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Jinnie heard nothing from the Walters until Tuesday afternoon when she got a call and the voice said, “Good afternoon Dame Jinnie, this is Andrew Walters from the Lobster House.” Jinnie replied, “Good afternoon Mr Walters, please call me Jinnie, I am only Dame Jinnie on formal occasions. I do hope you have some good news for me.” “Well, I think so,” came the reply, “and please call me Andy. We have had our family discussion, and we would like to explore your offer a little further. We really don’t understand what is in this deal for you.”
“It’s quite simple really,” answered Jinnie. “Anderson and I are investing for the future. I am sitting on rather a lot of inherited money, and I would rather make it work for me. When we make Anderson’s UK a big success it will be paying dividends to all its shareholders, you and your wife and Anderson’s Caribbean company, which pays dividends to Anderson and me. I build up a bit more of a nest egg in the Caribbean and look for other investments. Nothing illegal, I declare my earnings and pay my taxes.”
“Could we take you up on a couple of your offers?” asked Andy. “Of course,” replied Jinnie, “which ones.” “Well initially, could we meet you in your office in Crawley?” said Andy, “it’s not too far for us to go and perhaps we could meet on Thursday morning. As you know, we don’t open until the evening, and that would give us a chance to get back in time to do some prep for evening service.” “I think that should be OK,” said Jinnie, “I can show you the offices and the dark kitchens. I will organise a snack lunch in the boardroom, could you be there for 10. I’ll email you the address, reserve you a parking space and pre-warn reception and my PA I am expecting visitors.”
***
Jinnie decided that she should get a couple of preparations moving and phoned her solicitors, where she organised with the business side to set up a new company called to be called Anderson’s Fish Restaurant’s (UK) Limited. Initially it was to have 400 £1 shares, they were to be owned by Anderson’s Fish Restaurants (Barbados) Limited, she expected two lots of 100 shares to be sold shortly. Douglas Rose, her new business contact at her solicitors, advised buying an off-the-shelf already set-up company and he would change its name. By the end of the conversation Jinnie had bought the XXXYZZZ Corporation and Douglas said its change of name, with her as the sole director, would be complete by that evening and it would have a registered address at a firm of accountants the solicitors worked closely with.
When Jinnie checked on Wednesday morning, the company was set up, so her next job was to set up a business bank account in the new company’s name and transfer £100,000 of her own money into it. Her contact at Barclays said she would have a company chequebook and a credit card as soon as they could be produced.
On Thursday Jinnie turned up at DKL bright and early, purchased her fried egg and sausage bap and had the coffee made, all before Alice hustled into the office. Alice said, “Wow, you must have left home extra early this morning to be here this early.” “Well, I am going to have to take time out of the day to deal with some private visitors who you have arranged lunch for. So, I suppose I better do a bit of DKL work while I’m here. Do you know if we have completed on the site of the new Shoreham kitchens yet and how are the negotiations going for Chichester?” “Shoreham is ours and Belinda’s crew start work next week,” replied Alice. “As for Chichester, the last I heard was the council were being a bit difficult about our delivery drivers working until midnight, which is a bit much when Domino’s and McDonald’s currently deliver until one am. Legal are on it, but we won’t sign the lease until things are sorted out.”
“Thank you,” said Jinnie, “do you think you could get whoever is in charge of finding tenants for Shoreham to pop up and see me as soon as possible. And tell him he’s not in trouble, I want a favour. Oh, and when reception rings to say the Walters are here, could you pop down and get them and bring them here immediately, I want them to see how efficient we are. I’m going to give them the grand tour so please make sure the buffet is ready in the boardroom. One other thing, as soon as they arrive I’m going to offer them coffee, so please put a fresh pot on at about ten to ten, I want them to taste what really good coffee is like.”
Jinnie was delighted to see that the person who arrived to talk about Shoreham was Jake, who had been one of the first employees of the company and she knew well. To ensure he was at ease she offered him coffee as soon as he sat down. Every employee knew that if you were offered coffee, you weren’t in trouble. Jinnie said, “Jake I need a big favour, I want to reserve a kitchen at Shoreham in the name of Anderson’s Fish Restaurants (UK) Limited, it a new company and not actually trading yet but I am sure it will be by the time the kitchens are ready.”
“You know we aren’t supposed to reserve kitchens for ghost companies,” said Jake. “There will be no comeback on this,” replied Jinnie, “Anderson’s is my company, and I am pretty sure it will be trading within a month, probably sooner. I am willing to write a personal cheque for a reservation right this minute if you tell me what the reservation fee for Shoreham is.” “It’s £10,000 boss,” answered Jake and Jinnie wrote the cheque and handed it to him.
