14/06/2026
Thank you all for the kind private and public messages with regards to my previous post, some of you have really made me giggle!
I was very upset when I shared that essay post. I actually couldn't sleep the night before as I was so upset... I know! I need to get a grip!...but I can't help it..it's the type of person I am... I am sensitive! Last night, I slept better as writing the post exorcised me in a way!
Owning a business is a huge worry. The costs to running a restaurant is immense. Every time something like this happens..it hurts! Buuut....please note, it wasn't my intention to start a witch hunt or anything of the sort for Ruth. A fair number of people have asked me for details. Love you all so much and it really touched me that so many want to fight for me! .. but I cannot and will not share any phone details! The takeaway shop involved, what they did to us wasn't great, but I don't want any hate towards them. Please realise, they are not here to defend themselves and we only have the words of Ruth.
To local business owners. Caterham is big. The population is I assume around 10 000 in the valley just by itself. The hill, I assume would have even more as it's more residential.
As a family, we have lived here for over 4 decades. We have seen Caterham change and get bigger and bigger. There is enough business for everyone. Don't forget, we attract people from nearby towns. We do, and we know this as you can see from the number of coffee shops and hair salons and barbers there are. So so many. People moan and say eugh! not another coffee shop, food place, hair place etc etc... yet they all seem to do well! Why? because each business is slightly different.. just like each person. We all have different preferences. Taste is very subjective. I would love to believe we have the best chinese food around. My husband and I really try our best to provide the best for our customers. We don't always succeed.. we're not robots.. but we do try.
Our customers enjoy our food and may not enjoy other places as much...loyal customers of other chinese eateries will believe their regular place provides the best food and they may think ours does not..and that is ok!! ... Taste is very subjective but also more importantly we are all different and that's what's wonderful about the world. When people ask, who's your nearest competition? I honestly never really thought we had competition. Sounds very big headed but I don't see the nearby restaurants and takeaway shops as competition. They do their thing. We do ours. There was once a local eatery who used our name on ubereats and that really was effectively taking customers from us... but that place is no longer in business.
The world is small (6 degrees of seperation and all that..) but Caterham is big and I believe businesses can work happily side by side and support each other. I have on occasion told customers to try the chinese takeaway down the road as we don't deliver. I do not know them. I don't actually know if they even deliver but I do know we don't and we would never have got that customer's business anyway as they needed a delivery and couldn't collect... so why not help that customer and the fellow eatery?
We don't need people to boycott any places for us. If you want a delivery, get a delivery, you want to collect from somewhere else.. it's ok too. We don't want people, who don't want us!!! Hence my previous post.... KNOW WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE ARE (ooh sorry.. a bit shouty..)!! We don't want to lose customers but we also don't want to make a loss because of a wasted food order. Making this kind of loss is worse than having no customers! To not make money is one thing but to lose money is another.
Oh.. I need to mention about the payment first suggestions. Yessss, we have thought about this before. I mean, I thought about it during covid times!. Taking people's card over the phone isn't completely problem free though. A dodgy customer will always be a dodgy customer.. card payments can be reversed especially when the card payment wasn't taken in person. We as a business would get fined with fees for reversed payments so not only do we lose money, food, we also get fees for the trouble. Not everyone is dodgy but we have had a card payment reversal done to us before and that's not fun.
Our current system of how we work is very old school. People have asked why we don't get with the times and use POS systems. Costs. Costs is why. ..and maybe we should have done this years ago...decades ago.. but we just never changed.. there was always costs of other things which were more important that needed to be made first... now we think.. if we are not able to stay then why invest in such a cost?
I didn't know it was the norm now that many places apparently take payment first over the phone? Those who mentioned this, thank you, you have educated me! The way we run things, it would be very hard to expect my staff to be able to work fast getting the order and passing it to the kitchen if they need to work out the prices and take payment as well. This would slow down our entire work system immensely and i can imagine mistakes of over charging or undercharging could be made easily when placed under such pressure. It is awkward to tell a customer they actually owe more money after they had paid and it would cost us money if we had to issue a refund for overpayments. Each card transaction costs us money and a refund costs us an additional fee on top.
We also have the predicament of a large number of our customer base being of a certain age. They will not want to give details over the phone and those who do, may not be able to give it to us in a quick manner which again will slow down the process. Also, though I trust my current staff explicitly, it only takes 1 (future) staff member who is not trustworthy handling customer details which is then used unlawfully... I don't want the possibility of our good name besmirched in any way!!
That said... never say never...and I guess we just need to really sit down and weigh the pros and cons. As I mentioned in the previous post, people not collecting the food they ordered is sadly becoming more common. I don't know what is the best solution, we will have to mull it over for now about the payment first thing. I just think it's so sad that we have to consider this and that if we do it, then it means that it really is the sign of the times. It would mean there are less and less honourable people which I find deeply depressing.
I better stop now. My husband is telling me to stop writing essays on FB!
If you have made it this far...you must like reading essays...that or you are really bored! Love to all my wonderful customers. As always, when I am feeling downtrodden (and there has been a few times..), your support has really lifted me. I thank you for this. Until the next essay (my husband is not the boss of me!)...
Have a beautiful day. x
