7. Mishaps, Mayhem, and Masterpieces

Speaker 1 (00:00):

<silence>

Teagan (00:07):

All righty. Welcome back to our next episode of Nibble and Splash. This one is a doozy. They've, let me tell you, so we're going through all of our problems and disasters slash problem solving and learning that's made us who we are today. We've been through so many things now with our 10 years experience in catering. You get the best of the best when you hire us now because let me tell you, these funny anecdotes you're about to hear will have you laughing your butt off and wondering how the hell we do it <laugh>. So yeah, have a listen and I hope you enjoyed as much as we enjoyed sharing it. Well, I'm feeling fricking fantastic this morning, Krystal. I've trained my endorphins are high, and that's what I need right now to go through all these traumatic things we're about to talk about. Um, and how's your last couple of weeks at the cafe been? Because I know that we've been going through a little bit of a transition of things breaking down.

Krystal (01:05):

Oh yeah, it's, yeah. I'm glad you asked actually, <laugh>, where do I

Teagan (01:09):

Start? This just goes to show all the stuff that people don't see. Oh, yeah. That we deal with every day, that the customers, they would have no bloody idea, would they?

Krystal (01:18):

Not a clue. I mean, everyone juggles everything so well that I think as rocky as it's been behind the scenes, it's been smooth sailing out the front, which is, but we can ask really. But yeah, no, we've had our gonna be Evan, um, how few months?

Teagan (01:34):

Yeah, it's pretty much new.

Krystal (01:35):

It's pretty much brand spanking new, just the internal probe stop working. So our oven heats up to a solid 32 degrees, which ain't great for anything really. <laugh>,

Teagan (01:45):

You could go in there on a cold day. Yeah,

Krystal (01:47):

I've our oven and I'm to pull trays in and out with my bare hands. Um, so that hasn't been great. We've had a electronic part in our coffee machine break as well, so that's sort of been working intermittently over the last few days. And then just the icing on the cake, I went in yesterday morning and our wireless docket printer, which again, brand new <laugh> just decided to work, so, and

Teagan (02:10):

They're like 700 bucks, aren't they?

Krystal (02:12):

Yeah, they're not cheap.

Teagan (02:13):

And so I haven't been at the cafe lately as much, but what the hell did you do for all these people that want coffees? Because I know that there's like lineups out the door for coffees and you didn't have a coffee machine.

Krystal (02:23):

No, we didn't. So on the weekend, we, I think from when this problem started happening on Saturday to Monday, we only went and saw, I I, I added up the other day. It was like only 17 two minutes without a working coffee machine because that's how quickly we were able to like pull things apart, put it back together, do some resets. But yeah, we made it work. We offered all of our regulars different options. We were boiling water on the stove top to make everyone tease. And

Teagan (02:49):

That's what I call problem. So still,

Krystal (02:51):

Yeah. Yeah.

Teagan (02:52):

So did you have to go in on the weekend and sort that out?

Krystal (02:54):

Uh, no. I did it from remotely. Oh, amazing staff. You were that

Teagan (02:58):

Good. You talk them through pulling a coffee machine

Krystal (03:00):

Apart. No, no. Our amazing cafe staff there sorted it all out. And we have an ultra good coffee tech too that is just, you know, at our beck and call 24 7. Oh really? Oh, that

Teagan (03:10):

Is so good. I didn't even know that.

Krystal (03:11):

Yeah. Yep. Surprise. Oh my gosh.

Teagan (03:14):

So that's just the kind of that we go through on a daily really, isn't it? Or weekly. Weekly. Daily. Ethan, you know, living at home where our production kitchen is, the amount of call-ups, he gets like, oh, the Pro Seal machine's broken down. So he runs down and he, oh, that was

Krystal (03:28):

The other thing that broke this week.

Teagan (03:30):

Yeah. And like we're machine and meal prep, like $120,000 machine that we need Yes. Ready to rock and roll because we've got meals that need ceiling and to get in the fridge. So it's not just small problems that we have on a daily. Like, so some people wonder what Ethan does. Like he doesn't only do admin and all that kind of stuff, but he is there when things break down. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Which is why I can't go live in Bali for three months. No, we should

Krystal (03:54):

Not with him anyway. <laugh>.

