Event notes
Aug. 3rd, 2009 09:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleLast night went pretty darned well. Only a few issues.
I schedule in three hours of slack time before departure and don't rely too much on John or Bill, the idea being that all these resources will be in reserve if there is a crisis. Otherwise, I kick back with a cocktail and mellow out before leaving. Although there was no crisis this time, these hours ended up being used anyway, even with John helping to pack the van. Despite a detailed timeline, it is difficult to explain what happened to those surplus hours. At t minus 3.5 hours I thought I was going to use maybe an extra hour, tops. Anyway, it ended with me racing out the door and arriving five minutes late.
Guess what turns out to bring in a lot of money per hour? Washing wine glasses. I've got two sharp looking crates with 24 beautiful Spieglau glasses in each, clients that hardly ever break anything, and a system for washing and polishing them that takes one minute per glass. (Which, by the way, is a very relaxing, meditative activity; it's all about soft and gentle and shiny.) I sure wish I'd bought more of these, they're gorgeous and cost only $6 a glass, but Spieglau was bought out by Riedel, presumably because they were too fierce a competitor.
On the food amounts thing, there was rather too much this time. I guess I have to accept that catering must often plan for big eaters while encountering light eaters. On the plus side, the leftovers were received with unusual enthusiasm. Though for convenience I served this run using only some frozen water bottles in the cooler, it is clear that I must always travel with a substantial ice bath. This time was probably OK, but it takes a LONG time for things like whole tri-tips or bags of potato salad to cool down in a home refrigerator. I'm so glad we bought an ice machine, it's one of the most important tools in the kitchen - it would be impossible to operate without it. Even with a lot of experience I had no idea how important rapid chilling would be in this business. And now I realize that rapid chilling is even more important in the field. (Besides, even if the client doesn't want the leftovers, there's lots and lots of low-income people around that would love to fill their freezers with them.)
So in short: even paying premium retail prices for everything, food costs are not a big part of the event, and even if there's way too much, hardly any of it is getting wasted. The waste for this event was probably less than five percent, assuming the leftovers get eaten. I assert the right to dispose of unsafe leftovers, and if the client squawked I might slap a bright "Unsafe For Consumption" sticker on it before handing it to them.
Serving and clearing 50 people is very hard when there is not a simple and direct path from the kitchen to the dining area. I could definitely have made use of my waiter trays, which I did not have; the client said she would provide some "trays" that turned out to be wiggly, slippery teflon baking pans. LOL. Fortunately her guests were used to the routine and all pitched in on what would otherwise have been a nearly impossible job. Generally speaking, I need to work on my table service skills. It's a small part of the work, and at least I don't spill things on people, but I have no grace whatsoever. Not to mention the inability to reach out with my right arm.
On the insurance front, I finally found someone to underwrite this business. It took a specialty agency that writes unusual policies. It will probably cost about $1K a year but quite honestly I have been living in terror of damaging some of the beautiful homes I've seen. Not to mention the out-of-control children that tear through the kitchen while I'm carrying a huge pot of boiling water. (Seriously, it's happened.)
Overall, the event has left me feeling really good, and completely confident that this is going to be workable. If the referrals keep happening, that is! Lots of little details to nail down, but the work has proven consistently and endlessly amenable to minor tweaks that improve efficiency. As I get the information-management processes nailed down I'm a little stunned by the complexity of it all - when you combine tasks, materials, and equipment it's not unusual to end up with a checklist of several hundred items, all of which must be perfect. Somehow, it happens.
The sense of a deadline achieved and in the past is so sweet and blissful it has proven difficult to do the necessary dishwashing, never mind complicated post-event analysis. However, there aren't any more events for a week and a half, and I'm trying (valiantly!) to keep the momentum and improve the work. Most of this is really data management, the work itself is dead simple so long as you know exactly what to do and exactly how to do it.
I schedule in three hours of slack time before departure and don't rely too much on John or Bill, the idea being that all these resources will be in reserve if there is a crisis. Otherwise, I kick back with a cocktail and mellow out before leaving. Although there was no crisis this time, these hours ended up being used anyway, even with John helping to pack the van. Despite a detailed timeline, it is difficult to explain what happened to those surplus hours. At t minus 3.5 hours I thought I was going to use maybe an extra hour, tops. Anyway, it ended with me racing out the door and arriving five minutes late.
Guess what turns out to bring in a lot of money per hour? Washing wine glasses. I've got two sharp looking crates with 24 beautiful Spieglau glasses in each, clients that hardly ever break anything, and a system for washing and polishing them that takes one minute per glass. (Which, by the way, is a very relaxing, meditative activity; it's all about soft and gentle and shiny.) I sure wish I'd bought more of these, they're gorgeous and cost only $6 a glass, but Spieglau was bought out by Riedel, presumably because they were too fierce a competitor.
On the food amounts thing, there was rather too much this time. I guess I have to accept that catering must often plan for big eaters while encountering light eaters. On the plus side, the leftovers were received with unusual enthusiasm. Though for convenience I served this run using only some frozen water bottles in the cooler, it is clear that I must always travel with a substantial ice bath. This time was probably OK, but it takes a LONG time for things like whole tri-tips or bags of potato salad to cool down in a home refrigerator. I'm so glad we bought an ice machine, it's one of the most important tools in the kitchen - it would be impossible to operate without it. Even with a lot of experience I had no idea how important rapid chilling would be in this business. And now I realize that rapid chilling is even more important in the field. (Besides, even if the client doesn't want the leftovers, there's lots and lots of low-income people around that would love to fill their freezers with them.)
So in short: even paying premium retail prices for everything, food costs are not a big part of the event, and even if there's way too much, hardly any of it is getting wasted. The waste for this event was probably less than five percent, assuming the leftovers get eaten. I assert the right to dispose of unsafe leftovers, and if the client squawked I might slap a bright "Unsafe For Consumption" sticker on it before handing it to them.
Serving and clearing 50 people is very hard when there is not a simple and direct path from the kitchen to the dining area. I could definitely have made use of my waiter trays, which I did not have; the client said she would provide some "trays" that turned out to be wiggly, slippery teflon baking pans. LOL. Fortunately her guests were used to the routine and all pitched in on what would otherwise have been a nearly impossible job. Generally speaking, I need to work on my table service skills. It's a small part of the work, and at least I don't spill things on people, but I have no grace whatsoever. Not to mention the inability to reach out with my right arm.
On the insurance front, I finally found someone to underwrite this business. It took a specialty agency that writes unusual policies. It will probably cost about $1K a year but quite honestly I have been living in terror of damaging some of the beautiful homes I've seen. Not to mention the out-of-control children that tear through the kitchen while I'm carrying a huge pot of boiling water. (Seriously, it's happened.)
Overall, the event has left me feeling really good, and completely confident that this is going to be workable. If the referrals keep happening, that is! Lots of little details to nail down, but the work has proven consistently and endlessly amenable to minor tweaks that improve efficiency. As I get the information-management processes nailed down I'm a little stunned by the complexity of it all - when you combine tasks, materials, and equipment it's not unusual to end up with a checklist of several hundred items, all of which must be perfect. Somehow, it happens.
The sense of a deadline achieved and in the past is so sweet and blissful it has proven difficult to do the necessary dishwashing, never mind complicated post-event analysis. However, there aren't any more events for a week and a half, and I'm trying (valiantly!) to keep the momentum and improve the work. Most of this is really data management, the work itself is dead simple so long as you know exactly what to do and exactly how to do it.
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Date: 2009-08-03 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-08-04 01:25 am (UTC)