“One other thing, if anyone asks about the company, refer them to me. This is a new venture in the U.K., and we are trying to keep it quiet at the moment. Oh, I nearly forgot, who is down for Chichester because I will probably want a kitchen there too.” “It’s me again boss,” came the reply. “Great,” said Jinnie, “please call me the moment Chichester is released for reservations, even before you speak to the usual core tenants.”
The next person to talk to on Jinnie’s list was Belinda, whose first words were, “Hello Jinnie, I assume you need a bit of help with something.” “Don’t I always,” replied Jinnie. “I don’t suppose you have got anywhere with that extension for the Lobster House.” “Well actually we have a rough outline sketch, and the lads are just starting on some design drawings that we can cost,” said Belinda. “But the sketches look rather good. We have used a couple of feet of the front terrace, redesigned the main entrance and the reception bar and used that bit of spare land down the side of the building. We’ve squeezed in another 24 covers.” “Excellent,” said Jinnie, “I don’t suppose you’d like to pop over and show the design to the Walters at about 12, there’s a buffet lunch on offer.” “I be there,” answered Belinda.
Next on Jinnie’s list to phone was Phil, who ran TT Kitchen Services, who supplied kitchen brigades for any company that wanted a Dark Kitchen but couldn’t staff it themselves. Phil could put together a brigade for anything from a fine dining establishment to a workman’s cafe. When he answered her call Jinnie said, “Hello Phil, it’s Jinnie de Luca. I hope you can help me, I’m at DKL today and I’m putting together some costs for a prospective client and he asking questions I can’t answer. I need the cost of a brigade and a manager to run a fish restaurant. No not a chippy a high-end establishment with a chef who knows what he is doing with a Lobster or Halibut and not to overcook scallops. While I think about it, he is probably going to need two brigades, a daytime say 11 till 17:30 and an evening, say 17:30 till midnight.”
Phil’s first question was where. Jinnie replied, “probably the new DKL at Shoreham.” “That’s good,” replied Phil, “wages are lower than central London or Manchester. I take it you want everything down to a kitchen porter.” “Absolutely,” said Jinnie, “can you detail everything down to recommended kitchen appliances other than the DKL basic fit out.” “No problem,” said Phil, “I’ll put it all on a spreadsheet and email it to you. Give me a couple of hours and it will be with you. If there are things on the sheet your client doesn’t want, he can delete the line.”
Jinnie had started two spreadsheet the day before. One for the Trattoria Trevi on Worthing pier and one for a fish restaurant, Dark Kitchen. She still had a good distance to go with both projects but she now knew at least she was getting somewhere. Alberto was showing a big interest in the Worthing pier project, something he rarely did, normally he stood aside and let others do the thinking on a new project, but he seemed to be fully committed to this one.
***
Jinnie’s visitors arrived at exactly 10 o’clock and Alice collected them and brought them to Jinnie’s office. As arranged, Jinnie offered them coffee and Alice served steaming mugs of Jamaica Blue Mountain. Andy sipped his wife and turned to his wife and said, “Now this is what I mean about serving good coffee, surely you can taste the difference between this and what we serve.” Jinnie said, “This is Jamaica Blue Mountain, it is one of the better coffees and is not cheap, but we serve it in all our up-market restaurants and hotels. We have our own blend in the cafes and sandwich bars because we need something that is good but not as expensive. We serve many thousands of cups of coffee every day and we would go bust if we didn’t use a cheaper but excellent, blend in SuperBurger and Auntie JoJo’s.”
“If you join us,” continued Jinnie, “I would put you in the fine dining category and suggest you moved to this blend. Obviously we purchase it for a much better than a single restaurant like yours could hope to get from a wholesaler. Let me tell you a story. Before I became involved with SuperBurger and before they merged with Trattoria Trevi their chairman and controlling shareholder was convinced they served the best coffee of all the big burger chains. When I arrived on the scene I organised a blind tasting and SuperBurger coffee came bottom of all the big chains offerings. I got them to switch to the same blend as Aunty JoJo’s was using. It worked at about a penny a cup more expensive, but overnight they were selling 50% more coffee, and they were making more money.”