Teagan (03:55):

Yeah. We need to teach some people how to fix some some stuff. Oh my God. Wow. But yeah, first

Krystal (04:00):

October. Wow. The month of everything breaking.

Teagan (04:03):

Yeah. October because it's, 'cause it's had a really big year of getting used. Yeah. It's been our biggest year ever.

Krystal (04:09):

It really has. Yeah.

Teagan (04:10):

Um, but firstly, I wanna say with these stories we're about to tell, it has shaped us and taught us so much and made us the caterers and workers and people we are today. You know, like problem solving, pivoting. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. We have been through some high stress, high anxiety situations and managed to pull through literally all of them without customers knowing. Bar one, sorry, which I'll tell you about in a minute, <laugh>. Um, but it's just what you have to do when you run a business or when you do something like this where customers need to be, have a service and they're waiting. Like you just gotta make it work. Oh,

Krystal (04:46):

Absolutely. Yeah. Even if you've gotta boil water and a stove top. Yeah.

Teagan (04:49):

And, and which one of these stories do you love the best? Which one should I tell first?

Krystal (04:53):

Well, I think, let's start at ke master. Oh my gosh. So Tegan will tell you the ke master story, <laugh>. It'll make everything from there on scene. So relevant. This, this is what really taught us. Doesn't matter what you dealt with, it's happened. You gotta move on and just figure out how to get it all done.

Teagan (05:10):

All right, I'm gonna relive it. So when I first started as a caterer, <inaudible> was where I got married. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I had a quite a good relationship with them. I took my menus there when I first wrote them out and said, you know, I would love to cater some events here. And of course they wanted to support me. And I did the pig on the spit event one year and it went off without a hitch. I hired someone to cook the pig on a spit because I've never done that. <laugh>. The salads were epic. And that was more of a coming into summer, I believe, event. So it was a bit warmer. Salads, pork gravy, bread rolls. And they asked me to come back again and I'm like, beauty, this is amazing. So I felt I was on a total high. High. Yeah. And the next one, I thought it was a great idea to do a bit of a Mexican night.

Teagan (05:56):

So a themed night. And it was in the middle of winter. Yep. It was in their barrel halls. So even with the amount of heaters they had and everything, everyone was still freezing their off. So it was cold. I created a menu, this is after being a caterer for maybe all of six months. And you know, this is a lot of people. This was a couple of hundred people. And looking back now, the menu I chose was so bad, <laugh>, it was just not, not appropriate for the weather, not appropriate for the facilities. But Teagan being Teagan backed herself all the way. And she learned really, really hardcore that time. So I'm talking, we had empanadas on the menu. Right. I'd never made an empanada in my life. <laugh> Ryan was cooking them back and we, you know, now even you'd probably outsource empanadas from a really, really good Mexican restaurant or something, can heat them up in a hot box and you'd serve 'em and you'd know that that'd be a filling element. And what

Krystal (06:50):

Did you guys do

Teagan (06:51):

<laugh>? We, we made them from scratch. And I don't even know if it was an empanada <laugh>,

Krystal (06:56):

But,

Teagan (06:57):

So we did them. Um, the hot box I ordered, I probably should have ordered two because with the menu I chose, there was a lot of stuff to heat up the fryer that we ordered. I didn't check it, it didn't work. So the higher company we use, I'm not gonna name any names. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. They fully effed me over. But in saying that I should have checked, I should have

Krystal (07:22):

Checked, haven't we learned those

Teagan (07:22):

Lessons? So now we check everything the day before an event. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So that is the big learning curve from that. So I had salt and pepper squid on there. <laugh>, I mean with

Krystal (07:31):

Your and <laugh>,

Teagan (07:32):

I'm sure,

Krystal (07:34):

I'm

Teagan (07:34):

Sure that it's Mexican in some way. If I put Uhhuh a Chipotle mayo with it or something. I can't remember what I did with that. But I did a cold rice salad

Krystal (07:44):

