We've been vegan for just over 6 months now and for the last couple we have been super busy! With all the events that have been happening in Lady Bay recently we have been inundated with new customers.
The lady Bay Arts Trail made sure that we had a super successful May and I can't thank the organisers enough for making it happen and making it such an enjoyable weekend. There were a few people visiting us who did not know we were vegan but the vast majority stayed to give it a go and were pleasantly surprised by the delicious food on offer and the plant based alternatives to cow's milk we have for their coffee and tea.
The next event was the Lady Bay Safari sale, which as always was a great success for the community.
Staffing is always important when we know one of these events is coming up so we ensured we had extra help to make things run smoothly. An event that we were not expecting though was the freestyle kayaking championships being held at Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre for a week. We were understaffed and super busy. Linsey and I were so focused on ensuring the full cafe was served with consistently good food and drink. Our focus clearly boarded on 'grumpy'.
 | World champion Eric Jackson was over from America to enjoy the championships and wrote an article about his time in Nottingham: https://apexwatercraft.com/ejs-blog/apex-wrap-up-2022-world-freestyle-kayak-championships/ We featured as being the two grumpy vegan twin sisters! It's probably true that we weren't smiling much it was too busy and it took everything we had to make sure everyone was served quickly. We would hate that this was the lasting impression though so we got back to Eric! |
| And he was kind enough to reply! At least our food made the desired impression. With the same visitors coming back day after day to keep eating the food we knew we were getting something right! The biggest hits were the scrambled tofu served with avocado and tomatoes on toasted bloomer bread spread with black olive tapenade and the onion bhaji toasted sandwich with onion chutney and vegan cream cheese. Oh and the American style pancakes came pretty high on the list too. |  |
During the same week we had a few bookings made and we would really like people to get into the habit of making reservations. It means we can better gauge how busy we will be and also people who want to come and try our food won't be disappointed.
 |  |
This is the kind of recommendation that really makes us happy! We are really passionate about our menu and we're impressed that Andy could see we were focused on ensuring he got the good food and drink he had come such a long way for! Hopefully next time he visits won't be during a kayaking championship and we can have a better chat - probably on our favourite topic - veganism! Andy was wise enough to reserve his table.
On the flip side of the immense positivity we have received one terribly negative review:
On the flip side of the immense positivity we have received one terribly negative review:
On this day we had a reservation of 22 people at 11 and had tried to communicate that with customers to ensure they were aware that we were at capacity and anyone else wouldn't be served until at least 12. Unfortunately this person hadn't known and drove a long way to be disappointed. We are really upset by the one star on Google though as calling ahead to check and make a reservation would have solved the wasted trip. My reply to the reviewer:
 | So to anyone reading this blog: We are getting busier and busier! Vegan food is getting more and more popular and ours is delicious! Please, please make a reservation if you do not want to be disappointed. Anyone who hasn't yet left us a review on Google, HappyCow, TripAdvisor or Facebook please feel free to do so. |
Linsey and I are now looking forward to a well earned rest. We've been working at full throttle for the last couple of months and are desperately looking forward to our Summer break. We will be closed for two weeks in August to recharge our batteries. From Tuesday 16th August to Wednesday 31st August. We will reopen on Thursday 1st September. Phew!
RSS Feed