It’s been a fantastic week in Yummy, I always say that, but this week really has, especially as we have new Bantam chickens!

Not many people get to write a blog they should have written last week (or maybe a month ago!) in a pub garden at 6am in the morning with a cup of tea, a goat nibbling at your shirt, a pig or two on the ‘great escape’ because I probably should have waited until my foraging chef arrived to let them into their ‘secret garden’ & the occasional chicken coming along to have a look at what you’re doing, realise you don’t have food & bugger off looking for worms.

The best thing in Yummy right now, my team are going from strength to strength. It’s all been about people this week, as it is every week, but this week we discussed my teams, the roles they all play, future planning & the potential future stars we are nurturing. We have some amazing talent in our business & it’s brilliant to see them motivated & driven to make Yummy great.

But, there is an element of sadness in my mood today.

Most of my team know what drives me, the majority of my friends, but I don’t often talk about it. Yesterday’s events however made me think about my Dad an awful lot. As a proud daddy myself I tell my team on a daily basis (as nearly every single one of them just makes me feel old now) that it ain’t until you have them that you truly understand what “I would do anything for my kids” really means. It happened for me the minute I cast eyes on my little boy, covered in horrible gunky stuff, a blue/pink tinge to his skin, screaming his lungs out, being jumped on by a host of midwives & doctors. He looked pretty pissed off about the whole situation, but then he calmed down – as soon as he was given to his mummy.

So, why yesterday?

Well, because we were invited to the Tenanted Pub Company Summit in London. The big issue at the moment, self regulation or let the planks from Whitehall get involved. I’ve never sat on the fence, most people know that. We’re big enough & ugly enough to sort ourselves out, christ the majority of MP’s can’t even do their bloody expenses right & they think they can come & fix one of the most complex industries in the World with a magic fairy wand? Well no chaps, afraid not. It was the first time I have seen Dr Vince Cable talk in public, he was crap. It was the first time I have heard Ted Tuppen talk in public, he was fantastic. I have a huge amount of respect for a host of people in my industry, the great guns from the Grand Met & Allied days, the new boys & girls making waves & Mr Tuppen is most definitely one of them. Vince, I think its time to step down & let new blood in, you’re clearly just going through the motions, be there as a council, the experience, the old head, but we need doers now, I get the distinct impression you ain’t that fused anymore.

Neil Morgan, one of Christie & Co’s big guns set about describing how the current economic downturn is a mirror image of the last one in the late 80′s & 90′s. It was frightening how similar the net effect was & is. This led me to start thinking of Dad. He lost everything & so did we, of course it wasn’t his fault, it was the recession, wasn’t it?

The entire day was geared to how the various pub co’s were supporting their tennants & lessees. Given that it’s what I worked on for the last 5 years at my time with Carlsberg, conceiving, creating & implementing We Deliver More it was interesting to see just what a game changer we were. Recognition won’t come the way it should, externally at least, but in nearly every presentation I saw the net results of what we, under the fab leadership at the time of Dave Scott had created. Basically, everyone copied it. The only issue, it’s taken them a while & I don’t actually think it’s going to be used by the masses. It’s there which is great, but to get the buggers to use it is a totally different thing.

But, at every step of the way an annoying interruption, like a fly that keeps buzzing around your head, distracting & annoying kept popping up. I was asked to sit on a panel & tell the room what I thought of my relationships with my landlords. It’s pretty simple, we have a fantastic relationship with one, frustrating as hell with another & none existent with the last. We’re very self sufficient, we actually don’t need anyone’s help, what we need is for them to not get in the way of our progress & if they have great people that can help us as Charles Wells do, we’ll take every single bit of it.