In the middle of winter. I mean,

Teagan (07:48):

It was a Mexican rice. I think I had some taco seasoning through there. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, Ryan still to this day goes, why don't we do a cold rice salad? Like, as a joke <laugh>. Um, but more to the point, it wasn't not having enough food. And it wasn't that the food didn't taste nice, it was the fact that I couldn't cook them and get the food out on how it was supposed to be in the time that I had. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So the empanadas went out. There was people coming up to the kitchen asking when the next course was coming, but I didn't have a fryer. So all the squid had to go down to the Lord lin dock, get cooked in the Lord Lin doc Frys. Thank the Lord, thank the Lord, Lord, thank the Lord. Lord thank the Lord lin that we were there. And then we were driving it back up the hill. And by the time it got back up the hill, it wasn't as crispy as I'd like. So there was that problem. The rice people were asking if it was meant to be warm or cold. So I had those awkward conversations. There was just a lot of things that looking back now, like why wouldn't I just do tacos,

Krystal (08:44):

<laugh>, <laugh>.

Teagan (08:46):

Like why wouldn't I just do a taco, like literally have hard shells, soft shells, guacamole, and put it all in the middle of their tables on arrival.

Krystal (08:54):

Tegan would now

Teagan (08:55):

I would, now it would be the best bloody Mexican night of your life now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and I, oh, that's right. We had churros and we didn't have a fry that worked. Oh yeah. You know, that old chestnut. So it was just an absolute disaster and it didn't end there. Or not only were there a lot of people that probably went home disappointed, which made me extra, extra disappointed at this point, I think I was nine weeks pregnant with Jasmine. So my hormones were probably through the roof all over the place. But there was this one message I got on inbox afterwards of a man saying that, you know, he was very, very disappointed and da da da da da. And then I proceeded to let them know the price per head that I got for the food compared to what they paid as in its event and everyone needs to make profit. Right. He screenshot that message and sent it straight to the management of K Meister. And they got really, really upset at me. Which is fair enough because that was information that I shouldn't have shared if I was a professional. Yeah. So I learned so much. What, what have we learned from that? Yeah. We've learned to cater the menu to the weather. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And to the facilities,

Krystal (10:01):

To planning.

Teagan (10:02):

We've learnt to check all of our equipment from our suppliers

Krystal (10:07):

Preparation.

Teagan (10:07):

We, they might have an apprentice on or someone new delivering and they might forget a, a connection to a gas or they might have given us an empty gas bottle or all of these things that could go wrong, that can literally make or break a whole wedding or event or something important to somebody. But this

Krystal (10:24):

Is why even when we travel now and do destination weddings, we always go up earlier

Teagan (10:28):

The night before

Krystal (10:29):

Always. So we have like a split team. So we have some go up early and then we have some come up like the day of or the night before. Just so that we've gone in, we've thoroughly checked over everything. 'cause you don't know what you're walking into. You're walking in blind. Especially with catering, most of the time you are not working out of your own facility. Sometimes you're working full blown sight unseen. I mean granted now again, preparation. We do site visits for majority of the jobs. So we do. But this is all just goes back to that first job. Why we do it now. Plan, prepare, organized, be so organized.

Teagan (11:02):

So organized. Yeah. And now we can like, I just wish I could have that night again. Yeah.

Krystal (11:08):

And customer service. We learned a lot about customer service that night. Like that scream Exactly. Shutting

Teagan (11:13):

Customers. Well, yeah. And you know what, like I was just heartbroken. I remember going back to the prep kitchen with four hours of dishes. We were there till 2:00 AM in the morning and I was pregnant and all of these things that people don't see, but I was just like crying and I was sad and I was like, what could have I done different and I could have let that defeat me. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And I could have stopped catering and just thought, wow, this is really hard. I've disappointed all these people, so many locals from Lin Dock as well when I was first starting out. Like I remember there was so many people there that I knew and I was just mortified. Mortified. Yeah. I was mortified. But I picked myself up and I thought, I will never let that happen again. And I have never eaten cold rice since.

Krystal (11:51):

No <laugh> hot rice everywhere now.

