Raining Cats, Dogs & Children

My goodness aren't we having some strange old weather - drew the curtains back this morning and it was like looking at a November day!! Yet outside my office window now it's bright sunshine.............

We had the Town Regatta in Salcombe last week and the weather was less than kind it has to be said - but it certainly bought the crowds here! It's undoubtedly a very strange season, Salcombe is nowhere as busy as it should be - but somehow here at the Victoria we are managing to keep on top of our targets. 

I say somehow - but I almost do ourselves a disservice saying that. We're doing it because we work flipping hard at what we do and it's not all about the front of house stuff that customers see us doing - the pulling pints and delivering food, its also about the ordering, staffing, menus, finances, social media stuff (we all know I spend hours doing that!) plus loads more that I never knew you needed to do to make a pub work! Now we have our third Chef Stuart we are able to serve food all day long and it has to be said that its proving very popular!! Amazingly we are serving everything from Fillet Steaks to Cream Teas in the afternoon so it's a proving to have been a good business decision. 

Staffing has proved to be very challenging again this summer with young people saying 'yes please - give us the hours' and then unable to complete more than a couple of shifts without not coming back! So luckily our front of house core full time staff have stayed strong, supplemented by college kids; Alex, Honor, Tom and Austin and supported by some even younger people Will, Lucy and lovely Lily. Somehow, we're getting through the summer together. The kitchen is running with a staff of 7/8 and the food coming out has been absolutely first class! I overheard a customer last night say that she's eaten a lot of Mussels - but none as good as ours!

Also, at last we're No 1 on Trip Advisor............... taken me almost 4 years to get there but we've done it!

AAfteAlready we're looking to the Autumn and we will be bringing in our brand new Autumn menu the 2nd week in September and we have lots of new ideas for it as well - so watch this space! Once the summer crowds have gone we shall be spending a little bit of money to freshen up the pub and also new menu and wine list holders, as well as some other bits and pieces to generally spruce us up. Bit pointless at the moment with so many hundreds of people travelling through our pub at the moment. The pic opposite is one of the better tables left after a family had been there......... :)

On that note - it's good to see our children's menu doing so well again this year - parents really appreciate that their children can have the same great quality food as themselves! Perhaps an especially good place to say thank you to our 2 cleaners as well that work hard all year but especially so in the summer - Jackie and Demitrou! They do stirling work in keeping us sparkling clean every single day.

Had some great dogs in over the last couple of weeks - this is one of my favourite dogs: A beautiful retired Greyhound - I think her name is Cat?  

But we've had some other beautiful dogs in as well - lots and lots of Cockerpoos, a smattering of Labradors, my favourite Alsatian Colin has been in as well.  A dog biscuit for the good (dogs are never less than good) and a titbit from the kitchen for the very good!  

I'd have liked to not see any dogs here in Salcombe for the fireworks but some very thoughtless owners did bring their dogs, and needless to say there were a few screaming dogs in town! We ushered one into our pub and shut the door and I don't know who was most upset by it; Us, the dogs young owner or the dog itself. Poor thing was so distressed that it peed and then even the obligatory slice of ham that was proffered was ignored. Still, lessons learnt hard way etc etc.....just a shame the owners of all the screaming dogs hadn't shown their little friends a bit more thoughtfulness.  

So there you go - a quick round up of where we are here in Salcombe - I am personally on a diet to try and get a bit leaner and fitter and of course a posh frock to get into for the Great British Pubs award ceremony in September, but so far so good!