“Dad and I have been telling mum we need to do something about our coffee for ages,” chimed in Vicky, “but she is worried it will reflect adversely in our profits. Now I am even more convinced we should change.” Angela obviously wanted to change the subject and asked, “These are big offices, do you run the whole if the TT SuperBurger empire from here?” “Oh no,” replied Jinnie. “This is just the head office of the Dark Kitchens Limited Division. The SuperBurger FastFood Division has offices in the centre of Crawley, and Trattoria Trevi have their offices in Potters Bar where the Group Offices are, together with central services like the Computer Centre, HR and Office Services.”
“Then we have another block just up the road,” said Jinnie, “the Construction Division are located there as is the Events Group, but that is only part owed by the TT SuperBurger Group. Then there are offices in Bridgetown, Tampa and Ottawa. But don’t forget you would not be part of the TT SuperBurger Group, you would be owned 50/50 by yourselves and Anderson’s Fish Restaurants (UK) Limited.” “So where would you see us having office if we get large enough?” asked Andy.
“Oh, in a couple of years you will be big enough,” replied Jinnie, “we will have another restaurant and your first dark kitchen within a month if you decide to join with me. As for offices, I have eyes on the block directly opposite here the other side of the road. An engineering company has a long lease on it at the moment, but they have been taken over by a French company who have their British HQ in Warrington, and I understand they are looking to sublet a floor almost immediately, with further floors to follow later this year and the middle of next year. I want to take a floor and move in my own company De Luca Holdings Limited. I own 100 per cent of that and it looks after the company’s I own outright and the shareholdings I have in other companies.”
“For example, I own Wedding Dress Bargains, and they are rapidly running out of space in their current offices,” continued Jinnie, “they are pencilled into move in over the road as soon as possible. I’m sure there would be room for your offices and by the time you have outgrown what is available a new floor or two will become available. I suspect by then WDB will we ready to expand into what you give up. As I already mentioned, I also own a large part of TT SuperBurger Events. Together with Belinda who you have already met and her husband Brian who is our Group Finance Director. We control 60% of the company and the TT SuperBurger Group has the other 40% and we would like them to move into the De Luca Holdings Limited building to create more space for the rapidly expanding Construction Division.”
“But that’s enough about office moves for the time being,” said Jinnie, “let’s get on with our tour of the site. Then we have a buffet lunch in the Board Room where Belinda will be joining us.” Jinnie led the party off around the busy offices, the computer / comms room and to the door onto the production mezzanine where they all donned white coats and hair nets for hygiene purposes. Stepping out onto the mezzanine always drew a ‘wow’ from visitors and this was no exception. The vast mezzanine stretched out in front of them and Jinnie pointed out the 12 kitchens on this level. Looking over the handrail to the ground floor several trucks were delivering fresh and frozen foodstuffs to the storerooms, fridges and freezers under each kitchen.
As they watched, one of the giant roller shutters rattled open and a lorry delivering fresh meat backed in. Andy said, “This is some business you have here.” Jinnie replied, “This is only one of about 35 such buildings we have in the U.K. and Ireland and 5 more in the Caribbean. Of course, not all are this big, the one we are building in Shoreham only has 8 kitchens and my plans call for our joint venture to have one.” “I have loads of questions,” said Barry, “who takes the orders, how is the food delivered, how is it staffed and managed, how much does a kitchen cost?”
“Wait until the end of the tour and I think some of your questions will be answered,” said Jinnie, “and I will do my best to answer the others over lunch. Now as you can see, mornings are the best time for deliveries and restocking. Most of the kitchens only start trading in the afternoon and evening but SuperBurger open at seven for ‘Breakfast’ deliveries and take orders until 11:30 at night. They would like to trade 24 hours a day 7 days a week, but the council imposes restrictions. In some towns and cities they have no such limits, and I understand that trade is good all night.”
Arriving at a kitchen Jinnie stopped and said, “This is the SuperBurger kitchen, and I have arranged with the manager for you to step inside and he will explain the various stations. Please don’t go past the yellow line on the floor or we will be in trouble with the council health inspector.”
The Walters trooped in, and the manager pointed out the orders coming in on touch screen around the kitchen, burgers being griddled at one station, buns at another, hot dogs somewhere else, chicken burger, hash browns, you name it someone was cooking it. Everything went to an assembly station, then a packing station where it was bagged and labelled before being checked and cleared from the system. The finished meal disappeared onto a conveyor belt. “Gosh that’s impressive,” said Angela, “but where does the food go?” “To dispatch,” replied Jinnie, “and that’s our next stop.”