Teagan (11:54):

So that is the So Kel mater, if you're listening, have me back. Yeah. <laugh>. It's gonna be epic.

Krystal (12:00):

We've learned a lot since then.

Teagan (12:01):

I have been back there. But I mean, you know, it's just, they, they trusted me to do something can, it did come down to inexperience. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And you can't really get anywhere without making a few mistakes along the way. Um,

Krystal (12:15):

Yeah. Well that was pretty much like the intro story into what this whole episode's come about. Because since then we were having a chat the other day when everything was breaking down at the cafe. And if this was when we first opened a cafe back at ya diary Ys ago, and we didn't have a working coffee machine, I wouldn't have slept, I would've like stood next to that coffee machine until it was working properly. But you just, you learn over the years how to deal with things and how to cope with the stress and the staff and everything that you've got and you make it all work. But then we even started talking about everything that's gone wrong behind the scenes at catering jobs or in the meal prep kitchen. And we're just gonna talk you through some because they're doozies and you guys would not even have the slightest clue that any of this went on.

Teagan (12:58):

No. Because it happens like with a cafe, if things go wrong, you've got customers immediately right there that you have to either refund or deal with and all of that kind of stuff. But at a wedding before they get there, you've got a little bit of time that you can, you know, go over everything reset. And just like, now what do we do? We check menus as soon as we get there. <laugh> check menus on the table. Because why?

Krystal (13:18):

Why do we do that Tegan?

Teagan (13:19):

Oh, because sometimes the menus don't match the emails, do they? No. So I remember being in Melrose, for instance, out in the middle of whoop whoop. And we went there the day before. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> luckily and checked the menus. No, actually this was when we got there because the menus weren't out the day before. No, yeah. And we were just lucky that they had little tiny IGA there. So what happened was they had ais for entree and on the menu it said with n napolitan sauce and rocket. And we had packed garlic oli because most people choose the garlic oli option. Simple mistake. Probably back in the emails at the start, didn't copy and paste probably whatever. So we went down the IGA and got some pasta sauce and some rocket <laugh> and we made it work. We did, no one would know any different. And

Krystal (14:08):

Everyone in the town looked at us like complete freaks walking out with that much tomato sauce. <laugh>.

Teagan (14:12):

Yeah. Oh yeah. And all the, all the people that were at the wedding that saw the pub the night before Yeah. Thinking, how are you gonna cater a wedding tomorrow? And then they, they're like, oh my god. That's the best catering we've ever had. Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah. We have fun with our away weddings, don't we? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But yeah, if you've got a menu that doesn't reflect, oh sorry. If you've got Yeah. And packed a menu that doesn't reflect the menu on the table. Like that's a, that's a problem. Like, we've been missing sides before and we've raced back to the cafe and quickly Yeah.

Krystal (14:41):

Made them

Teagan (14:41):

All up. Made them all up. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And the meal prep kitchen. What's a few things that's happened in there?

Krystal (14:49):

My favorite is, again, I think it was like a newish oven. I don't know what it would, this is why we buy secondhand stuff because the new stuff breaks on us more than the secondhand

Teagan (14:58):

Hand stuff.

Krystal (14:58):

Honestly. We, uh, the entire oven door shattered into like

Teagan (15:02):

A billion pieces, A billion pieces, pieces. Pieces with food around. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Krystal (15:05):

So we had no oven. We had to throw out everything that was in the oven, around the oven. It was a massive cleanup process. It was just, ugh. That day was, that was a

Teagan (15:16):

Nightmare day. And then we were back to one oven. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And it was our record week, I believe.

Krystal (15:20):

Yes. Cool.