I make no comparisons to us & Richard Branson, he’s a figurehead I admire immensely, he’s an entrepreneur. Us, we’re just pretty good at what we do (everyone calls us entrepreneurs, but we’re not) & have the balls to risk everything for a vision we have. But, in his journey Mr B’s come across many a barrier. Whether it’s BA who actually ended up leasing him his first plane for peanuts or more recently brown envelopes in whitehall with his train services I guess that’s just the net effect of doing business. This is the issue for me – barriers & speed. We’re moving pretty fast, we have to, our industry is all about game changers & we want to be one of them. But, each time someone slows us down it’s as frustrating as hell. We don’t need slowing down, we don’t need someone else’s opinion, we would have done the research, the P&L, the risk V’s reward before we asked the question. Not that I’m looking for a simple yes, that wouldn’t be right either, but speed, that’s what we need. That’s where the frustrating relationships come into play.

However, it was pretty clear that a huge amount of time in the big pub co’s is spent on the crap, the people that shouldn’t be in business, that’s when I started thinking about my Dad. Is it the fault of the pub co’s to allow these people in? There’s a shop just opened in Market Harborough. It won’t be there in 6 months, I’ll state my entire business on it. Should the landlord be allowed to sell the lease to them? Is it their responsibility or should some people just never be given the opportunity to own a business?

My Dad lost his business, his home, his family, because he was a great auctioneer, but crap at business. It broke him.

I sat on the stage next to a chap who blamed the pub co’s. I don’t know his business, he clearly has come up against a huge number of barriers. He has 8 pubs, say that to anyone & they say ‘WOW’ 8 pubs, I did. But, I hate negativity, it doesn’t do anyone any good. Either get on, or get out. I don’t care about how many years people have been in business, Dad was in business for 10 years, but he was crap at business, the recession helped define that.

So, who to blame? I blamed my Dad. He turned from my hero to a guy I despised. 14 years he had put in, I don’t doubt for one minute that he had the same emotions as me the moment he saw me, but somewhere between that moment & living in a 4 birth caravan, downsized from a 5 bed farm with 26 acres of land, whilst having to do my GCSE’s it was lost. Add another 10 years of self pity, alcohol, wallowing & he was unrecognisable to me, just some bloke, one I had to keep paying bills for, looking after, bailing out of trouble, a pain in the arse.

It’s only now as I break my back building my little boy his own veg patch & this weekend gone it’s salad plot extension so that I can teach him about food, growing, nurturing, that I realise just what my Dad did for me. I had an amazing childhood, just a really crap teenage existence. But, it shaped me, it made me appreciate everything I am working for, it drives me, if someone wants to take it from me, god help them.

So, if you’re up there looking down, know you’re appreciated, maybe a little late, but I have learnt to respect you again. To you old man, at least you had the balls to try & do it, you just couldn’t bounce.

To all those blaming someone else for your failing businesses, maybe you should spend the day looking at yourself in the mirror & ask the question, who really is to blame, could you have innovated earlier, could you have fought harder, could the fault of failure actually lie with a less easy answer to swallow?

I’m sure the debate will continue, for us, it’s business as usual, if we loose it, it’s our fault, but we’ll bounce……you can be assured of that.

We’ve been a little quiet, sorry about that.

So, what’s been happening in the World of Yummy since we last posted? Simple answer, lots. But that would make for a very boring blog so here’s the run down.

Anthony & I cut up a bar, with the help of Jason buying us a circular saw.

Oh & the central island bar…

Jason, Aron, James, Anthony, Vikki, Vikki’s brother Timmy, Matt & I built a bar in one night.

Finn had his first board meeting as the Non Exec director of new developments & future openings & decided that we should play with dinosaurs & trains for inspiration, Uncle Anthony liked this suggestion & it was the longest board meeting we have ever had & the most fun!

Jason had a holiday & actually came back, ( just in time as everyone in the kitchens began to get just a little too ‘Yummy’)

We put some goats in a boat.

…and we had the most successful February in Yummy history, despite the snow.

Matt is now working, actually working. Ed & Lucy are having A Board Wars. We had some lovely things written about us in the trade mags & national newspapers, free cuddle Monday’s are storming away & the morons at National Rail decided to close the crossing on the railway line at The Grove on the single busiest day of the year – Mothers Day! Work for them? Feel ashamed, feel very ashamed.

