Diary Of An ADI

About 10 years ago, sandwich shops started multiplying like… a lot of multiplying things! They were everywhere, taking over any empty retail outlet that came on the market.

Many of these places are real fly-by-night affairs. They’ll be there one day, and gone the next. The problem is similar to that which affects many would-be instructors, where imagined success doesn’t quite match up with the realities of running a business. In the case of the cob shops, it seems that any middle-aged woman who knows how to make a ham sandwich suddenly gets the idea she can make a living out of it. At one stage a few years ago, these places were opening up next door to each other.

Most of them take little interest in their outward appearance, and simply begin trading with the shop in the same state as it was when they took out the lease. At best, they might give the decrepit façade a coat of paint, and nail up a homemade sign, but that’s about it. Inside, they will usually have bought in some second-hand counters and chillers, and maybe a couple of plastic patio tables and chairs.

Location is simply a function of availability and price – a run-down, almost derelict shop, in a row of buildings earmarked for demolition sometime in the not-too-distant future, and with absolutely no parking anywhere near (unless you’re a van driver, in which case there are plenty of suitable yellow lines for that purpose). They have colloquial working-class names like “Barb’s Baps” or “Stuff Yer Face Cafe”, and are run by people who seem just a little crazy.

Occasionally, someone will spend a little more on the shop and give it a name like “Chilly’s Deli’”, with bright professional frontage, though it will still have limited parking and be situated in an area completely out of keeping with its bright and fresh appearance.

However they did it, they were all built around a small grill unit – sometimes just a domestic hob cooker – and served coffee made with granules in polystyrene cups. Skimmed milk, obviously. And tonnes of commercial-grade bacon and eggs, and commercial-grade sandwich fillings from the cash & carry. In other words, no different to what you could get from one of those roadside caravans.

When it comes to running a business, any food which doesn’t have a Michelin star to its name is not high margin. Shop rent – even if the building is falling down – is not cheap, especially if it’s close to the city centre. To succeed, you need to shift a lot of stuff, so you’d think that having a good business model would be important, closely followed by a well-run operation. You’re in competition with thousands of others and you need to build a good reputation. The instant you start providing poor service then you’re on the road to ruin.

When I choose to go into any of these places I expect two things as the bare minimum:

• decent food
• reasonably quickly

So, absolutely the last thing I want when I fancy a simple bacon and egg roll before one of my early morning lessons is to be ignored. And this is where you encounter the first problem. Being run by one – perhaps two – people means that the person who takes the order also cooks it. Things get a whole lot worse when you then realise they’re also in the middle of fulfilling some idiotic telephone order for 30 bacon butties, 22 teas, and 8 coffees for the building site down the road, and 12 custom baguettes for the local firm that’s got a Team Meeting and is providing “outside catering” for its staff. People coming in off the street are treated as an annoyance rather than an important source of revenue.

The owners of these shops forget very quickly why they went into the business in the first place. Selling bacon and egg rolls requires a completely different business model to outside catering. If you want to do both, you must have the staff to handle both. The subsequent telephone orders – which they encourage at the outset with “telephone orders welcome” signs – are way outside the bounds of the business model required to shift breakfast baps in a manner which ensures your continuing profitability.

The typical owner of the newly opened sandwich shop will just about wet themselves when that first telephone order for 50 bacon butties comes through. But they fail to appreciate that the building site it came from won’t be there in 3 months time, whereas I will be. Except… I won’t! Because if I go in just once and they can’t serve me quickly, I will never go in again. Ever. So that’s my money they’ll never see – and I’m sure others must similarly avoid these places if they get poor service.

The same applies to providing sandwiches for local firms. The hapless butty shop owner doesn’t twig that they’re being taken for a ride. The only reason the skinflint local firm is coming to them is that they’re cheap (I know: I’ve authorised outside catering for countless meetings in my time). The local firm is forcing the sandwich shop into bankruptcy in order to cut its own costs, and that’s because the sandwich shop owners haven’t got a clue!

But then there’s the quality of the food. To start with, it would seem that me, my parents, and that bloke who runs that great burger bar just outside Lechlade-on-Thames are the only people on the planet capable of cooking an egg properly!

Quite simply, the white should be solid and most of the yolk runny. Any runny white and it isn’t cooked.

None of this sunny side up crap you get at restaurants, either. If you’re frying it in a pan then the egg should be splashed gently during cooking with a little oil (or you can put a cover over it). If you’re using a hotplate with very little oil then the egg should be flipped part way through cooking (the Americans call it “over easy”). Whichever method, the heat needs to get at the egg during cooking from both sides.

