My First Time at The Natural Cafe

Well, my parents and I went there tonight and I thought it was lovely. The atmosphere was so warm and cozily lit, and the booths were so roomy and relaxing. I was impressed with the drink selection, which was composed of several healthy fruit drinks conveniently displayed in a cooler at the front. We were served promptly, and all of us enjoyed our meals. I got the bowl of vegetarian chili with cornbread, and it had just the right amount of spice and flavor for me. The cornbread, made with real corn, was also very good. My dad got the chicken tacos, which, being a rather choosy eater, he enjoyed: they weren't too spicy, and a lot of things are too spicy for him. My mom got a vegetable lasagna, and she was quite intrigued with the spinach noodles. We were treated very amiably by our waitresses, who checked up on us periodically. We were also treated nicely by our cashier, who was cheery and delightful. I am very happy with my experience this evening and plan to go there again the next time I am in the area.

First day open!

Well, we finally opened today, and I had the daunting responsibility of being the cashier tonight. I got into work about 10 minutes early, as is my habit. And the cashier before me was working. Now, I am sure she is very good at what she does. But she has set off my pet peeve meter twice now, last night when she hogged the register, and today when she treated me like I work under her. I'm not sure she means to do such a thing, because she is a mother, maybe it is natural for her to lord over people. I do not appreciate, or accept being lorded over though. So her constant standing behind me correcting me inappropriately in front of customers over silly things has not made me fond of her. She stuck around at work for two entire hours after her shift had ended. And hour of which she was clocked in. Being an honest employee, I try my best to make my boss money, and not to use him to make myself some money. Anyway. Moving on.

So at first my shift was stressful, I'm still getting use to the register and menu(which I am quickly memorizing) and the evening rush was a bit stressful at first, but I chilled and just went with the flow after a while. We have so many interesting customers who are very excited to have the store open here in Santa Maria. They, like myself, are often faithful visitors of non-local Natural Cafes in Santa Barbara and San Luis. I can't even begin to tell you how many people thanked us for being open. Being a cashier is a joy for me! I love interacting with all the unique people and getting to know them. One of the amazingly positive customers we had tonight was the morning show NewsLady for KCOY, and she wants to do a special on us! What wonderful advertisement...! I also had my beautiful best friend Jen come in and visit with her Mother and Father, and seeing their familiar faces was like walking on a cloud of euphoria! Not so positive customers I dealt with was my teacher from Hancock, Restrepo, whom I dropped the class of. I felt awful seeing him. It was like enforced re meeting of an ex, a very unpleasant feeling. There was another lady who came in and ordered a sandwich and side salad, then after having paid and received her food went off on a rant asking about calories, this made me wonder 'Why oh why ask now when the food is here instead of before the food was prepaired?' She even asked if are blue corn chips had sugar in them. The worst customer of all had to be the one who came in and ordered a salad, then came over and was all 'oh, just change it to a salmon(which costs 4 dollars more than the salad she ordered). So we changed it for her, and I called her over to pay for it a few minutes later to pay the difference, which she did well enough. So finally her salmon special is ready, and I take it out to her, and she pitches a fit because the sauce that it came with that day was on it, and apparently she did not want to eat this sauce, so she made me take it back and get the poor faithful cooks to make a new one :(

So co-worker wise I worked with the Managers Stacy and Kurt, Megan was on Juicebar training the other Megan and Emily was a runner/2nt cashier. They did quite well considering it was all of our first day pretty much 'on our own'. After the girls left, I was closing with Kurt, who had also never closed before. I quickly par-took of my set of chores, 'amazing' him with my ability to not want to be managed and to just do the list without being told. Quite the simple close, after my complex jobs at Higher Grounds practically running the shop, and working my butt off at Albertsons making bread every day, I find the 'take out the trash, stock some stuff, and clean a bit' list to be simple and easy. I'm use to closing entire stores alone!

For my meal today I tried the 'Good Karma Burger' (22) $5.95 Which is a tempeh veggie patty served on a whole wheat bun with lettuce, tomato, sprouts, and garlic mayo. It is of course served with our blue corn chips and spicy salsa. This patty had lots of interesting beans in it and corn. I took an apprehensive first bite and found it surprisingly flavorful(more so than most normal burgers) the sprouts and other veggies accenting its healthy flavor, the oat flacks on top added a bit of authentic beauty. In the end though I was forced to add some of my favorite condiment, mustard. Definitely can recommend this unique item, it is tasteful and fun! Good alternative to your every day burger.

All in all day one of work was fun and tasty;)

Friends and Family Night

Tonight the Santa Maria store opened it's doors for the first time to serve the friends and family of the employees that work in our store. After setting up and finding out that I was to be one of the Cashiers, we drew our nights board. The most unique one we shall ever see I'm sure. And everyone signed it. Soon the doors opened and it was an eternal rush. I've never seen so many people in our store at once. Non-stop all evening. Free healthy food can't be ignored. This is all I can say. Our managers handled it like pros. Lewis, the overall store supervisor dude was very stern yet polite to everyone. Stacy, our store manager smiled politely as she always does and spoke in gentle adorable tones. Kurt and Mason will make fine Assistant managers as well. The head chef Ricardo was around to make sure his cooks stayed on task on this hectic night.
The cooks were quite amazing despite the fact they had endless orders. Alot of our customers were unfortunately rude Highschool students who sat around long after they ate hogging tables up and being disruptive. Personally it reminded me why I tend to be prejudice against high schoolers in the workplace. Anyway, starting tomorrow I will post a food review of one of the items complete with a nice picture and more rants on the life of working at The Natural Cafe.

Three of the cooks who were very happy to have their pic being taken.

Opening Post

To start, I'll say a few words about this blog. My name is JoDee and I just got hired about 3 weeks ago at an all Natural restaurant in the central coast area of California called 'The Natural Cafe'. Here in this blog I plan on keeping a total review of this job, including pictures, food reviews, employee records of attitudes and things they do and various other silly things I'm sure no one is really interested in. But why not?