So, what is the inspiration behind cutting up a bar? It was quite simple, Anthony & I started to ‘debate’ what we could or couldn’t do. Some 9 hours later the rest of our team saw the light, we’ll sort of.

We now have a stunning actual ‘Pantry Pub’ as the pantry counter is within the bar as much as the ales & lagers are. It was a bold move, at 3am it look almost insane, but by 9am we could see it all coming together, nicely. For the first time in 4 years I have actually fallen in love with the Grove. Its a strange thing to fall in love with a pub, but we do. The Grove has always been liked, but love is a big word & it always felt like something was missing. Now, not only does it feel like home, it feels special, there is magic happening & that is what we love.

So, onwards & upwards. Great creativity is coming out daily now & it’s not us driving it, it’s the team, we just need to work on photography skills now, i.e. how to take a picture in focus, carrot cake anyone?

That’s about it really. Been a fab couple of weeks, more fun to come, more Yumminess ahead, probably more bars to cut up & fix again.

I promise it won’t be as long until the next post & it will be very informative. Honest.

It’s 00.36 & another brilliant two day tour around our pubs has come to an end. This week has been more eventful than most, but every week it just feels amazing to be Yummy. Everyone asks “is it really worth it?” “Don’t you just want to take the pay check each month?” We’ll we’ve done that & it’s boring, sure we have stress – right now we are being taken to court by a number of people who look to threaten our entire business with their self centred, greedy motives, but we’ll come out the other side, stronger, even more hungry & a little bit slimmer!

This week though goes to The Somers Town Coffee House team & Ssshh. A new awards to Yummy, Budweiser Budvar Gastro Pubs is unchartered territory, but to walk away with “Innovation of the Year 2013″ has injected us with new hunger, enthusiasm & made our non exec very happy that the strategy meetings with Thomas the tank engine have gone so well. Seriously, we’re so chuffed, the team have worked so hard to forge a niche for the pub, coming away from it tonight on a miserable Tuesday is just enlightening – every seat taken, Ssshh full & turned twice, two boys in the kitchen working till they dropped, picked themselves back up again, had a laugh & cracked on, that’s what Yummy is, determination, passion & pride.

Heston & Hugh tried to help James with the smoking until they realised it was cheese in the smoke house, not ‘real food!’ Its lovely waking up in our pub, heading out with a fresh cup of coffee & seeing the site come to life. The Grove is no longer a pub to us, it’s become a real way of life. As we listened to the roll call of the Top 50 yesterday, the best of the best were innovating beyond the norm, pushing pubs to new levels, but more interestingly our term of ‘values not value’ is shining through at the ‘Top end’. Knowing the source of your produce is great, a little old hat now, but seeing it grow, being part of the fabric of the building & ‘belonging’ to the pub is surely the future? Animals seam to bring that out in people…watching 3 of my senior chefs scratching behind the ears of a British white called Pickle whilst talking about how fantastic she would look on a plate (knowing that they could never do it, not to pickle) brought a sense of irony but also immense pride in what we have chosen to do with the Grove, the pub has a soul again, after years of searching for it’s reason of being, its found it again, watch out Top 50, something special is happening in deep, dark Kent.

Our non exec of new openings & future developments (Finn 2.11 years old) has been telling anyone that will listen “Daddies gone to work, he’s gone to the pub” for the past 3 weeks & counting. The comedy side of it has worn a little thin of late as the parents at School (Nursery) have obviously been duly informed by their children & it seams I’m regarded as a bit of an old soak!

But the reality is, one year on from being full time Yummy it’s the best decision daddy could have ever made! Today, Anthony & I have visited four pubs, our four pubs & some of the best you can find in this ‘ere land, even if I’m a little bias. It took some effort, we began the day watching the sun come up at 6.00am with a lovely hot cuppa & the company of Heston & Hugh at the Grove Pantry Pub & Inn having arrived at 1.00am to terrify young James who thought we were looting the joint!

