The minibus pulled up on the drive of the Hadley Wood House, squeezing between a Portakabin, a site toilet and a huge mound covered by a tarpaulin. Jinnie looked around at the confusion and then at the garage block. In the time they had been away it had been extended in two directions furthest from the house, an additional garage had been added and it was now a three-car garage although the new door was still in a grey undercoat and had yet to be painted ‘fire engine red’ to match the existing garage doors. The gap between the garage and the house had now been filled in and the garage roof now ran into the side wall of the house. Through the doorless door frame, a new timber staircase could be seen giving access to the space above the garages that was to become Izzy’s flat. Two new window openings had been punched through the brick and were awaiting frames. Several more window openings were marked out but work on them was still to commence.
Jinnie wondered how many people were working on site as she was surprised at the progress being made. Izzy looked up at the new flatlet and said, “Gosh, I’m amazed at what has been done while we have been away.” Of course, when Jinnie unlocked the front door Larry was waiting for them and a pile of mail was waiting for them on the hall table. Jinnie scooped up Larry and hugged him saying, “I really don’t know how you do it, but you always know when we are coming home.” Putting Larry down she wandered into the kitchen and called, “Who wants a drink?” Izzy replied, “I could murder a decent mug of tea please.” Paolo asked for coffee and the twins asked for ‘juice’.
Jinnie put a pod in the coffee maker and pressed the button. Then she filled the kettle and switched it on before putting Yorkshire tea bags into two mugs. Like Izzy she rather fancied a proper cup of tea, not the Lipton’s bag on a string and a lukewarm cup of water that the hotel thought made a cup of tea. In her head she made a note to put aside a big box of Yorkshire tea bags to take to the new Barbados house in the summer. Walking over to the fridge she found a note from her mother held on the door by a Bertie Basset magnet. It read –
‘Welcome home my Darlings,
I have put fresh Milk, Butter, Eggs, Bacon, Tomatoes and cartons of Orange and Apple juice in the Fridge. There is an M&S Sliced Farmhouse loaf in the bread bin and Hobnobs in the biscuit tin. If you are not too tired, it’s Penny’s turn for Sunday Lunch and she’s doing Roast Chicken for one thirty. Give her a ring so she knows how much veg to do and if you want Yorkies!
Love
Mum’
Reaching for the milk she said, “Good old Mum,” and put the milk carton on the table next to the mugs. Paolo’s coffee was ready and as he carried his mug to the table he asked, “What’s your mum done?” and Jinnie handed him the note before calling, “Twins, orange or apple juice?” The instant reply was a chorus of, “Orange please,” and Izzy was still getting their special glasses out of the cupboard when they arrived with Larry padding along behind. With everyone seated around the table with their drinks and biscuits, between feeding crumbled Hobnob to an appreciative Larry, Jinnie asked, “Who wants to go to Auntie Penny’s for lunch, it’s roast chicken. The twins both yelled, “Me, me,” and Larry looked up expectantly. Jinnie saw him and said, “I won’t forget you, Larry, I’ll bring some chicken home for you. Now the next question is who wants Yorkshire puddings with their lunch, I must tell Auntie Penny. This time everyone said, “Me.”
Penny and Dan had excelled themselves with a huge roast chicken, roast potatoes, peas, carrots, cauliflower, a pile of Yorkshire puddings and a big jug of chicken gravy. Jinnie was hungry, it was a long time since breakfast on the plane, but it was the twin’s appetites that shocked her, they came back for seconds, had two Yorkies and then two scoops of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. As they sat with their after-lunch coffee, the twins watching TV and the adults chatting, Jinnie told the family about the house and how with the extra bedrooms she would be able to entertain them all at the same time.
As they left to go home, Penny whispered to Jinnie, “Alan said if I saw you this weekend could I tell you he has a little job for you. He said you have the right skills. He said there is no rush, he said he is away until Wednesday so could you ring Louise and make an appointment to see him.” “I suppose so,” replied Jinnie. “Do you know what he has in mind?” “No,” said Penny, “as I told you we have been busy putting people into Russia, but it can’t be that, as you don’t speak Russian. He has kept this one close to his chest.”
***
On Monday Izzy took the twins to school where she watched them showing off their tans to their friends as they met in the playground on the way in. She then headed off to do the food shopping at M&S London Colney. It was a little more expensive than the Tesco Extra in Potters Bar but now Jinnie was rich she didn’t mind paying a little extra for the added quality. Izzy still shopped in Tesco for the household things, but she tended to agree with Jinnie, the meat, vegetables and deli stuff in Marks was better.
