A love letter to my staff (and a bit of reflection)…

Dear Team Thirteen,

As I sit down to write this, after a busy day in the shop and an even busier past three weeks, I am filled with immense gratitude for each one of you. This little coffee shop is so much more to me than bricks and mortar, coffee and cake - it is a home, a small sanctuary, and none of it would be possible without your dedication, kindness, and support.

Every morning, you bring your best selves to work (most of the time), greeting regulars by name, remembering their coffee orders, and offering a smile. You have helped create a space where strangers become friends, and hopefully, a place where every customer leaves feeling a bit lighter and more cared for.

Your attention to detail, whether that’s in the creation of a fancy coffee, or diligently working through the cleaning list, helps make Number Thirteen the special place it is. It’s not just about coffee - it’s about taking the time to make each customer experience special, to listen to someone’s story, to provide a quiet corner for reflection or a lively table for conversation. These small acts, repeated day in and day out, are the true magic of our shop.

Whether you work four hours or forty, only on a weekend or five days a week, you all play your part in making Number Thirteen what it is. I see how hard you work. I notice the patience in your voices, the teamwork, and the genuine care behind every interaction. You are not only employees to me; you part of the heart and soul of our shop.

Thank you for showing up with positivity, and for making our coffee shop a beloved part of the community. But most of all, thank you for being yourselves. It’s a privilege to work alongside you and to share in the joys and challenges of this crazy journey.

Thank you,

Sarah

.

.

.

I have spent the best part of the last three weeks working full time behind the counter again – something I haven’t done since 2020. It’s caused me to reminisce a bit about how the dynamics in the shop have changed over the years, particularly from a staffing point of view. As well as realise how much I appreciate the team around me.

When I first opened, I worked behind the counter everyday, with baking in the evening and paperwork on my day off. It was relatively easy in the early days, and it was how I had always planned to run my business. I didn’t want to be a coffee shop owner that was never seen, I wanted to know my customers, do the job. I was good at it when I worked for other people, so wanted to do it for myself too.

When I first opened, it was just me and mum, with a couple of Saturday team members. As the months went by, we got steadily busier and the team grew. Mum decided to step back from being behind the counter (she was supposed to be retired after all), and so I took on Selina as my deputy. She worked three or four days a week so I could get some baking done at home, as our cakes had started to attract attention for being suitable for a variety of dietary needs, as well as being very tasty. After a year of opening, I was also in the process of writing our first cookbook – fuelled by the popularity of our cakes. I would not have been able to do this without Selina working behind the counter.

We muddled along with a team of five for a good long while, and then COVID happened. The business was put on hold and the whole team were put on furlough. When we were allowed to re-open the coffee shop as a takeaway-only endeavour, I worked the shop on my own. It was one-in-one-out, so I could manage on my own, and it meant I could keep my staff on furlough. As the months dragged on, a couple of the team sought other employment as everything was so uncertain, and by September we were down to three staff, two of whom were still at school. It was still so restricted for hospitality, with social distancing, bubbles, and face masks, so a small team wasn’t an issue, but things were soon about to change again.

In October 2020 I became pregnant with Norah and began searching in earnest for someone to take a manager’s position to cover me while I was on maternity leave. It was going to be the first time the shop would be running without me being there. As lockdowns eased and my belly grew, we just got busier and busier. Something happened during the lockdowns of 2020 that changed people’s mindsets in some way, and going for coffee became part of the daily ritual.

I was so lucky to find Emma at the right time. The next few months saw restrictions ease even further, and aside from the wearing of face masks and copious usage of hand sanitiser, things were almost back to normal by the time Norah made her arrival in the summer of 2021. While getting prepared for not being in the shop, we had hired a new team of people and got them trained up in time for when lockdowns and restrictions were completely lifted.

I went ‘back to work’ after 6 months, but I had been baking behind the scenes since Norah was a week old. I started back just one or two days a week in the shop, Norah at a childminder those days I was behind the counter, with baking and paperwork being done during Norah’s nap times, the rest of the week. That’s pretty much how it’s been for the past four years. The cost of childcare meant that I couldn’t feasibly go back to how it was before the pandemic, it was too expensive, and it felt like I would be missing out on so much of Norah’s early years. On top of that I also needed to bake and do paperwork and orders and all the other things that go on behind the scenes, and time (that beautiful thing I had so much of before, but didn’t realise it) was an elusive creature.