Aron, Vikki & James are doing an amazing job transforming our stunning Georgian Inn, into the Pantry Pub. We have finally found a heart that beats in this building & it felt fantastic to see it really taking shape. Our passion has always been to support local economies, communities & cook food that is honest & from the land we live in, we’ve now done it, trading pigeons for potatoes, foraging mushrooms & seeing them take centre stage…beautiful. There is still a heap of work to do, but it now doesn’t feel like ‘work’ it truly feels like a passion, pub love!

…10 cups of coffee, a very productive meeting & onto the Wiremill. It involved a quick pit stop at the garage to swallow a bottle of water & not vomit – I had the pleasure of writing up the notes in the car as Anthony’s PA & travel sickness kicked in hard!…or maybe it was the coffee & no breakfast?! The Mill will always hold a piece of our hearts, no matter what happens in the future,  it was our first, is breathtaking on every visit & a total monster, it just consumes us. Winter is here & coming, the lake tells us the story every year, today frozen, tomorrow snow!

Young Ally is doing a smashing job with our baby, his enthusiasm & will power is great to be around, it was like a quick plug in for extra energy & off to the beautiful Gorringe Park, but not before picking up even more on the ever growing ‘To Do List’, this time no notes in the car…onto the phone instead!

We’re so proud of our new addition to the family, there is still some work to go, some snagging & fixes required, but the A-Team are doing a great job, need a little R&R, not get stressed about the smaller things, let us deal with that, but show off what we have done – breathing new life into a pub that was on it’s last knees. Not to everyone’s tastes, but we think it sets a new benchmark for Yummy & the future of the London pub in our eyes. Some internal betting completed & some Yummy challenges laid down we headed back to the car…

As we lumbered into the car at 7.30pm the call was made, unanimous decision…onto The Somers Town. Our future star & future Yummy Sales Development Manager, Mr Matthew Ward has transformed the site in the past year & well deserves to move onwards & upwards in our company. We have yet to decide what his job role actually is, but one things for sure, at the age of 22, he’s going places!

To sugar coat our entry we were gifted a very happy image of our team at the time serving a packed house via text, with one oversight by Mr Ward – we have 6 ales on every minute of everyday at The Somers Town, not 2! Not aware of our imminent arrival, within 5 minutes of coming in we had 6 back on sale! One image to make us smile, young Lucien (middle) was one of the first members of staff employed 5 years ago at the beginning of Yummy, he’s off to continue his career as a very talented designer in the new year, but I’m sure he’ll be back, they all come back!

To end the day a quick scoot over emails to see that The Somers Town has been shortlisted as Top 50 Gastro Pub of the Year, voted by industry bods, a fantastic shout, no matter where in the 50 we land & a huge thanks to everyone that voted!

Now a short train journey home & the adventure continues in the morning…but maybe with a lye in & some cuddles with our non exec before School, lovin’ being Yummy!

School was an interesting time for me, I always knew what I wanted to do and just didn’t see the point in working at the other subjects, in reality (in my head) I was never going to need or use them. Obviously when Finn comes home saying the same things I will beat him within an inch of his life (joke), but it turns out to be pretty true for me, could I have done better in my life, who knows, the future is looking pretty amazing so I don’t really care. However, Mr Giles, my very dedicated Science teacher will be thrilled to know that the kid who made a habit of collecting yellow slips (quite naughty) and a total dedication to collecting pink slips (very naughty, straight to Mr Robinsons’ office) is going to embark on writing a book!

I was never a real pain or disruption in class, just bored, apart in art and graphics, but outside of class with my various enterprises I found myself in deep water. Dad worked at Watson and Sons, an auctioneers in Heathfield that ran a market every Tuesday and Thursday. I used to cycle to school everyday, but on a Tuesday my bike was thrown in the back of Dads beaten up Volvo estate, my school bag loaded with cash and off I trotted with him at 7am. For Thursday’s market I would have placed a pre order after the Tuesday sales and pop up under the radar from Dad, but I know he knew I did it, just never said anything.