At the same time, Jinnie was in Maple House drinking her coffee and scanning her email inbox. She desperately wanted a chat with Alberto to discuss the Antigua project. Technically it was a Trattoria Trevi (Caribbean) Limited project and had been approved by that board, but she felt that it didn’t feel right not seeking Alberto’s approval. Not only that, but she simply had to discuss the embryonic Canadian business. Sir Nigel was first to come to see her and said, “I hear your inheritance has been burning a hole in your pocket and you have bought a holiday home.”
“We have,” replied Jinnie. “It’s the villa we stayed in last summer. It is in a fabulous location on the Sandy Bay Estate, close to the beach, Anderson’s, and Belinda. We all adored it, so when we learnt it was for sale, it was a must-buy. Anyway, Belinda and Keith have seen it and will be doing all the work we want to turn it into our dream house.” “Talking about dream homes, I had a look at what Belinda’s crew were doing on your house and they are getting on jolly well. I got up about none yesterday and Larry was gone so I knew you were home.”
As they talked, Alberto walked into the office, waved to them and headed for his office. Jinnie waved to him and beckoned him into her office and said, “Good morning, Alberto, I need to talk to you about a couple of things. Why not sit down and I can tell you and Sir Nigel about my latest ideas. This may take a while so perhaps you could ask Janet to bring us all coffee while I explain what I have been doing.” “I suppose you have been spending more company money,” said Alberto.
***
Following the delivery of the coffee, Jinnie asked for her office door to be closed before telling Alberto and Sir Nigel about the TT Continental (Antigua) and the deal with The Carnival Group. When she had finished Alberto asked, “Tell me again how this deal with Carnival thing works, I thought we were in business with P&O Cruises.” “We are,” replied Jinnie “but P&O is only one company in the Carnival Group. They own a load of companies. In Britain they have a U.K. subsidiary that owns P&O Cruises and Cunard. Then in the US they own Carnival Cruises, Holland America, Princess Cruises and Seaborne. Then they own P&O Australia and Costa Cruises in Italy. Together that is over 100 cruise ships.”
“That is some big company,” said Alberto. “So do we get passengers from all of the divisions?” “Well, yes and no,” answered Jinnie. “Not all the companies offer Caribbean cruises, I know for a fact P&O Australia don’t. British P&O Cruises only sail to Antigua from November to March, and I think Costa mainly cruise the Med. But that leaves an awful lot of the group ships that regularly overnight in Antigua. So that is why this deal is with Carnival.”
“How far on are we with it?” asked Sir Nigel. “The restaurant purchase is with the lawyers,” answered Jinnie. “We have shaken hands with Carnival and the contract is being finalised by the lawyers, Belinda has measured up and has given us a working cost and Keith has been briefed. I have promoted Trevor to area director, and he is looking for managers and staff.” “What about costs?” asked Alberto. “I’ve been working on it with Brian,” answered Jinnie. “We are pretty sure we can do it out of existing ‘Caribbean’ funds.”
“Right then,” said Alberto, “if it were a new Trattoria Trevi I would be tentatively saying, go ahead but show me the full costing on the spreadsheet and if I like it, I’ll put it to the board. This is a bit different, it’s your ‘Caribbean’ board you need to convince, but I would still like to see the spreadsheet.” “Thank you,” said Jinnie. “Here is the spreadsheet, as far as it goes. The numbers in cyan are preliminary and we are still looking at firming them up. For example, we don’t yet have the cost of two commercial deep-fat fryers in Antigua. I have used the Barbados price and added 10%. I have added 10% to anything else like that so I think the sheet is probably over the top. But by using the two tenants scenario, it is making a big profit well before the end of year one. And from year two onwards the numbers are phenomenal. I have checked them three times and they come out the same every time.
