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Deli Delights
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An interview with Deli
manager Nicole Bailey…
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by Ruth Ann Smalley
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It’s seven in the morning.
The first of the regulars are arriving for coffee and their favorite
muffins and breakfast bars, fresh from the oven. Deli staff have
already been here for an hour, mixing the premeasured dry and wet
ingredients that last night’s shift prepared and bagged. The soups are
ready, and it’s time to move on to the chopping and cooking for the
day’s salads, hot dishes, and sandwiches.
The pace is nonstop, 6 am to 8 pm, and multitasking is the name of the
game in Honest Weight’s deli. Picture your home kitchen. Now picture
sharing it with two to six other cooks every day, preparing nine
varieties of baked goods, 12 different kinds of salads and 12 gallons
of soup, while keeping the coffee going and making sure folks get their
organic veggie juices when they want them! This means keeping track of
about 15 different recipes a day—not including the baked items—and
cleaning it all up without using a dishwasher, just a two bay sink. If
you can conjure up this image, you’ve gotten a glimpse of what a
working day in the deli is like.
I spoke with deli manager, Nicole Bailey, to find out what the
challenges and rewards are of working in a department with a tiny
footprint and a huge output. We also discussed future plans for the new
store.
Now in her eighth year as manager, Nicole says, “I have a really
awesome staff—a lot of people who have worked with me almost as long as
I’ve worked there.” With a staff of nine, four of whom are full time,
and another 15 or so working members, the kitchen can be a bustling
place.
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| Totally
Vegetarian Fun! |
“Two
to three in the kitchen is comfortable, but we need up to six
sometimes. It can get pretty stressful and hectic,” she says, noting
that the work is hard, physical, and “you’re on your feet all day.” But
it isn’t all chopping veggies and scrubbing pots: “Everyone brings
something to the table—their creativity and talents. We have fun.”
And there’s room for creativity in this totally vegetarian deli, with
vegan and gluten-free offerings. “We work with hundreds of recipes and
try to be inspired,” while making sure people can still get their
favorite items on a regular basis. “We’re trying to offer more organic
and local ingredients, too,” Nicole says, “which can be a challenge to
label and update.”
The main change the reset will bring for the deli will be moving the
coffee station closer, a welcome shift for the busy staff. The real
changes will come with the new store, and these will be considerable.
Plans include a full service bakery, a hot bar, salad bar, and coffee
bar, a beverage station with smoothies and vegetable juices, and made
to order sandwiches. Nicole expects the deli to be at least three times
larger, with a more enclosed kitchen area, counter people out front,
and a deli case where people can buy items by the pound. Not to
mention, a dishwasher!
The planning process has been interesting for Nicole: “I’m learning as
I go along. I’ve never designed a kitchen before. I have a mixture of
excitement, nervousness, and fear.” Staffing needs will increase, too,
and she estimates at least five new people will be needed, as the new
deli will be “so much more full service.”
The expansion will also open up more opportunities to serve customers
through catering orders. “We now do a limited amount of catering, and
need more than 24 hours notice. We don’t have the space to do more, so
we don’t advertise it.” There are plans to do more catering in the new
store, and Nicole has just hired someone part time who has catering
experience, to help develop in this area. Nicole says, “We work really
hard at having as much as we can to offer,” a challenge they’ve been
meeting valiantly in their current space. Nicole is happy at the
prospect of being able to do made to order foods: “We look forward to
the future of the new store. I look forward to being able to give
people what they’d like.”
In the meantime, the deli staff keep busy turning out their variety of
hearty meals. |
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