After ditching Dad in the auction rooms I would wonder down to see the various stall holders and before long had a very successful business as the ‘underground school tuck shop’. John, who ran the sweet stand looked at me as a total pain in the arse at first, but when I became his biggest customer we soon stuck up a great relationship! I would cram as many sweets as I could into the bag; mostly penny sweets in 20p bags (that I then sold on for 50p) or packs of polo’s or whizz bars. Chocolate always melted (I learnt this quickly in the early days) so I stayed away from them and stuck with the mini sweets and chewy bars. After a couple of months I also became the unofficial change bank for the traders. My problem was the other kids at school always paid in coins which were heavy, the traders problem was they always needed change, a deal was done.

After the first couple of pink slips were issued by Mr Giles for being in the corridors after the bell had rung I began to be a little more intelligent, I needed to divert attention away from me for my booming business. Every student had a locker, by the time I was ‘Officially Shut Down’ by the school I had nearly 30; it took them over 2 years, changes to school rules, 5 additional teachers on entrance gates and corridor duty, snitches (3 kids who really didn’t like me or afraid of my friends!) and an ‘official school tuck shop’ to actually catch me and shut my enterprise down. Of course only one locker was ever in my name, holding school books and gym kit and the other 29 or so hired at the cost of one bag of 20p sweets, retail at 50p per week payment to the owning class mates, loaded with over £100 worth of sweets at first, then stationary (amazingly), fizzy drinks cans, crisps, naughty mags for the boys (they were a great earner!) and lastly BB guns. This is were it became very serious and I knew I had pushed the boundaries too far, but there was a market and I could get the goods, guns and porn in school, not a good idea…even if they were fake (the guns).

At one point I was actually paying kids to create diversions so I could get on selling. Fights would happen at the other end of school to the main bus entrance and off the teachers would run. As the kids piled through the doors from the buses parting with their school dinner money, 3 kids on my pay roll and I would sell, sell, sell! Its funny now watching Jamie and the school dinner series and our ethos about great food, locally sourced, booming obesity, as an 11 year old kid, it was good times for me, I was having a ball.

It was Mr Giles though who made a lasting impression on my school life and eventually my business. One day out of his total frustration (he knew what I was doing, but just couldn’t catch me in the early days) he made me stand up in class, on top of my desk and belittled me in front of my entire class. “Mr Foster will amount to nothing he began….blah, blah, blah…he is a complete Idiot who most likely will see the majority of his life behind bars or sweeping floors….blah, blah, blah…” I was obviously amused and issued with the ‘record’ pink slip ever issued to a student and sent to see Mr Robinson, whom I have to say was a lovely chap. His son James was in my year and a formidable student, I’m sure he is now running a multi million pound business somewhere in the World. Mr Robinson however was generally impressed with my schemes and we often had conversations about how they were trying to catch me, but I slipped through the net each time, mostly down to complete luck as opposed to planning.

To further annoy Mr Giles those that follow this blog will know, my grammar is horrific, my punctuation is even worse and the way I write is as if I am talking (because I usually read out loud as I type), but I have fun, I can make people smile and I certainly am in a position to publish something entertaining and different in the market. As always I’m setting my expectations slightly lower than delivery and aiming for the cooking isle as opposed to biography (not old enough yet) or literature (would never get off the transcript) so watch this space people, I’m building my garden shed aka ‘the think tank’ and in 30 years or so look out for my creation.

