We get asked sometimes what a typical day at an event is like for Cafe Allez!. Events can be incredibly varied, which is what makes event catering simultaneously: 1. rarely dull and 2. often challenging.
To give you an insight, here’s Mark’s day on Tuesday 16th November, working with Van Henri and our friends at the Marriott hotels group. This is Day 2 of our booking with the Marriott as part of their Global Customer Appreciation Week.
6am:
Up and showered at the Marriott hotel in Preston. We’re taking a barista coffee and snack service to some of their key clients in the area today, just to say ‘thank you’.
7am:
Breakfast over, I’m with Van Henri: filling 25 litre water containers from the kitchen a little walk away; checking stock levels, cleaning his bodywork after the previous day on the road and packing my bags.
Chris (Marriott sales manager) and I agree to get to the client good and early to set up as the coffee machine takes a while to heat up and unloading Henri from the trailer takes time. I head to the nearby ASDA and stock up on milk. For once, our punctuality fails to pay off: the client gestures to the ‘regular’ coffee van in the car park, (a franchised operation) and suggests we keep a low profile and return when he’s gone!.
This site is tricky to manoeuvre the trailer in, but that achieved, we unload Henri. As we’re some distance from the office, I power up the machines from our portable generator and propane gas cylinders. The cylinders are hefty (40kg or so each) so it’s my second work-out of the day after those water containers.
10am:
Once we start serving, the floodgates open! Chris is serving soup made by the hotel’s chef and I’m on coffees. The word has got out across the site that free coffees are available. I come to dread the sight of a carry tray, signalling that somebody has come with a drinks order from their team. A memorable order: 8 hot chocolates, 4 various coffees and a mocha. The queue is now stretching down the car park and even working at full pace, it’s slow to dissipate. The key here is to keep calm, working fast but methodically. The pressure is there alright but equally, these are free drinks and people are equally free to leave the queue! I think many are glad to break free of their desks.
At one point, I call down the queue to see if anybody is waiting for a tea (which I can make in seconds). Cue total silence, then laughter from the guests: coffees it is then.
Chris has to run to ASDA for more milk as we’re tearing through our stocks.
Finally, our work is done and we both breathe a sigh of relief. One of the clients’ management team returns to tell us how hard he thinks we’ve worked and the ‘buzz’ we’ve generated across his team. It definitely helps!.
Time for lunch: Chris and I bolt down a cup of soup in 30 seconds flat. I then realise that the 3 hours free parking in ASDA (where the trailer was left) is about to expire: we dash across the road to retrieve it.
1pm:
There’s no time to waste as we have another client, this time an NHS trust, in Preston to visit. On packing up to leave, the old ‘more haste: less speed’ mantra proves true: Chris flags me down in Henri as I run over the power cable trailing from his side. If this was an abortive attempt to turn Henri into an electric vehicle, it was an abject failure as his range is 20 metres.
We start to set up at the NHS trust, again a tight spot for the trailer. Guests start to gather, but disaster: the coffee machine refuses to fire up. This possibility can literally give me sleepless nights, but I soon find that the plug has vibrated partially out of the socket: a fix within even my scope.
This is another busy service albeit not as frantic as before. There’s less time pressure with no hard cut-off time.
Again, we get great feedback from many customers. It’s so good to know we can brighten peoples’ days with a smile, a fantastic drink and some soup. It’s also a great opportunity for Chris to network with his customers when they can relax, with him and each other.
4pm:
Time to pack up. I load Henri again on his trailer, pack everything away and head back to the Preston Marriott (across the road). Now I need to clean him down.
First, I grab a bite to eat in the hotel and scan through the emails and messages from the day.
By this time it’s dark and with no power to connect to, I’m cleaning by the light of my iPhone’s torch. I’m inclined to moan that I’ve done this so often, I could clean Henri blindfolded: this is a step towards proving me right.
7pm:
Onto our next assignment, this time at the York Marriott. 96 miles to go and it’s raining. Not for the first time, I mentally thank Araminta the Sprinter: Mercedes definitely know how to build vans and despite her advancing years and almost 200k miles on the clock, hauling almost 3 tons across the Pennines is taken in her stride. We pass a sign announcing the highest point of any motorway in the UK.
9:15pm:
I pull into the hotel’s coach park and check in. I’m just in time for dinner. I call Claire to see how the day’s gone at C.Allez! Belvoir Castle and for her.
10pm:
Time to work through the day’s emails and invoices. I try in vain to summon the energy to post on social media, (the experts suggest we do this at least once a day), but admit defeat as the clock’s showing…
11:30pm:
The day’s done! This is day 2 of 4 (similarly packed) days. Exhausting? Definitely. Challenging? Sometimes. Worthwhile? I wouldn’t be doing it otherwise.
