Page 55 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
‘Sounds good to me, if we get Sunday and Monday off … and you said we’d just open in the afternoons?’ asked Nell.
‘Yes, the first afternoon tea sitting would be at two, then the second at four, so people could have a leisurely experience. If any of the tables weren’t reserved, then they could be given to casual customers coming in – we could have something on the sign outside like “Table reservations not always necessary.”’
‘You’re not going to have a high turnover of customers doing that,’ Nell said.
‘No, our Nell, but they’ll be paying a lot more for the privilege of sitting there stuffing their faces for as long as they like,’ pointed out Tilda.
‘Yes, it will be quite pricey, but the food, tea and coffee will be unlimited – we’ll just keep it coming till they’ve had enough. And we’ll only stock good-quality, traditional cold drinks, with natural ingredients. I might make lemonade myself in the summer.’
‘I’m not faffing around with one of them fancy coffee machines what take an hour to make a cup of froth with a pattern on it,’ Nell declared pugnaciously.
‘You won’t need to, because we’re going the more traditional route. Coffee shops are two a penny now,’ I agreed. ‘We’ll offer pots of proper Yorkshire tea and a range of speciality teas and herbal teabags. The coffee will be in individual cafetieres – I hate coffee that’s been made and left sitting to stew on a hotplate.’
‘As well as milk, you’ll need lemons: some of them take their tea weak as cat’s pee, with a slice of fruit in it,’ Nell said.
‘Yes, we’ll have lemons sliced ready and jugs of extra hot water.’ I made a note about that. ‘I’ll bake early every morning, but I’ll need someone to cut sandwiches, set the tables and generally get ready to open.’
‘I can do that and Nell can come in later,’ said Tilda. ‘And if I don’t have to cook, then I’ll be manning the tea and coffee counter after that and taking the money, as well as helping Nell wait on, I suppose?’
‘That’s right, though you might have to cut more sandwiches if we start to run out. You can give the customers their bills at the tables and they can pay at the counter.’
‘I like waiting on best,’ Nell said. ‘I like to get them fed and watered, especially them poor devils of tourists what get off the coach more dead than alive, with only a couple of hours to see everything in.’
‘I think most of our customers will be staying a bit longer than that,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll leave leaflets at all the guesthouses and hotels.’
‘Aye, and locals with more money than sense will come in, too. There are enough of those,’ Tilda said. ‘You won’t have to hurry the customers out, though, our Nell. They’ll be paying to sit there as long as they like, stuffing their faces and demanding more.’
‘And complaining, most like,’ Nell said dourly.
‘I’ve been getting ideas about what to offer on the cake stands,’ I said. ‘I’m thinking of tiny dainty versions of classic cakes and pastries – but we’ll be advertising it as a proper Yorkshire high tea, so I need some particularly local specialities. There’ll be miniature fat rascals, of course, but if you think of anything else, let me know.’
‘My mother always had a good big seed cake on t’ table of a Sunday,’ Nell said.
‘Caraway seeds?’ I asked, and she nodded.
‘I’m going to have two large cakes on the counter every day, as well as the little ones on the stands, so the customers can choose a slice of those if they want to. Seed cake would be perfect.’
‘There’s going to be a generous lot of food,’ Tilda said, not altogether approvingly.
‘I’m still working out the options, but I think the classic tea will be finger sandwiches, scones or fat rascals, and cakes. There’ll be a savoury option, too, with things like tiny cheese tartlets.’
‘Our Graham has a couple of pigs, if there’s going to be lots of crusts and such left over,’ Nell said.
‘Unofficially, you can take any leftovers you like,’ I said. ‘But food waste must be disposed of properly each day.’
‘I’ll just take the bread and he’ll pay you back with a bit of bacon or such later,’ she offered.
‘What’ll you have on the sandwiches?’ asked Tilda practically, stirring the inky brew remaining inside the teapot and then putting the lid back.
If there was a dormouse at this Mad Hatter’s party, it was probably tanned darkest brown by now, and there were certainly two mad queens, neither of them me.
‘Roast beef and a hint of horseradish sauce, egg mayonnaise with cress, cream cheese and smoked salmon …’ I listed.
‘What about them vegetarians?’ asked Nell, as if they were an entirely different species.
‘Home-made vegetable pâté, cucumber, cheese and tomato, avocado … I’ll look up a few recipes for interesting fillings,’ I said. ‘I might add a gluten free version later, but I thought we’d start out simple at first. I mean, we’re a small teashop and if we had only one customer for a gluten free tea in a day, we’d be wasting a lot of food.’
‘Gluten free!’ Nell said scathingly. ‘They’ll all be thinking their systems can’t take a bit of fresh air soon, and buying it in cans from the supermarket.’
