions? The problem is Bath and Bristol and the fact that young up and coming chefs don’t want to work in a backwater such as West Wiltshire.
The explosion when I saw the article was allegedly seen in Wiltshire (I was in Yorkshire at the time!)
If this is the response of ‘restaurant insiders’ then I really do fear for the industry. Whilst it may be a part of the problem it certainly isn't the main issue and it paints a very simplistic picture.
Anyone with half a brain, and perhaps I am being too generous here, can see that whilst Trowbridge has had its problems in the past it has a much brighter future the £150 million investment planned in the town centre over the coming 5 years.
The real issues as far as I am concerned with chefs?
Firstly it is seen as an unsocial job, with employers often requiring their staff to work every Friday and Saturday night for 47 weeks out of 52. Most young people would rather be out with their friends rather than working till midnight.
Secondly it is not seen as a ‘Profession’. What I mean by this is it is not seen for the skill that it undoubtedly takes. Traditionally a Head Chef would often have had many years of experience behind him before achieving the summit of his profession. This isn’t the case anymore. The explosion of restaurants and the punishing schedules mean that many leave the industry early so there is no alternative but to promote younger staff.
Whilst this means innovation is very high, sometimes the experience that goes with it is lacking.
Thirdly the explosion of restaurants in the last ten years has meant that there is a genuine shortage of talent to go around irrespective of where you are based. Additionally too many chains settle for poorly qualified staff in their kitchens devaluing the profession for the rest of us.
Pricing is also a key issue. As long as customers expect a two course Sunday Roast for £7.50 wages will always be under pressure.
Finally? Health and Safety. How can we inspire a new generation of young chefs and apprentices with the raft of legislation now required. We ourselves are unable to employ anyone under 18 in our kitchen for this reason.
There are more but I’m out of space. The solution? Restaurant owners, me included, have to inspire a new generation by any means possible otherwise the industry is just seeing the beginning of a major crises.
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