Teagan (15:21):

Because we had to hire in all cool rooms and everything because you know, we just grew 2000 meals every night. The

Krystal (15:25):

Cool room was a different, the cool room we've had to hire in cool rooms before because we've had the compressor in the cool room blow up. So we've had no internal storage for like thousands of meals, you know, so Oh yeah. We've been plugging in cool rooms. Everyone was like jumping in their cars, racing around the brossa, picking up all these cool rooms, getting 'em all switched on, cold transferring meals over. It's just, and you guys wouldn't have known, everyone's still got their delivery on a Tuesday rides rain <laugh>. Yep. It's just so much happens in there all the time. So yeah, the meal prep kitchen, the cafe, my favorite one is we went to a, uh, well we did a wedding and they had pizzas and we, it's not very often that we get to do wood oven pizzas on jobs. So we get really excited when it happens and we rocked up to this job and it was this epic wood oven, pizza oven on a trailer with no wood to light <laugh> pizza oven <laugh>.

Teagan (16:17):

Oh my gosh.

Krystal (16:19):

Um, so we kind of,

Teagan (16:20):

I just felt that feeling. Yeah.

Teagan (16:23):

Like wood oven pizzas, wood oven pizza ovens need to like heat up for four hours. Yeah. Or at least we had no wood. We had 200 people to feed in four hours. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So what did we do? We rang the supplier and said, you know, we forgot, well you forgot the wood. And they were there within a couple of hours probably. So we had two hours to get that wood on and get that pizza oven hot and it was not right. Like the, the pizza bases were burning at the start and you know, obviously we always pack extra stuff in the end. It was cooking perfectly by the end of the night. And luckily we had enough canna past first to fill everybody up.

Krystal (17:01):

Yeah. We just switched around service. I reckon we even had a hot box there. We started kind of like baking,

Teagan (17:06):

Starting them off in the hot box. Baking Yeah. And then holding them on the pan Yeah. In the oven. So they didn't hit the stone. Yeah. That we pivoted really well. And you know what? Everybody loved it, loved

Krystal (17:17):

It,

Teagan (17:17):

Loved it. And we did tell the bride and groom obviously, because they had a right to know. But, um, yeah. You know, they said that everything was delicious and they

Krystal (17:26):

Didn't, they were none the wiser

Teagan (17:27):

And we didn't, sorry, we didn't tell the bride and groom till later. We didn't worry them, but I did say if they weren't as wood oven or as perfect as you'd hope, like this is kind of what happened. And by that stage they were like, oh, I wouldn't even have known, known

Krystal (17:39):

<laugh>,

Teagan (17:39):

You know? Oh.

Krystal (17:41):

And we've, we've had wrong gas bottle connections to hot boxes sent to us before we've had wrong equipment. Can

Teagan (17:49):

I just explain that one a little bit more? Because

Krystal (17:51):

That is Oh yeah. You found that was

Teagan (17:52):

<laugh>. So this was our first massive job. We bagged, like I'm talking 370 people out in the middle of nowhere in a marquee. They had a massive menu. They had two arni bulls per person, which we needed to cook. How many, how many cheals is that? Like nearly 800 arni bowls. And the connections they sent for the fryers were wrong. We did not have a fryer. No, this was before we had our own fryers crystal. I couldn't just go pick up ours. No

Krystal (18:17):

<laugh>.

Teagan (18:18):

So we had to Yeah. Pivot the menu around again and do AIS at the end. But I rang this company and the emergency lines and everything like that and in the end I got them and do you know what they did? They sent it in an Uber. Uber, yeah. <laugh> in an Uber. Yeah. And I was freaking out. I'm like, what if they're the wrong ones? Like we had to wait, wait so long. And anyway, in the end I got these fries on, heated them up, sent the anni bowls out, no one knew.

Krystal (18:43):

No, no one knew. No one knew. And I think, I'm pretty sure we went to, we've gone to so many small town IGAs or hardware stores to, you know, pick up different connections, longer cords, this, that, you name it, you just, yeah. We're just superheroes.

Teagan (18:58):

Yeah. And also we have people come later now. So then for that reason, if they need to stop at the shops or anything on the way, like we, we unpack the van, match it up to the menus. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, make sure we've got everything. Although I must say Matt, our catering chef, he is so good at packing and so good prep, like you have more than everything you need now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Whereas back when I was doing it, I think I just had a little bit too much on my plate as well. Yeah. Like, I'm talking like everything was on a, a list that I'd lose, you know, I actually know <laugh>, I actually don't know how I did it, how you did it or how I got as far as what I did with my systems <laugh>.