Jinnie passed copies of her spreadsheet to both Alberto and Sir Nigel who both devoured it. Nigel’s eye quickly went to the summary on the first page and the bottom line where Jinnie had the predicted full-year numbers for years one to five. Jinnie watched him read them once and then go back and read them again before letting out a little “my God” before starting to read the other pages that fed into the summary page. Alberto was a little behind Sir Nigel, and when he got to the bottom line, he turned to Jinnie and said, “Are you sure it is right, in year two it is making more money than our biggest Trattoria Trevi.” “That’s partly why I needed to show this to you. I could hardly believe it, and I’d love you to check the inputs. I sent the sheet to Brain last night and he checked that it is working correctly. He said and I quote ‘Those numbers are unbelievable if they are right’. So, I want you to go through the spreadsheet with a fine-tooth comb. I would hate to have made a silly mistake, Brian said he couldn’t check the inputs as that ‘isn’t his area of expertise’ but he confirmed the spreadsheet works.
Alberto said, “OK, I will spend the rest of this morning trying to pick holes,” and with that he stood up to go back to his office. Before he turned for the door Jinnie said, “Hold on, I have a second project we need to discuss, and this one is nowhere near as advanced. At the moment Brooke is running with it as it’s a fast-food thing, but we might need to set up a whole new division.” Alberto sighed and sat down saying, “Every time you go somewhere you don’t just come back with a new money-making idea it’s always two or three. I suppose we better listen.”
Jinnie told the story of meeting Jack Baker and his family through the twins and how it had emerged that he leased a KFC territory in Ottawa, his dispute with KFC and the opportunity this presented to establish a small fried chicken shop chain in Ottawa by setting up a joint venture company. Jinnie explained how these negotiations needed to be kept as secret as possible as if KFC found out she was sure they would do their best to kill the project. Jinnie told them that her idea was a bit like the original Aunty JoJo’s deal. In this case Jack would put in his chain of 14 freehold shops and Trattoria Trevi would build the infrastructure, a chicken and fries (chips), chicken nuggets, chicken burger, etc, preparations plant with chilled delivery to the branches. She didn’t think DKL would be interested in opening a delivery kitchen because there were already a number, but she and Jack thought that if things went well they would lease one.
Sir Nigel, asked, “Are all the branches in Ottawa?” “Yes,” answered Jinnie, “Jack has plans to expand in the area so it would make sense to base the prep plant there and to build in lots of spare capacity.” Alberto nodded and said, “That makes sense to me, but how do we grow the business? Do we build outlets in other cities, or sell franchises? Canada is enormous, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are hours away by road. We might need more prep plants.”
Jinnie replied, “Jack and I talked about it. We both like the idea of following both paths. We open a few branches in an area, set up an expandable prep kitchen and then offer franchises. We have already been drawing up a franchise operation manual for the U.K. I don’t think it will be too hard to convert it to cope with Canadian law. Of course, we will need to hire Canadian lawyers.” “OK,” said Sir Nigel, “I can see you have been thinking about this. But I have several questions, how will it be managed, you don’t have much spare time on your hands, what is it likely to cost, how do we keep it quiet, who else knows what you and Jack have been cooking up?”
Jinnie said, “Yes, Jack and I had a lot of talks about managing the joint venture, I want to hand our side of the project over to Brooke, she has been a wonder on everything I have thrown at her. The Sandwich Shops are going gangbusters and in recent months she has been handed over much of the day-to-day running to her deputy Jan. She has sorted out the contract with P&O, she has done the negotiating with Carnival, she has overseen the Sybaritic/Sandwich bar project, which is looking pretty good. I think Jack needs to be in charge. I think that’s the CEO in Canada and Brooke as the COO, Molly, Jack’s wife is his CFO. I think that is a pretty good top team. The only people who know about this are us three, Brooke, Jack and Molly, Patricia and Monica, that’s because I had to show Jack and Molly our Aunty JoJo’s set-up and how I was proposing mirroring it. I think we can trust all of them to keep quiet.”
“I am going to have to talk to Brian, Nigel and our head of legal affairs,” continued Jinnie. “We will need to set up the Joint Venture under Canadian law and I want a name unconnected to either company and no mention of chicken in the name. My twins were looking at an animal book yesterday and showed me a picture of a bearcat. I suddenly thought ‘Bearcat Foods’, what do you think?”
“I like it,” said Alberto. “Can we set it up at arm’s length?” “I think so,” replied Jinnie, “if we put our 50% holding under Artisan Sandwiches anyone stumbling on the company will think we are setting up a sandwich business.” “That’s good,” said Sir Nigel. “But we are going to have to bring in other people, Belinda for design, a Canadian law firm, an estate agent, a fit-out company, suppliers, printers, truck suppliers and that’s just off the top of my head.” “That’s where I think we can make use of Jack, he is sure to know people.” Alberto added, “I can see that but it’s money that worries me, just how much is this going to cost and can we afford it?” “That’s why I need to talk with Brian. I don’t think the FastFood Division will be able to do it from its own resources. But I’m pretty sure the group has the funding, and we can make FastFood a loan.”
