As well as hearing of our summer business success, we bet you’re also interested in the business pitfalls we’re suffering – you’re only human! So here’s 3 recent ones for you:
1) Staff
As blog readers will know, we sadly lost Neil our night baker recently, and unfortunately we are still on the search for his replacement. If you are a baker reading this, please check out our ad here! It’s also been all change for our baristas. Some changes were planned & temporary but others were out of the blue, underhand & frankly left us in the lurch big time. 
Whilst we’re in a great place with all the lovely new staff through the summer & beyond, there wasn’t a way to keep the shop going in our absence this August unfortunately.
2. original Patisserie fridge value lost
Some friends may recall that when we were trying hard to finish the shop refit as fast as possible, we ran into some difficulties with a courier company who claimed their van was in a crash & that our new patisserie fridge was a write-off. That featured in another less than cheery blog!
There is no such thing as a quick win in these matters – after months of dodging various slippery courier red herrings such as promises of insurance company resolution, we resorted to starting County Court Judgement debt recovery process. This includes formally instructing these cowboys that they have a further 28 days to refund you (otherwise the courts may decide you didn’t try hard enough to deal with it upfront). Guess what? The day after “Bell-Air Couriers” would have received our pre-court notice, they filed for bankruptcy. Sigh. We’re probably in a long queue to nowhere amongst many others to sort that one…
3. Am I fake or not?
We have only been offered a handful of £50 notes in Rex since we opened. Unfortunately this note came into our shop recently, when the shop staff were bullied into accepting it in payment. It even scans fine with the ultraviolet 50 coming up – but really is an enhanced colour photocopy when you look very closely.
The good news is that we have plenty of CCTV footage and a good description of the offender. And there were some lovely supportive comments on Facebook
The bad news is
- we have criminals visiting Little Chalfont!!
- we won’t be accepting ANY £50 notes from now on. The same will go for other unfamiliar notes such as Scottish £20 notes. Sorry, but this is the new policy even if we know you really well – hope you can understand.
- The police couldn’t give a flying fig – they don’t even record this as a crime because it isn’t part of a major haul.
- the Bank of England wash their hands, there is no replacement or compensation scheme even for a small trader.
- It takes a lot of baguette sales to make up a £50 profit loss sadly…. 🙁
Hey ho, you live & learn and we won’t be doing THAT again
So we want to thank you for your continued support, it’s very important and keeps us optimistic and smiling in these mixed early days!
Have a great summer & don’t forget to stock up before we shut up shop…