Krystal (19:36):

Because you backed yourself and you knew there was no, you don't take no for an answer. It was gonna work regardless.

Teagan (19:40):

Yeah, exactly. And also I knew when it was time to hire people to start helping me

Krystal (19:46):

Rightists

Teagan (19:47):

To use computers, maybe <laugh> use, use, um, software that's made for this <laugh>.

Krystal (19:52):

But yeah, we've, we've managed to just get through or get out of a whole lot of pickles. Oh,

Teagan (19:57):

I've got another one. The one when I went to out near Meadows and yes, I had a junior with me. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And she was on the maps, right. And this turn off, like there was like the house and the driveway up here and there was like a little turn off here and she thought that's where we were meant to turn. So I'm talking a rainy day. We were already off on a bush whacked track and we were gonna make it there just on time before the ceremony. And I went down this one way dirt road with a cool room trailer on with potholes like this big, like 20 centimeters big. I was petrified. And as soon as we turned down there and we got about a K down and then I realized this is not the driveway, I was freaking out <laugh>. I was like, okay, no service on my phone. No,

Krystal (20:45):

No.

Teagan (20:45):

They're, they're the scariest. So I had to somehow work out what I was gonna do. Am I just gonna sit here and cry? And just like this wedding's gonna be a failure. <laugh>. I kept driving nearly got bogged three times and I found the tiniest little, like, like alcove cut out on the edge of the road and I did a 40 point turn <laugh>. And if anyone knows me, crystal does the reversing with the trailers <laugh>.

Krystal (21:10):

Like I

Teagan (21:10):

Was nearly gonna take the trailer off, turn it

Krystal (21:12):

Around, turn around manually

Teagan (21:14):

<laugh> and then put it back on. But, and then I got, finally got the right right way around, got up the top, found their driveway, drove in just before the ceremony starts. Just as they were ringing me when I got in service, asking where the caterers were. Not because we needed to be there for food but needed to be there before the ceremony because we had to drive past it. And then we literally went down this rocky hill in the middle of bloody nowhere where everything's on an angle, tried to put everything together. Later on that night, I found out I didn't have a knife.

Krystal (21:45):

Oh yeah. <laugh>. But then we were using this tiny little knife that they were cutting

Teagan (21:50):

Lemons of. I used a butter knife to cut a whole cake with hot water, which no one knew. And I'm talking a hundred chicken breasts. Yeah. We had to cut in half with a butter knife. No one knew.

Krystal (22:05):

We nailed that joke.

Teagan (22:05):

Oh my God. Anyway, so this is the that happens. And this is why I have Valium. No, I don't really <laugh>.

Krystal (22:12):

It's also why we don't let you take the cool room up very often. <laugh>. But that bloody cool room though, honestly, some, hasn't it? Oh, I'll never figure. It got bogged one day, like mid event, there was just like a downpour and just the, where the bride and groom's parents had arranged for us to sort of like pull up and park. We got there, it was all sweet. We went there the day before, everything was all fine, plugged in, working a treat, then we had to hook the co room back onto the car and it wouldn't come out <laugh>.

Teagan (22:40):

Oh man. I remember that. We were spinning wheels for a while. We were just, we had to get some,

Krystal (22:43):

We were sliding around wheels

Teagan (22:44):

From the wedding to Za

Krystal (22:46):

And then, and then all the groomsmen come up. Uh, dunno what they were gonna do, but they all came up together and next minute suit, jackets off, ties off. All of us were moving this core and we were literally guiding it and sliding it like sideways down a hill that we could get enough traction to just drive out, ate down, thinking, God, that sounds so dangerous, but <laugh> it was, um, uh, it was just funny.

Teagan (23:10):

I actually got videos of that.

Krystal (23:11):

Yeah. That was the, so funny. We should put, we should, um, we should find it. Put 'em out. They're hilarious. Oh, that is good. Or that time where you drove the, you didn't wanna reverse the cool room in, so you drove the van and the cool room straight in, but there wasn't enough room to reverse the cool room and like whip the back in to drive back out. Oh, that was a big night.