An example: recently I visited a place I’d been impressed with before. It calls itself a “delicatessen”, and the interior is filled with exotic beers, wines, chutneys, cheeses, and so on, all on solid dark wooden shelves. I’ve never seen anyone buy anything other than sandwiches, although the serving counter for this is tiny compared with the space taken up by everything else. On this occasion there were four women all frantically buttering and filling baguettes and flinging the finished wrapped product into large carrying hampers (at least four stood stacked on the floor). I also noticed carefully crafted wicker baskets of finger sandwiches and fruit piled on top of the cheese in the deli cooling cabinet. It was obvious that this was outside catering orders they were working on.

Anyway, the owner took my order for a sausage, bacon, and egg baguette (I had a baguette last time) as if I was an unwelcome distraction, which I suppose I was from her perspective. She then persuaded me to have a roll instead of a baguette (I’m fairly certain that “it’ll be better on a roll” translates as “we need the baguettes for our telephone order”). The bacon and sausage came out of a glass fronted heating box, and both appeared bone-dry. I had to wait for the egg – and I could have cooked 10 properly in the time it took for this one. When it eventually arrived I carried the roll away in a bag, got in the car, and drove for 10 minutes to a place where I could stop and eat it.

Bear in mind the “cooked” egg had had a further 10 minutes to cook in its own heat. I would have expected the yolk to be almost completely solid by now.

I bit into it and was immediately covered in raw egg – not just the yolk, but gooey clear/white gunk as well. And the bacon and sausage were like cardboard. I will not be going back. Ever.

In my list of expectations I didn’t mention hygiene (or perceived hygiene). I suppose that on the one hand, a certain level of basic food hygiene has to be assumed, whereas that is traded off against the general appearance of the place you go into. After all, if it looks like they keep chickens and other livestock on the premises, you shouldn’t be too surprised if it turns out that they do! But I draw the line at smoking.

It will take a lot to get me into any place where I see the staff smoking – at any time – and where they are smoking matters even more. Just outside the back door is a no-no, for example.

Another example: One place on Woodborough Road where I’ve been ignored at before is run by two middle-aged women. Almost every time I go past they’re outside smoking. To make matters worse, one of them is usually leaning with both elbows on a council waste bin – the ones where the top is for stubbing out cigarettes – and her apron is dragging against the letterbox openings where the locals throw their half-eaten kebabs and dog poop! I doubt that when she goes back inside to cook she washes her arms up to her armpits or changes her apron. And yet on the walls they’ll be proudly displaying their Food Hygiene Certificates.

And another example: I was walking through Ruddington just the other day and the two middle-aged female proprietors were sitting at the table outside (these places are never big enough for more than one or two tables at best) chain-smoking. The door was wide open, so no prizes for guessing where the smoke was going. They were dressed in their food clothes and hats, and they were using a saucer – undoubtedly one they normally use to serve tea and coffee to those who ate inside – as an ashtray. Another place I’ll never go in. Ever.

The service and quality issues are exacerbated by the type of person who frequents certain of these places. The ones which attract people who drive lorries and vans are to be avoided, though this is obviously a very personal view. They’re usually smokers themselves, and regard standing in the doorway to stay out of the rain as being sufficiently “outside” to allow them to smoke, and the owners don’t give a damn about it. They’re also likely to be placing an order for several people, so you’re guaranteed a long wait.

The large chains aren’t much better, though. I’ve mentioned McDonalds before, but I’ll mention them again. If ever you go in and order something that isn’t ready and which has to be prepared – their breakfast wraps are a prime example – watch carefully to make sure you aren’t being shafted by poor service. They often ask me to take a seat and they’ll bring my order over when it’s ready – but I always decline. Here’s why.

The drive-thru is given absolute priority over those waiting inside [2023 Update: this is no longer true. Now, absolute priority is given to Uber Eats and Just Eat couriers inside]. It isn’t a stated or written rule – not that I’m aware of, anyway – but the manager or manageress will enforce it rigidly to avoid cars backing up outside. They will even send junior people waiting for your order away from the stacking shelf so they can snatch the next wraps or McMuffins that come down. Trust me, they do this, and you have to stand by and make sure they don’t get away with it. I’ve demanded my money back on more than one occasion when I’ve seen them do it, and I make it clear when I’m watching that I know what they’re up to.

I’ve seen cars drive into the car park while I’m waiting for my order, go through the drive-thru, and drive off with food… and I’m still waiting.

If you don’t make a fuss, a 3 minute wait can turn into a 10 minute one, and I find that unacceptable in a place which allegedly sells fast food. Basford McDonalds on the ring road is easily the worst for this. It’s bad enough they never have enough breakfast food prepared to start with, but they’re not going to screw me even further if I’ve decided I’m hungry enough to tolerate the initial wait!