However, whilst I embark on my book during my time off work, not that we generally get any, we are publicans of course(!) hence the 30 year time frame, exciting things are happening in Yummy. We have just recruited 3 new members of the team (pictured above) who are helping us to make Ssshh a fantastic experience. Anthony and I had a Gay Day on Monday, the highlight of which was being asked in a second hand emporium by an elderly gent if we were interior designers; we have quite obviously totally nailed the gay look for our trips (and probably beyond) which, although entertaining for us then and many months to come was not what we expected from the day, sorry all those who are interior designs, male and not gay, the label is there, even if you are 6’5 and built like a brick s*!t house at some point you have been asked the question and will always be doubted, deal with it. Our trips to Lewes have normally been so fab, collecting everything we need to ‘funk up’ the pubs and for this trip Ssshh rooms were the focus, but we found virtually nothing and anything we did find was horrifically overpriced, the interior design brigade have created a supply and demand for junk and the good stuff has been bundled in for good measure.

Unfazed we are off on a trip back to the lovely Margate. Ron will sort us out, I’m sure.

Aron and Adam are having some fun at The Grove (see below) and the spirit of Yummy is running through the business. We hope the sunshine is on the way for this weekend, the pubs are great in the rain, but amazing in the sun. Rebecca, Emma and the team at the Wiremill are back on top of their game following the burst of sunshine in March that almost killed their team and Matt, Lizzy and the guys at Somers Town are now enjoying the company of builders who began work on Ssshh this Monday. In 5 weeks time we will have another totally new, exciting addition to the Yummy offer and we are very excited!

Off to upload a new website for the Grove Ferry, until next time.

Tim

Today was the Somers Town Coffee House cook off. It’s been a fab learning curve introducing British Tapas to the pub and now its time to step up. Steve (on the right) joins our team as head chef with an impressive background and well equipped for the challenge of Ssshh Supper Club and The Coffee House. To prove his worth Jason and Steve went head to head on the holly grail in Yummy, the GIANT Yorkshire pud!

To be fair, we sprung it on the two of them, Jason was in a foreign kitchen, he’s used to using 60 eggs at a time not 4, the oven was on 207 not 180 degrees, he didn’t have his lucky whisk, he had spilt some salt a little earlier and hadn’t thrown any over his shoulder, thats why Steve won!

As they say, the proof is in the pudding, round one to Steve, but Jay will be back…

It has been great fun being able to work with two very talented guys today, our menus have come such a long way since pie Saturday (this needs some explanation, but I’m saving the story for my book) so for now I’ll just say it is one of the most fun weekends working in a pub I have ever had. However, today set new standards in our food offer and how creative the team can be.

The reason for making the Yorkies was to see what my Sunday roast platter board could look like, after a couple of hours cooking off the meat, the Yorkie competition and choosing the two veg required (we actually settled on three) all agreed it looked amazing and anyone would be impressed to have it appear over the Sunday newspapers in the pub.

For this week we are sticking to the standard plan, lush roasts served to order. Hopefully by next week we will have the boards (need to get sign off from the real boss of Yummy), decided on the right roasts to use and the Sunday customers can feast! We can have all sorts of fun; who can carve the best, last to the roasties and maybe some dominoes for good effect.

As well as all the fun with the roasts and the cook off we actually buckled down to some good honest cooking and created some fab Tapas dishes. I now have a hard drive full of lush photos and need to get on writing up the menu for the launch next week.

One of my favourite dishes of the day was the popcorn mussels; lightly battered mussels, deep fried and served in a recycled jam jar, lush. Add to that a cracking pint of Young’s Gold and what a night out you are beginning to have!

Another was Jason’s mini cornish pasties and dipping sauce, not only did they taste great, they looked fab on the eyes.

So, onto the Wiremill tomorrow, this week it looking like a filling one…

It’s been a busy week….

Our chicken rehab clinic is now built, the chicken coop arrived on Monday and was very kindly constructed by James, one of Adams new brigade in the kitchen. Being a proper Kent country bumpkin his career includes an Oyster farmer, Chicken herder (yes there is such a thing!), Music teacher and chef. He grows his own vegetables, lettuce and root veg so has taken over our new kitchen garden boxes with great enthusiasm, and the fact he was a Chicken herder means our new brood will be in very safe hands!