Teagan (23:28):

So it took you like an hour to get out. Pretty

Krystal (23:30):

Much. Yes. Um,

Teagan (23:31):

Yeah, so it's that cool room was my first purchase by the way. Purchase. Yeah. $10,000. She's still alive

Krystal (23:38):

Kicking

Teagan (23:39):

Everything that I've ever made in the business. I've put straight back into the business and that was my first little baby. Mm. We still got it. We still got

Krystal (23:47):

It.

Teagan (23:48):

Yeah. I think it needs a bit of a paint though. It's getting a little bit rusty now.

Krystal (23:51):

Yeah, same in our first hot box. That bad boys saved us a few times too. But yeah, I think my favorite um, go wrong thing has to be, and I don't even know if it's still hanging in the kitchen, but it was the first time you got asked to be in the newspaper and write up a recipe. Oh my God. <laugh> Get I You have to have a photo of that somewhere, surely. I do.

Teagan (24:16):

I'm pretty sure that's the only bit of newspaper I've still got.

Krystal (24:19):

Uh, so this is Stephen's first big break in the local newspaper and she got asked to write

Teagan (24:25):

That was a barat mag.

Krystal (24:25):

Yeah. She got asked to write a recipe, um, for Smoky Bacon. AVOs.

Teagan (24:31):

No, it was my idea to do that recipe.

Krystal (24:33):

It was your idea <laugh>.

Teagan (24:34):

Because I didn't wanna give away my famous mushroom and pumpkin one. So I did the Smoky Bacon.

Krystal (24:39):

But if you read on <laugh>

Teagan (24:41):

My Ingredient, there was no bacon in the ingredients. <laugh>. I literally did everything except for bacon. And they're called Smokey bacon ais. Um, I just, yeah. That is so funny though. Like I, I feel like, do you reckon people noticed, like they would've had to, you would've had

Krystal (24:56):

To have,

Teagan (24:56):

But you only would've noticed if you were going to have the recipe to make them. Yeah. You know, there might have been 10 de 10 people, 10 people that probably actually use the recipe. I blame and surely they would've added bacon

Krystal (25:06):

<laugh>, but Yeah. Oh, just, oh,

Teagan (25:09):

That was funny. So many

Krystal (25:10):

Funny

Teagan (25:11):

Bacon balls. No bacon. No bacon

Krystal (25:13):

<laugh>. That's okay. It's like,

Teagan (25:16):

All right, so I'm gonna tell tell you all my most heart stopping now. Yeah. Which, which is actually what stemmed my anxiety. I swear <laugh>, which chef life just is anxiety anyway. Not anymore. But you know, you, you definitely do have to go through those bits. Like it's a high stress job. Yeah.

Teagan (25:37):

So I remember I was at two hands ones out in where is that like, you know, S Field Way. Yeah. And we were doing a little corporate job for lunch and Fabian and I were just like, just smashing it out, both of us. It was so cruisy, so nice. And I received a phone call from another venue and they were asking where I was <laugh>, and I just said, well, I'll be there later today because you know the parties tonight. And they said, oh no, the guests are all here, the parties today. And I was just like, oh my God. Oh my God. I was pacing, I literally said these words. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. <laugh>. Like, I was just, I was shaking like a leap and I was like, I mean, there, there, it could have been worse. I could have not had the booking in my diary at all.

Teagan (26:27):

Yeah. So luckily all the prep was at the prep kitchen, like the Lord Lind doc ready to go. And I just said to Fabian, I gotta go. Like, I have gotta go because, you know, we have a a hundred people waiting for us for an engagement party at another venue that's half an hour away. Mm-Hmm. Okay. So I rang my mom, they were in service at the Lord Oc I said, you need to drop all those arni bulls right now and get them in a tray. I'll be there in 20 minutes. Skinny pop down the road, <laugh>. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. The whole way there baby. And quickly nailed the rest of the job herself cooking, passing the food out, like did it all. She got that back to the Lord and knock as quick as possible. Soon as I got to the Lord, I jumped in the car, arni balls already on the trays with the garlic aioli. I parked, I got out the car with arancini balls on trays, like, and started service

Krystal (27:16):

From Car Park. What?