As the meeting broke up, and Jinnie set about phoning Brooke, Brian, and Belinda. Janet bustled in. “Dame Jinnie, Rick from the TT Ennios has been trying to reach you. I told him you were in a meeting with the door shut so I couldn’t interrupt. He asked me to get you to ring him immediately the meeting was over.” “Thank you, Janet, I’ll ring him now. Oh, Janet, please call me Jinnie, the Dame bit is only for people I need to impress.”
Jinnie asked Janet to close the door as she left and hit the button on her desk phone that was labelled Rick – TT Ennios. The line took a few seconds to connect before it rang twice and Rick said, “Hello Jinnie, thanks for ringing back.” “That’s OK, said Jinnie, “I was in a closed-door meeting with my phones on ‘Do Not Disturb’. Now I guess you have a problem.” “Not at all,” replied Rick. “Unless you call having a 99%-full hotel a problem. No, it’s a bit of information for you. You remember you asked for people to keep an eye open for what could become the next TT Ennios. The restaurant manager from the hotel I used to manage in Bournemouth rang me an hour ago to tell me the hotel was going on the market.”
“Frankly, it doesn’t come as a surprise,” continued Rick. “The owners have a reputation for buying beat-up hotels and getting them back on their feet and selling them on. But I think they have missed a trick here. The Supreme has been done up nicely and will turn a decent profit for whoever buys it. I am proud of pulling that hotel up by its bootstraps. But I always had an eye on the Belvedere next door. It has been closed and on the market for ages, but I don’t think doing it up on its own will bring a decent return. But merged with the Supreme you will have a high-class 120-room hotel on the seafront. Together they will have a huge restaurant, we could lose the Belvedere’s reception and it could be anything, a coffee shop, a games room, but I always fancied an upmarket cocktail bar.”
“I’m interested,” said Jinnie. “I’ve got a couple of questions; can we see it, and do you know how much they are asking.” “I suggest you book into the Supreme for a night, this time of year they normally have some vacancies, if it was August, you would have no chance. I am sure you can also get a viewing of the Belvedere; the agent will only be too delighted to have some interest. How about I have a word with Rod, he’s the restaurant manager, he has been there ages and knows everyone. He can organise a tour of the Supreme without the general manager knowing. He is the owner’s man and not liked by the staff. As for the asking price, Rod didn’t know, it’s not officially on the market, but he’s trying to find out.”
Jinnie stuck her head around Sir Nigel’s office and said, “Sorry to bother you again but something has just come up, would you like to join me in another quick meeting with Alberto.” The pair walked down the row of offices before Jinnie said to Janet, “I need about 15 minutes with him, please can you make sure we are not disturbed.” “Certainly,” was the reply. Jinnie tapped on Alberto’s office door and walked in. Alberto looked up and said, “Oh no, what now?” Nigel shrugged as Jinnie shut the door and launched in telling them about the latest opportunity that had just occurred. She commented that it was very early days but if Rick was right, and she trusted his instincts, then this could be worth investigating at the least. Alberto lent back in his chair and said to Sir Nigel, “I take it this is news to you too.” To which he replied, “Yes, and I think we should at least visit the hotel and have a look at it and the Belvedere. No commitment at this stage. If we don’t like what we see, we can walk away and all it will have cost is a night’s accommodation for a few people, travel and meals. We would do similar with any prospective purchase. If whoever looks at it thinks the scheme has legs, we can start looking at the costs and if the numbers work.” “That is exactly what I was thinking,” said Alberto. “OK, who fancies a trip to the Seaside?”
***
On her return from shopping Izzy was stopped at the barrier at the end of the road for longer than normal. Then she realised why, the man on the gate must have called George as he hurried over to the car from the portable building that had replaced the truck-based mobile command centre while she had been in Barbados. George stuck his head close to the open driver’s window and said, “I have been looking out for you, but I had just gone on a refreshment break when you arrived. I have something to ask you, I have got a booking for dinner in a rather nice restaurant a week on Friday night, would you like to come?” “Yes, please,” said Izzy, rather too quickly she thought. “Great,” said George, “how about I pick you up at seven-thirty, the table is booked for eight.” “That would be lovely,” replied Izzy.