BII  Licensee of the year 2012 finalists 

On Tuesday Anthony and I entered the ‘Dragons Den’ or finalist interviews for the BII Licensee of the Year 2012. As one of the six shortlisted finalists we were presented with a very nice crystal decanter by Peter Thomas, Chief Executive of the BII and now await the final decision on 8th May.

It has been a tough process, the judges have looked under ever corner of our business and hopefully we have done enough to impress upon them that we are worthy winners of the title. The best bit for us is to see just how far we have come and what an amazing business we now own. Sure there are things to fix, but that’s just opportunities to develop even more!

Liam Pope joints the Yummy team at The Wiremill 

Liam (featured in the middle) joined our Yummy team on Wednesday. He is a student at LVS Hassocks, an amazing school just a few miles away from the Mill which has been founded to cater for students diagnosed with learning difficulties such as Asperger’s, autism and related conditions.

One day Liam ventured into the kitchens at the school and feel in love with food. On Wednesday he was making scotch eggs, learning how to cook off mince and helped Jason and Byron with lunchtime service at the pub. He joins us every Wednesday for the next 8 -12 weeks in which time we hope to give him a real flavour for commercial catering and the joys of ‘pub life’.

It’s been a real dream of mine to be able to have an impact on someones life, an impact that maybe they would not have had the chance to do so on their own, and for me sums up ‘Yummy’ who we are and where we are going. Its brilliant to have the specialist help and guidance of the teachers at the school who are doing a fantastic job with the booming population of students learning in a unique environment. It shows just what a pub can be involved in and how unique a business we are, our industry is about people, it’s as simple as that.

New menu launch by my fantastic new Yummy Bosses at The Grove Ferry

To say its been a struggle to find the right people for the Grove Ferry would be true. What makes it feel so much better is when you not only find one, but two amazing people to drive the pub forwards. Adam and Aron joined us in March and what they are doing at the Grove brings tears to one’s eyes! (in a really good way).

I was fortunate to attend the new menu cook off this week and it now looks just like the vision we had in 2009. The new Pizza oven is cooking the British homemade pizzas to perfection and deliver what a pizza should be like, amazing and tasty.

Aron has been in the kitchen for a number of years so is working really well with Adam, bouncing ideas off one another daily, but he belongs on the shop floor, he is a natural. They currently have a proposal to convert the Lower Stour Valley information centre (our outside toilets) into a cooking lab. We are mulling it over, but is the country really ready for HestonII?

So it’s been an eventful one, next week’s agenda is packed with new Somers Town cook off for the new British Tapas dishes with Steve, our fab new head chef, Ssshh supper club has the sign off to begin building and our non executive will be out teasing more goats with his carrots!

So, easter is closing in, we have had an amazing two weeks of trade with our biggest marketing tool (the sun) in the sky and life is looking Yummy.

Anthony and I are shortlisted for BII licensee of the year 2012, and we face the final s

tage of judging on 17th April in London. It’s HUGE for us to be down to the last 6 and a massive pat on the back for our team, they in the end make Yummy what it is, without them we have 3 very nice, empty pubs. To be honest I’ve not really thought too much ahead with it, each day has brought with it a new set of challenges in the past two weeks and I’ve realised how much we all rely on one another, Anthony is a huge building block in our company and he has been missed, but he’s back and there’s a chicken run to build!

The car is loaded; 50m of chicken wire, 6 x 7 foot fencing posts, nails, sledge hammer, spade, gloves, hammers and wire clippers. Who said being a licensee was no fun! We are slightly delayed in the construction, our hens were meant to be in situ last Saturday, but good things come to those who wait.

Our 8 hens are waiting in a very nice holding home until we are ready for them. There has been a host of names put forward and so far the shortlist is;

1. Princess, named after Julie Smith of Carlsberg (she wanted a bird named after her so it in)

2. Sharon, named after Miss Dickinson as she is a chirpy bird with lots of character

3. The Colonel, suggested by Jane from Filberts fine foods, which is slightly wrong, but it works for me

4. Dave, a suggestion by one of the Yummy team who worry’s me with the knowledge of chicken gender, but I’ll overlook it for now

5. Hutch, by a misguided young Mr Martin who still has fond memories of old bosses

6. Wendy, which I like, its a good honest chicken name

7.  Bubbles, a suggestion from our non exec

8. Fatty, which I think could be chickenist but it’s on the list for now

There are of course other names in the pot, but as judging day closes in I shall be compiling the daily list and a fresh batch of freshly laid eggs will be distributed to the winning contributors.

