Minstrels
Nestled on Auckland’s North Shore, Devonport is New Zealand’s historical maritime village and home to Minstrels, a new restaurant already in crisis!
With a uniquely odd approach to everything they do, owners Chris & Marie’s first foray into the restaurant business is thus far a complete disaster!
If moving their family from the UK to New Zealand wasn’t a big enough challenge, Chris ditched I.T for hospitality, and it’s been an up hill battle ever since!
And while they may be long on enthusiasm, they’re seriously short on experience. Maybe Chris should have stayed in I.T. because that dream is rapidly turning into a nightmare.
To put it mildly; Chris and Marie are both working 90 hours a week. In a good week, they turn over four grand, but after paying their 12 staff and the rent, they’ve never once broken even. In fact, they’re going backwards by around 10K a month.
Minstrels is suffering from a major identity crisis; health food café, fine dining, evening jazz venue…Chris and Marie are trying to cover way too many bases, and as for the décor…it’s a mish-mash; Victorian conservatory meets jazz lounge meets French bistro meets… plain bad taste!
First up John selects four different dishes to see how Minstrels measures up and already three don’t make the grade, but the plot thickens as he exposes hidden camera footage and more problems.
So it’s time to kick his game plan into action starting with those all important first impressions. It’s not exactly rocket science but Maria proves a hard nut to crack despite the fact that a newly improved cabinet immediately attracts customer attention.
With Marie not on side yet, John heads out for a heart to heart with Chris to find out just how desperate their situation is and it’s dire, to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars ...these guys are in deeper trouble than he ever imagined, and back at the restaurant, another quiet night confirms this desperation.
Day 3 in Devonport and with Minstrels losing money by the hour, it’s time for Marie and Chris to wake up and smell the coffee. The place doesn’t actually need a major make-over. It has great bones if you could see them for all the junk!
So while Marie and Chris carve up the hideous clutter, John begins to tackle the small problem of those monstrous menus in a bid to make things easier for the kitchen, the staff and the customer. Not only do these guys have six menus, they have menu’s inside menu’s, so Kevin the chef helps John with the mighty cull and before you know it, we’ve cut the old menus to shreds.
Chris & Maria have never run a restaurant before so with the rest of Johns team continuing on renovations; he takes them over to his restaurant for a crash course in restaurant 101to teach them how to run their business more efficiently and to test how they went, John recruits a gang from The Royal New Zealand Navy who will also sample the newly polished menu.
Renovation continues, and while Bob the builder’s knocks up some shelves, Michelangelo’s creating a visual masterpiece on a feature wall, but the main aim of the game is to de-clutter.
Lastly John gives some serious tips on marketing to get more people in the door plus more money in the till. In Devonport, where better than the ferry terminal? With a captive audience coming off each ferry, this is the perfect place to hand out flyers.
Finally it’s the day of the big relaunch, so it’s all hands on deck for the grand opening this afternoon, and with the finishing touches added, the makeover is complete.
Before, the interiors were tired and cluttered. But with a few simple changes, Minstrels has been transformed into a stylish and spacious venue.
Minstrels’ main point of difference in Devonport has always been its English–themed menu. So what better, for the opening party in the revamped conservatory, than Minstrels signature event: a very English ‘High Tea’ – complete with sandwiches, scones, jam and cream?
With 40 customers in the house all wanting food and drink at the same time, it’s a huge challenge for all concerned, Marie struggles, and not surprisingly, some of the guests are experiencing some lengthy delays including our critic, Luke Dallow.
But to John’s relief and just in the nick of time; Marie’s takes control and overall, the afternoon has gone well…and most of the punters go home happy…and John leaves Minstrels with high hopes…
But a month later John finds not much has changed, in fact if any thing, things have got worse.
Chris & Marie are stubborn and have reverted back to their old ways and head chef Kevin is fed up...they risk losing him which would spell complete disaster for this place and potentially kill the business, that is if their spiralling debt doesn’t kill it first.
And that’s where John leaves Marie and Chris, struggling to stay afloat, but refusing to get in the lifeboat.
Become a fan of TV3 on Facebook
,
on Twitter .