Stories and adventures from Los Gatos Spanish Tapas Bar and Cafe, a small independent bar/retaurant set up in 2006 by two amateurs, Phil Saunter and Shareen Campbell.
Showing posts with label Nearly there........ Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nearly there........ Show all posts
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Sunday night - 8.00pm. We're still at Los Gatos trying to get everything ready for us to leave early tomorrow morning on the train to Gatwick. I've just put a link to the Blog on the website. Just doing the orders so that there's food and drink for next week!
In April 2006, we opened Los Gatos in Swindon, with no professional experience, just a love of food and a passion for sharing it. We spent months researching Spanish recipes and ingredients, cooking, eating, tasting and trying again. We travelled to Spain and to any UK tapas bars that we could reach. We opened as an enthusiastic, naïve team, certain of doom and humiliation.
From our first week we were packed every night and much of the day. The local paper ran a story and we had bookings months ahead. Behind the scenes, we were in a mess – we had no idea how to run a commercial kitchen! From 7am until 2 or 3 am, we cut and burned ourselves.
BUT WE WERE HAVING SUCH FUN! IT WAS LIKE HAVING A PARTY EVERY NIGHT!
After a while it got easier. We developed routines, found reliable suppliers, sorted out quantities, became more consistent. Nearly four years later, we are rated No. 1 restaurant in Swindon on Trip Advisor. We have made so many new friends. Most importantly, we are happy and proud to have created a place to eat decent simple food cooked from fresh ingredients with passion - and that enough people enjoy it and come back for more.