Our hens will be part of the staggering 5,600 birds freed by the amazing British Hen Welfare Trust in just one month, so if you fancy saving a hen from the horrific abuse, these are the guys to look up. As part of our ongoing hen welfare support we are creating a new pizza for the Grove and 25p will be donated to the cause, Adam and I will be making changes to the menu tomorrow.

Luke has done a fantastic job building the new kitchen garden raised beds at the Grove so planting can begin in ernest.

Fingers crossed the building goes well, hen update 3 in a week.

Tim

…I thought this was the best way to break the news (I’m a total coward!).

It’s been nine weeks now since I started working full time for my own fab business and going into my 10^th week I can honestly say I’m making an impact.

Today though, I may have gone too far, even for me!

On 31^st March I am saving 8 chickens.

Sharon from the fab Pub and Bar magazine was crying (with laughter) yesterday when I explained my intentions over a glass of coke and some wonderful artesian popcorn in Somers Town Coffee House. Today three more people have just laughed at me and I’m wondering what tomorrow will bring!

The good news for Anthony (he holds all the purse strings) is that the chickens are free, however, their very funky new home is not.

It’s always been a joke in Yummy pubs about chickens, or chick, chick, chick, chickens and my fascination with them. Firstly I tried to convince Jason, we could keep them on the flat roof at The Wiremill, which he loved, but the EHO wouldn’t have. Then, I toyed with the idea of getting them at home until Finn arrived and reminded me that I already had a lot of plates to juggle and chickens were not the best idea.

But…..now I have done it. I have saved 8 smashing chickens from living in horrific cages, poor surrounding and treated, well, like animals shouldn’t be!

So, in a few short weeks my chickens will be FREE RANGE at the Grove Ferry, able to bathe in the stunning sun shine that is coming, find worms till their bellies are full and (hopefully) give us fresh, fab eggs for the breakfasts, baking and full English pizzas!

If you have any great names let me know, we will be launching a competition on Sunday for the kids to give us names and in return they can come for breakfast at any of the pubs and try the eggs for themselves.

Tim, still employed, just, Foster.

Following a recent trip we were advised that the business would probably benefit from appointing a non-executive to give us advise and direction outside of what we know. We are delighted to announce that the first appointment is Finn Foster, Tim’s 2.2 year old son!

Everyone knows we don’t do the norm here at Yummy Pubs and Finn has already had a significant impact on the pubs. He is the reason we have a (b) Bumptastic food range that pregnant ladies can choose with confidence even though when the idea was delivered, he was yet to be.

Now though we can put him to work, giving us inspiration where required and a smaller, simple outlook on life. As such we are introducing a new little peoples menu to the pubs. Sausage will be an obvious feature, but nibbles will be the main change. The most daunting thing as a parent who cares about the environment they are in and the impact your little bundle has in that environment is how to create ‘distraction’ in a number of formats.

We are used to dealing with yummy people who need entertaining, Jason has a very short attention span and you really need to give him new things to play with to keep him interested. Unlike Jason though, Finn and the other ‘littles’ out there are very vocal when they are not being distracted, Jason just sulks.

Finn is currently working on suitable distraction ideas, they are in testing, then we will see if they work on Jason and if a success will roll out to the pubs.

Nibbles will be delivered to the table ahead of the starters or mains for the adults and hopefully begin to fill a small belly and keep interest in the meal. Changing facilities are rather poor at all sites, so this is being addressed this week.

We are looking forward to seeing the impact of having Finn ‘officially’ on the team and driving a new direction in Yummy.

Tim