The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry...

It might end up looking completely different from this drawing but I wanted to show you just what's been going on.  Working closely with chef consultant, Nate Box, he's come up with a rather brilliant and different looking kitchen area...  There are five distinct areas to the proposed layout:

1. food prep area (the central island infront of the two tall fridge/ freezer units)

2. food building area (i.e. making a sandwich) in the right hand corner

3. customer serving area/ till (angled counter)

4. barista station (front counter)

5. dish pit

Having these accurately defined stations maximises efficiencies and improves workflow.  But there are plenty of hurdles.  Getting power and water to a front counter that is not attached to a wall currently means digging an 18" deep trench twelve feet to the back wall - that's pricey.  It also means we have an incredibly tight barista work station.   Then there are issues of grinders and blenders being very close to customers at the till so we might be screaming "Hello!" at them!

The devil is in the detail.  To ensure we don't get caught planning something that could trip us up, I'm currently writing down every part of the process when undertaking every element of the cafe.  For example:

Medium latte

• locate cup and heat with hot water
  
• locate saucer and garnish (saucer is specific to cup) with sugar and spoon.
  
• Locate steaming pitcher and grab milk. Pour required volume. Add thermometer.
  
• Start grinder (12 sec.). Disengage porterfilter, knock out puck, wash (if necessary) and wipe dry, stop grinder.
  
• Dose, collapse, level and swift. This happens around the grinder and then over a metal bowl.
  
• Tamp (on tamping matt). Wipe remaining grind off porterfilter.
  
• Wipe draining tray, purge group head and tip out water in cup and leave upside down
  
• engage porterfilter and place cup underneath
  
• Grab jug, purge wand, insert wand and stretch/ steam milk
  
• Stop shot. Stop milk at desired temp. Remove jug and place on counter, purge wand and wipe
  
• Remove cup and swirl to break crema.
  
• Swirl milk and knock jug on counter. Pour milk.
  
• Place on saucer. Serve.
  

So, plans continue to be developed/ revised and discussed.  We're not pulling the trigger just yet but I hope in a couple of weeks the final concept will be in place and we can begin making plans to build a new look kitchen. Oh, and maybe a new patio too.

watch this space..