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Bob's Blog: Early April 2009
Is Pryors Bank working??To answer this question I am going to start with the following and then let you decide...
There is good news and then there is more good news...our first apprentice has now secured a full-time position and a new home close to his family in the North of England; we are also very proud to say that he gained five qualification certificates during his training, and is the first to do so.
We're now about to see our second apprentice take up a full-time training role at the café under the stewardship of our new head chef; this young man served in Afghanistan and became disabled but was a credit to his regiment and passed his NVQ 2 course with flying colours.
Steve Coulman, a former Junior Leader who then went on to serve with the Royal Artillery, is our new assistant manager. He has settled in at the café and has made a significant impact in the front-of-house already. Steve went through a tough time after completing his military service, and is living testament to how successful the Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation's programmes of support are in helping ex-Servicemen and women get their lives back on track. Steve is also soon to become a dad for the first time.
The café is also now under the daily management of Alasdair Moore, who joins us with bags of enthusiasm and a desire to make Pryors Bank the jewel in the crown of Bishop's Park.
Our Beef burgers and 'Not Just Any Beef burgers' have proved to be a great favourite with the Fulham football supporters; over the last two games and the Boat Race we sold over 1,000 of them and, with no junk in them at all, they are now on the menu at the café along with our "no junk" chicken burger.
Through the support of All Saints Church we are now able to open on the Terrace on Sunday Mornings. Another of our highly valued supporters, Caffé Torelli, have kindly loaned us a two group coffee and espresso machines, meaning we can now serve your favourite coffee to you on the terrace while Sunday School continues inside the café undisturbed.
All our coffee is now Café Torelli Organic and Fair Trade
We tried this out last Sunday with great success and we were able to provide a full English breakfast to go with the coffee. It was always a dream of mine to see breakfast cooked live on the terrace and that dream is about to become a reality thanks to the very kind loan of a barbecue from the Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation. We will shortly be announcing this continuous breakfast service on Sundays on the terrace right through the summer and warmer autumn days ahead. One point I do have to stress is that for Health and Safety reasons and to comply with our obligations to All Saints Church, no entry to the café by any member of the public is allowed until 12:30 on a Sunday. This is in line with the Child Protection policy of All Saints Church.
We have been blessed with some fine weather of late and more and more of you have come to visit for which we are grateful. We have also received many nice compliments to our staff on the food and service so thank you for that.
The flexibility of Pryors Bank Café become very evident last Saturday, when we had normal service up until 2pm when we then hosted a private birthday party. At the same time we served in excess of 450 football supporters with our Beef Kitchen menu outside the café!
So, if you want to book for a function, you can see we are able to cope on a busy day. I have copied and pasted the following from our own website: "We held our son's birthday party at Pryors Bank and were delighted at the services and facilities that Alasdair and his team offered. The food was great, we had all the space we needed, and generally nothing was too much trouble. I would certainly recommend Pryors Bank as a venue for similar private functions." Harry Wynne-Williams, April 2009.
Now, back to my question! My answer is YES, but we still have more to do. We are interviewing three more apprentices for this coming training cycle due to commence later this month.
Picture a warm sunny Sunday morning, your favourite newspaper, steaming hot coffee or tea, a fresh English chilled orange juice, young ones playing on the lawn and the Church bells providing the soundtrack...
See you down there,
Bob