In 2023 we had the biggest change in staffing, and that was when we opened our Silver Street shop, and our team went from 6 to 18 in the space of a week. I could no longer work behind the counter at our Castlegate shop at all; I had in fact been renovating the Silver Street space for the first couple of months of 2023, so Emma was manager in-chief – doing interviews and trial shifts in preparation. After Silver Street opened, I hopped between the two, more focus being put on the new store over the original, but as we all know, that was short lived and after 6 months, we had to close Silver Street. Letting the staff go that day was one of the worst feelings I have ever felt, and one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

As they say, everything happens for a reason. After we closed the second shop, Emma came to me to say she was leaving. An opportunity had come up to work at the local secondary school, giving her hours that would work around the school holidays and the like, meaning she could spend more time with her daughter.

Whenever someone comes to tell me that they are leaving, I can’t help but smile slightly. They are always so nervous about telling me. Usually, it's preceded by a text message or a phone call saying, "next time you’re in, can we have a chat? Nothing serious or urgent, just a chat.” And that is basically code for, “I’m handing in my notice.” I always have to reassure my staff that I’m not upset or disappointed, because I’m really not! I am never upset that someone has found an opportunity that better suits their lifestyle, or that they are moving on to pursue study or go travelling. People leave jobs, it is the way of things, especially in an industry like hospitality. After all, if I hadn’t left any of my jobs to pursue other opportunities, I wouldn’t have Number Thirteen.

However, Emma leaving meant I was able to offer a couple of the Silver Street staff positions at the original shop. I started back working behind the counter at our Castlegate shop once Silver Street had closed, and things have settled into a steady pattern since then. We have had a couple more staff leave and start in the past two years, but no more than the usual flow of school leavers heading off to university, or staff leaving to pursue a different career.

Staffing will always be one of the most time-consuming and difficult parts of owning a business, because it involves people, and people aren’t always predictable. Training new staff, forging relationships with other team members, navigating any difficulties that may arise. They all take time and effort. But, if you find a good team of staff, it makes all the difference to your business.

The past three weeks behind the counter have been a nice reminder of times gone by, but they have also showed me how much things have changed and that they have changed for the better. I have missed the connection with customers, but I have also loved having customers come in and ask after the staff that are usually there. It shows that the staff that usually serve these customers truly make an impression and an impact on their day.

Since Norah has started school, I have been able to work two full days at the shop, with a lunch cover shift somewhere in the mix. I then have two days at home to do all the baking, paperwork, supermarket shop, washing, tidying and general at-home stuff that is so much harder with a small person undoing all your hard work as soon as you’ve finished.

I think that I have found a nice balance now, between being in the shop, and doing all the other stuff at home. I do not think I will ever go back to working full-time behind the counter, because it no longer suits our business model. Our homemade bakes are one of our major usp’s and if we stopped those, I think it would negatively affect us as a business.

I have missed my baking days, these past three weeks, and I have felt guilty about not having as many homemade bakes as we usually do. I like offering something different, and having to buy products in because I literally do not have the time to make them, feels like I’ve been failing slightly. I also really like my baking days. I like having a day where I don’t have to talk to anyone, I can just stick on an audiobook and work through the baking list without any interruptions.

As I have remarked before, I am so lucky to have the team I do, working everyday to provide the friendly and efficient service that our customers have come to expect from us as a business. As well as striving to provide great tea and coffee, fabulous cakes, and savoury treats, we also pride ourselves on our warm welcome and relaxed atmosphere. Our team is a big part of this, always there with a smile and a helping hand.

Both our present team, and all our team members in the past, have made Number Thirteen the success it is today. Each team member brings their own special something to the business, whether it’s a talent in latte art, a joy for organisation, a creative flare for baking or even that someone who just loves a good clean.

I cannot pretend for a second that I could have survived the past eight years without my team. They have helped me build a business, survive a pandemic, given me the opportunity to have a baby and raise her, as well as just keep the business thriving through the dreaded ‘cost of living crisis’ and beyond.

Personally, these fabulous individuals are more than employees to me, they are friends who just so happen to spend their working week in my coffee shop, listening to my troubles, supporting me through tough days, and celebrating the good days too. Hopefully, they in turn see me as more than an employer, listening to their troubles, helping them though tough times, as well as celebrating the good ones (but you would have to ask them about that yourselves).