WKA
Located on the outskirts of central Auckland, Sandringham is a small community with a real buzz...but about to collapse in one foul heap on its door step is struggling day time café WKA, and the man responsible for running this establishment straight into the ground over the last four years is Richard.
Originally from Hokitika, he was lured by the bright lights of the big city, and bailed out of small town New Zealand for good! But if he thought the big shift North would leave his problems in his wake...he was wrong!
For nearly 4 years Richard has relentlessly juggled his finances like a very shaky hand of cards leaving his mother Elizabeth who works with him completely in the dark...but the game’s up.
First John samples the food which does nothing to settle nervy Richard, but he gets a whole lot more to shake about when John exposes all the other problems he found using surveillance cameras; lazy service, staff dining regularly, bad layout not to mention plastic food wrap everywhere!
His first day on the job confirmed the worst; Richards having a party with his wee posse but the fun has to stop, and with less than a week before a massive re-launch, John has one hell of a challenge on his hands!
The next day and john goes to task fixing the average food & horrendous service he sampled yesterday, but it’s early days for our slow leaner Richard out front who clearly needs time to grasp the basics, but Freda his side kick in the kitchen on the other hand is coming along in leaps and bounds.
Day 3 – half way through John’s week at WKA trying to save Richard from looming financial disaster. And with a fickle owner, staff that aren’t particularly interested in customers, very shabby service, and average food at best…it’s a mammoth task!
And today he’s got a battle on his hands as he takes on Richards’s front counter chaos, so John calls in his friend Chris, owner of the Foodinis café’s with 2 very successful operations in central Auckland, to set Richard straight about his ludicrous front counter and that horrendous plastic wrap.
Chris hits the nail on the head – less is more Richard!
Its day four and John’s enlisted a team of experts to help me revive this place with a make-over from head to toe in preparation for the big re-launch in only 2 days.
With Richard at a loose end what better time to bring in NZ barista champion and coffee connoisseur; Luciano Marcolino, who will attempt to improve the horrendous brew in this place.
Finally today marks the re-launch of a new improved cafe but John’s nervous...so far the team just haven’t coped with change and continue to fall short on the basics.
But regardless the launch must go on, and to drum up support they head out in search of locals to boast about Richard’s new improved coffee.
Confident now that they should get bums on seats later today for the launch, it’s back to the restaurant in a frantic bid to complete renovations, and with systems firmly in place for the launch, John deliver one last blow that a critic will be on the loose at the launch.
The cafe isn’t anywhere near capacity, but with bigger numbers than the team are used to; they cave to the pressure and everything goes horribly wrong.
If they survived it was only just, and John knows that massive improvements still need to be made before he returns in 1 month.
Johns back in Sandringham and he can’t wait to see if Richards little cafe, formally WKA but now the ‘Coffee Garden’ has improved since his last visit.
When he left a month ago the place had heaps of potential with a new name & makeover from top to bottom creating a whole new image and new improved food & presentation, but the staff were still struggling with the very basics of good cafe service.
The place is quiet and John’s not surprised: immediately he notices that Richard has fallen back into his old ways with nearly every aspect of the cafe.
Richard is full of excuses but that doesn’t change the simple fact that if the food looks like crap it won’t sell, and if the service is shabby people won’t return.
The news isn’t all bad for Richard though, his once shaky ‘books’ are on the mend and against all odds the cafe has actually turned around and is making a profit.
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