Teagan (27:16):

Anyone like an a ball. And no one even

Speaker 4 (27:20):

knew. Like, they

Teagan (27:21):

Just thought like we were running a little bit behind in the kitchen.

Speaker 4 (27:24):

Yep.

Krystal (27:25):

Oh my goodness.

Teagan (27:26):

But then not long after the whole team followed with the rest of the prep and we just smashed out all the food and everybody absolutely loved it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And I thank my lucky stars that the venue rang me before it was a little bit too late, but that made me hire you

Speaker 4 (27:42):

<laugh> what am moment look after my bookings for me, because it turns out I really can't.

Krystal (27:50):

Oh goodness.

Teagan (27:50):

My gosh. But yeah, if you, if you could put yourself in that, in those shoes, I mean, it's bad enough, double booking a bloody kids' birthday party on the weekend. Imagine if you were the one bringing all the food for a bloody engagement party. Oh my God. <laugh>. So anyway, that's just a few, um, you know, little stories. I would actually enjoy listening to that if I was somebody Mm-Hmm.

Krystal (28:11):

Especially if you've got any kind of hospitality background, you'd know exactly what we're talking about. Well,

Teagan (28:16):

And I'm pretty sure after that you probably won't get into it either. <laugh>. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:19):

<laugh>.

Teagan (28:20):

I know it's not for the faint hearted.

Krystal (28:22):

Well, just before this we were watching a video on Instagram just about how high stress hospitality can be. But I think the great thing about vintage Hef Co and you know, nib and Splash is we've along the way and we can help guide you. You can learn from pretty much all our fuckups how not to do it like that.

Teagan (28:43):

Yeah. And know that if something does go wrong, there is generally a solution. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And you just have to stay strong. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> stay strong. Just know you can get through it. Like there Yeah. There is no problems. There's only solutions. Only solutions. And that is like literally something I live by. Yeah, fine. And you just, you can't get too worked up. Like I, I really work well under pressure. Like I've worked out that like when things go wrong, like I actually kind of like it. I'm like, how can we fix this? We're not

Krystal (29:12):

Stick at all.

Teagan (29:13):

No,

Speaker 4 (29:13):

We're not sick at all.

Teagan (29:14):

So, you know, now it's just like I can literally predict the future of how the menu's gonna go and the best way to do it and make sure I delegate everything. So everything's in the perfect order that like, there will not be a gap now. Yeah. It's like I can literally, it's like I'm a, what is it called? Those people that can see the future. Like I've just

Krystal (29:34):

Oh, psychic. Yeah.

Teagan (29:35):

No, it's like a, anyway, it doesn't matter. <laugh>. I forget my words. Um, but yeah, I can literally predict what's gonna happen and how we can avoid things now. Yeah. Um, experience.

Krystal (29:46):

We call that

Teagan (29:46):

Experience. Experience. Thank you. That makes it sound much nicer. Yeah.

Krystal (29:50):

That's what you get when you hire us. You get really qualified, experienced individuals. We've seen it all. We've done it all. Yeah. We're really good at what

Teagan (29:59):

We're doing. I mean, and there's 4 billion success stories compared to those like horror stories. But at the end of the day, literally everybody, by a few people with my Mexican night have had the best experience ever from vintage Chef Catering. So Yeah. But yeah, that concludes our little disaster stories. <laugh>, wait, we, we like to call them pivoting and problem solving stories. We do,

Krystal (30:25):

Yes.

Teagan (30:25):

Yeah.

Krystal (30:26):

Growth. We learn from

Teagan (30:27):

'em all. Awesome. All right guys, well, we'll see you next time.

Krystal (30:29):

Thanks for listening.

Teagan (30:33):

Thank you so much for listening everybody. If you like what you heard, please head down below, subscribe, check the show notes, follow us on socials. We'd love to hear from you. And can't wait for next time.

Krystal (30:49):

She's the baddest of the all. Ooh, that's all I know.