As she drove to the house, first she blushed when thinking how quickly she had agreed on the date. Then she wondered where they were going, it couldn’t be far as he was only picking her up 30 minutes before the booking, but there were so many nice restaurants in the area; Barnet, Enfield, Cockfosters, London Colney, Brookmans Park, they all fell in the time bracket.
Belinda’s men were hard at work, in fact, they had arrived a 7:30 that morning. Jason was in charge and the twins had been delighted to see him again and had run to say hello as he had unlocked the Portakabin that served as his office and the workers’ restroom. As she unloaded the car and thought about what to wear on the date, she could see Jason supervising the removal of bricks to form another window for her flat and the noise of a cement mixer reached her from the rear of the property where the ground workers were busy casting foundations. Izzy had just got back to the car to collect the last bags of shopping when Jason stopped to talk on his way to his office.
He proudly told her he was already ahead of program on the work, the local authority building inspector had just gone and had signed off on everything done so far and had given permission for the foundations concrete pour and would be back in a few days, when it had hardened, to check it was to plan and if everything was OK he would authorise the backfilling of the trenches and the courses of brick up to the damp proof course. Much of this went over her head but she nodded along and hoped she had said yes in the right places.
***
Jinnie made a series of phone calls starting with Brooke to tell her how she was now in charge of the Canadian project and was hardly surprised when she asked, “What Canadian project?” Jinnie swore her to secrecy before explaining about her and Jack’s plans. Finally, Brooke said, “Gosh, this could be big, do you know how many KFCs there are in Canada, I’ve been on the internet while you were explaining, it’s about 650, do you plan to rival them with Aunty JoJo’s? “I like to think so,” said Jinnie. “I think they are beginning to know about us, we already have more branches than them in Barbados and are on our way in Trinidad, but we are tiny by comparison with their 25,000 branches worldwide. There are nearly a thousand in the U.K. alone so we have a long way to go.”
“It going to be a while before we can open up as there is a lot to do, but the group will back you and put up the necessary money,” explained Jinnie before continuing, “You are going to have to work closely with Jack and Molly on this so you’ll have to visit Canada regularly, so I suggest you sign for whoever you fly with’s air points programme. I don’t think there is a direct flight, so you will probably have to get a flight to Toronto and get changed to a local flight back.” “I was afraid you were going to say I would need to move there,” said Brooke.” “No, I don’t think that is necessary,” replied Jinnie, “but I think you are going to spend a lot of time there and sitting on a jet, so it’s going to have to be Business Class travel. Can you get to head office this afternoon or tomorrow so we can arrange things?”
“I’m in Bristol looking at possible outlets at the moment, so this afternoon is out, but I can be there tomorrow morning,” said Brooke. “Good,” said Jinnie, “let’s say nine-thirty,” said Jinnie. “I’ll book the boardroom and see who else we can get for the ‘kick-off’ meeting, I need to make a few phone calls.” Jinnie’s next call was to Belinda she needed to get her onside to handle the design of the prep plant, corporate offices and to find a Canadian fit-out/refurbishment contractor, she also wanted her to come with her to Bournemouth, not so much for the Supreme but because of what Rick had said about the Belvedere.
Belinda agreed to be at the 09:30 meeting and she would travel with Brian in his car, as it was his day to work at Potters Bar, and join Jinnie on an afternoon train journey to Bournemouth. Jinnie then invited Alberto, Sir Nigel, Brian, and the head of legal affairs to the kick-off meeting. She sat wondering if there was anyone else who was essential, she knew the more people at the meeting the more likely its purpose could leak but she didn’t want to miss anyone important. After a few minutes she realised that Nigel was essential, it was the IT system that made the business work.
Jinnie then turned her mind to the Bournemouth project, she already had herself and Belinda in the inspection party, she needed Nigel for the IT, Alberto and Sir Nigel had both said they wanted to see the place but was taking Sir Nigel too much of a risk, he was so well known? Alberto was not a public figure and his wandering around a ‘for sale’ hotel would not be noticed, but Sir Nigel might draw the attention of the press and she didn’t want a story in ‘Innkeeper’ before they were ready. No, the initial inspection party was going to have to be her, Belinda, Nigel and Alberto.
In Chapter 22 – The Belvedere
© WorthingGooner 2024