At dispatch the food came in on the conveyor and the team behind the counter combined deliveries where people had ordered from different kitchens, added in drinks, sorted into geographic destinations and handed over to either a van or scooter driver who placed the food in insulated containers and drove away. Andy asked, “Is it always this busy?” to which Jinnie said, “This is quiet, only 3 kitchens are working, and we only have one delivery station open, come back at six tonight and two more identical to this will open and the staff will be moving much faster. Next stop is ordering.”
Jinnie led the Walters to an adjacent low rise building where Jinnie explained, “When we first opened ordering was in a custom-built room in the corner of the delivery bay, but we quickly realised it was way too small. This is three times the size, and we are looking at further expanding it. We aim to answer every call within 10 seconds, and it has crept to nearer 15 recently. Let me explain how our system works. As you can see we have a bank of order takers, all have headsets and a computer screen in front of them. Each business with a kitchen has their own phone number so say you phone to order a pizza the call is routed to the next available order taker and their touch screen switches to the Pizza menu. They can build the order in seconds and say the customer want to place a mixed order and add say a burger, they can instantly switch to that screen.”
Jinnie continued, “When the order is complete the payment screen is displayed and the delivery address and card payment taken before the system issues a number and sends the order to the appropriate kitchen or kitchens. Of course, we offer to save the card number on our secure server as it speeds things up for future deliveries.” “And you are proposing we have a kitchen like this?” asked Angela. “Yes I have already reserved one at the Shoreham complex, but it won’t be finished for a couple of months,” replied Jinnie.
***
Over an ‘Artisan Sandwiches’ and cakes lunch Belinda showed the Walters the computer sketches that Andrew’s design team had prepared from her measurements and photos of the proposed expansion of the restaurant. Andrew had gone to town on the illustrations, adding external lighting, people sitting at the tables at the front of the building and signage with the proposed new name. Jinnie had to admit it looked impressive, and Bernice said to her mother, “This looks impressive, but how much will it cost and how long will it take to recover the cost.” Jinnie overheard the comment and said, “The cost is irrelevant, if you agree, this is going to be our flagship restaurant, the original and the best. It will be like the Potters Bar Trattoria Trevi, the one that everyone who is anyone wants to visit.”
Andy suddenly said, “I think I’ve seen enough, I vote that subject to the final legal agreements we go all in on this project. Let’s have a show of hands who agrees with me?” The family voted unanimously to join with Jinnie. Jinnie smiled internally and said, “Thank you everyone, I don’t think you will regret this decision, we are going to become a prestigious company, but first we have a lot of work to do. We need to get the legal work underway, and my legal people need to get busy. I will talk to my people this afternoon. Belinda needs her team to get the design drawings done and an application into the council for planning and building control permissions.”
Jinnie continued, “We may have to close the restaurant for a couple of weeks while the work is done and my offer of an inspection visit to Barbados still stands. I suggest two weeks in the sun while the work on the restaurant is done. When we firm up on the date I will make sure the villa is available or you can stay in the Ennios, the choice is yours, I will sort everything out. I take it you won’t mind flying from Heathrow, both BA and Virgin fly direct to Bridgetown from there. I usually use Virgin Upper Class, and it is excellent. Now there is one thing I would like you to think about, where should we open our second restaurant, I always favoured Brighton to start a chain of restaurants but with Worthing as our flagship it might be a bit close.” Vicky smiled and said, “Let’s try a bit further along the coast, Eastbourne or Hastings.”
***
Two months later, on a Friday evening Jinnie checked the family into the Ardington House Hotel in Worthing. It looked OK but only rated an official 3 stars. But it had the advantage of being in the middle of Worthing and very close to soon to be officially opened Anderson’s Fish Restaurant. Saturday night was the big night, and the Mayor was to perform the opening ceremony. Sir Nigel had lent on his Reform colleague very slightly, but Jinnie suspected the free meal would have swung it anyway.
Several of Jinnie’s fellow directors were coming but the list of local celebrities was painfully short, there were very few living in Worthing, but Caroline had used her media contacts, and the big dailies had all promised a restaurant critic would be in attendance. And of course, Anderson was flying in for the event.
The twins rather liked the idea of a weekend at the seaside even if it was still only April and not very warm. But had complained a little when Jinnie explained the beach was very pebbly and there was only sand if the tide was out. Izzy had told them it was far too cold to go in the sea but there was a big indoor swimming pool she would take them to as Mummy would likely be busy with work things.
The Trattoria Trevi on the pier wouldn’t be open for another fortnight so Jinnie accepted the offer of the receptionist to book a table for the six of them in the hotel’s restaurant that evening and was delighted to find the food remarkably good and wondered why so few were eating there. The waiter explained that it was the offseason, they had been busy over Christmas and the New Year but until the end of this month the coach tours they relied on to make their money just weren’t coming. It was the spring and autumn parties of oldies that kept the hotel functioning, and the Christmas, Easter and summer holidays.
The twins looked at the menu and immediately decided it was tomato soup, rack of lamb and ice cream. They were more than happy to eat some of their favourite things, and they had Saturday all planned. It was breakfast in the hotel, swimming in the pool with Izzy, George and Daddy while Mummy worked, Izzy had promised them lunch in the new SuperBurger and then they were going down the pier to watch men fishing and to play on the machines in the arcade. Then back to the hotel to wash and change before dinner at Mummy’s new fish restaurant where they were having special fish fingers and Uncle Nigel and Uncle Anderson were joining them.
***
The official opening was at 18:30 but the party, Uncle Anderson and Uncle Nigel all walked the short distance from the hotel to the Fish Restaurant and arrived just after six. Jinnie hadn’t managed to get down to Worthing before although she had spoken with the Walters who said they were delighted with the transformation that had occurred to the restaurant while they had been staying at the Ennios Barbados.
Things had moved on, De Luca Holdings had taken its floor in the building opposite DKL and Belinda had nearly finished setting up a computer room, and creating offices for De Luca Holdings, Wedding Dress Bargains and Anderson’s Fish Restaurants (UK) Limited. As soon as the next floor became available TT SuperBurger Events were moving in.
TT SuperBurger had acquired the building next door to DKL, and plans were with Crawley Council for its conversion into the main factory in the Southeast of England for Frank’s Original Ice Cream. There were plans for an initial 8 production lines and space for another 8. Belinda’s friend who custom built fridges and freezers for the likes of frozen food companies, supermarkets and food wholesalers had designed them for the new factory underneath the mezzanine the offices were to be on. The original factory in Worthing was to be retained but turned over to the production of sorbet which it had become apparent the high-class restaurants they were going to be supplying had a need for.
The launch of Frank’s Original in Worthing and the surrounding area had been a little slow at first, because they were simply replacing Sussex Coast where it had been sold. But when the second production line in the Broadwater plant came online, Caroline had leaked the story that Frank’s Original were to open an ice cream parlour to the Worthing Herald. The Herald’s story had been picked up by the Evening Argus in Brighton, to whom she also leaked the story of the new factory on Crawley’s Manor Royal Estate and the plans to open more ice cream parlours selling the American brand all along the South Coast. A London paper picked up the story from the Brighton Evening Argus, and they were soon pestering Caroline for more details.
Just as planned it was leaked that every TT SuperBurger outlet in the country was going to switch to this new brand, and sales started to pick up, and questions were asked when was it going to be available in other parts of the country. Scott, with Caroline’s expertise, put out a press release saying that the new Crawley factory was to be doubled in size because of unprecedented demand, and that would also enable an increase in the area they could distribute to. But they were on the outlook for regional manufacturing plant site, the first one would probably be built to cover Greater London.
The Daily Mail sent a reporter down to Worthing to try the product. He reported buying a double cone with a scoop of vanilla and one of mint chock chip on a grey day from a rock emporium on the seafront and that it had brightened up the day. This was the sort of free advertising that Jinnie loved. But even better was the story in the Financial Times saying that TT SuperBurger’s dynamic Managing Director, Dame Jinnie De Luca, had done it again. She had taken a regional ice cream brand in America and launched it on a British public who loved it, much as she had done with Aunty JoJo’s Chicken Shacks, not to forget her rejuvenation of the SuperBurger chain. It added, in a throw away paragraph at the end of the article, that it was understood that Dame Jinnie was on the verge of launching a chain of high-class fish restaurants whose dishes might soon be available from the new Dark Kitchen in Shoreham and a second restaurant in Hastings.
Jinnie knew that this information hadn’t come from Caroline, because she didn’t know about Anderson’s. It certainly hadn’t come from her, and she was sure the leak hadn’t come from Belinda or one of her team. They certainly knew the plans, but they had been in possession of share price sensitive information before and hadn’t leaked it. This information couldn’t affect a share price, it was a private company, but it would peak interest. Jinnie suspected it could only have come from one of the Walters trying to drum up business and she didn’t mind that, she wanted Anderson’s to be a roaring success.
In Chapter 10 – Off to a successful start
© WorthingGooner 2025
