Speaker 2 (00:00.098)
Hello everyone and welcome to the My Local Marketer podcast. I'm Maria and today I'm speaking with Alex Langlais, owner of Cafe Yolk. Alex, hello and welcome to the podcast, how are you?

Thank I'm very well, Maria. Thank you for having me this morning. Very excited.

Well, thank you for having me here at Cafe Yo. It's beautiful.

and it's quiet now, it's nice, isn't it? It's a different feeling.

It was very buzzing when I came here with my husband before. I love your branding. We're going to talk all about your branding today. But first of all, I think it's important to get a bit about your background.

Speaker 1 (00:31.446)
Yeah, so I'm French Canadian, originally from just the outskirts of Quebec City. My father had restaurants, nightclubs, bars. I'm in my late forties. Now I grew up in that industry. So yeah, I it runs through the blood really. I've always loved it. I think it's one of those industries that you really need to have the passion for.

I know Meena from Angel Bar and Caversham and she was also raised in hospitality. I think it's like a love-hate relationship because on the one hand you know how hard it is but on other hand I don't think you can quite break away.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you need to understand how hard it is to survive it, I think. Otherwise, sometimes it's a shock to the system for some people, you know, because they enter this industry thinking, well, you know, I enjoy going to restaurants. And then they realize, my God, you know, it's something totally different once you're on the other side of the table. But yeah, definitely. You need to understand what you're getting into. And I always say it's a product of passion.

You need the resilience. Well, that leads nicely into Cafe Yolk. So could you tell us about when you started Cafe Yolk and the gap that you saw in order to fill and what you thought Cafe Yolk was going to do?

So when I moved to England in 2007, one thing that I've noticed is that in Canada we're very, very lucky. We have a very diverse cuisine. I think it's done to a very high standard. I mean, it's very difficult to find, you know, mediocre restaurants. So we're very spoiled like this. You have a lot of people that specialize in different things. And when I moved to England at the time, I struggled a little bit to find the same thing. Great food, but you had to spend a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (02:04.568)
for it, you know, in the lower category, which, you know, back home was available, you could find good food in every price range. That was not the case. So yeah, definitely saw, you know, gap in the market there. Delivering good quality food in a lower price range.

Who are your audiences then? Because we are on the outskirts of Reading Centre, so it's not in Reading Centre, but we are quite close to the university, so when you set up, did you think about a particular audience like the university?

I moved in this area when I first arrived in England. So I got to understand the area quite well. It always helps. I always say to people, if you're going to do, you know, any, I think in any industry, you need to understand your market. So I understand this neighborhood very, very well and it's very diverse. So yes, you have a lot of students, but you have lecturers, you have the hospital, all the NHS staff. So you have a very good spec of society here. You know, you have every layers, which I find really interesting. So I think

People ask me often, you know, why is Cafe Oak so busy? But depending what time of day you come, you have a total different crowd. know, like everybody comes, but they all have a different life and different schedules. So very interesting to see. This neighborhood is a real community feel. I have nothing against town centers everywhere, but it's not a market for me. I like, you know, being in niche corners where my father used to do the same. My brother does the same. We, you understand, you know, those markets and you can adapt your demands better, I find.

So that's why I chose this neighborhood. I fell into it and I fell in love with it.

Speaker 2 (03:35.118)
think you're absolutely right on that. It feels very much like a local cafe, but inside the branding is very much, as my husband says, more like artisanal, something you'd find in the centre of London. So think you've really hit on something there. And like you said, with the university and with the hospital, you've got, I mean, they're two big groups alone.

Definitely. mean, it's very interesting. I always say to people because people say, oh, you know, I don't know if I should go to a if I can go to a cafe or come to a student or and I say, no, students are maybe they're a big part when it's during turn time, maybe 20, 25 % of our clientele. But like I said, if you come very early in the morning, you're going to have mothers and fathers after the school drop off. Then after that, you're going to have professionals before they go to work. Then you're going to have students later on in the afternoon.

NHS staff sometimes first thing in the morning after their night shift. So it really depends what time of day you come. So it's very, yeah, it's very diverse.

What makes Cafe Yolk do you think stand out from other cafes?

It's a lot of small things put together. people, even when it comes to design, say, well, why do you care about the color so much? Why, you know, when I design a new place like now, I'm designing the place across the road, which is an Italian deli. And you know, I'm going to be pedantic about the shade of green that doesn't match something. I was the same with the yellow. A lot of small things that people can see that you care. So the weight of the cutlery, why do you go with that cutlery that's more expensive versus a cutlery that's cheaper? It's all about the experience. When you put all of those things together,

Speaker 1 (05:00.942)
because a lot of people, you know, are going to do eggs Benedict's, a lot of people do eggs overall. mean, that said, when I started Cafe, almost 13 years ago now, people really didn't understand it. They wanted a full English, a fry up, greasy fry up. You know, back then people were like, oh my God, what are you serving me? Your sausages are spicy. I don't like it. And, know, so I had to go back. I had to serve things that are totally different that they could relate to. But now, you know, it's all those small things. It's the plating is the visual aspect of it that people enjoy.

There's a lot of things that goes into it and it's all the small details I think where you see the difference.

I'm so pleased you mentioned all the details because that is definitely something that I noticed when I came here with David. Because it's just everything right from your loyalty cards for the drinks and it's a fried egg. And then someone on the table next to us had some bacon delivered with their breakfast, but the bacon was in a little mini pan. And then on the hot chocolate I had, you have cafe yolk in the chocolate powder on top. It's just the details, these things that people probably never even think about.

So how have you managed to develop that over the years? mean, clearly that's something you're very particular on anyway, but surely this has taken years and years and years to layer one thing, get it right, layer one thing, get it right.

I remember when I was quite young, even my mother, we used to entertain a lot and have guest over and she had, you those small plastic box back in the days where it was an alphabetical order, you know, you could fill up the little cards and...

Speaker 1 (06:29.334)
For example, if you would have come for dinner, she would have served a five course meal and she would have write down, okay, Maria came and this is what I've cooked. And so I was in charge of the plating. She put me in charge of, okay, you're gonna do the entrees, you're gonna do this. And she would have never served you the same meal if you would have come a second time and it would have been a total different experience. So it's those kinds of things. Everything in my family were based on experience. So I think you, and again, Canadians, South African, Australians, we have a different fault.

food culture, you see it in London now. think London is amazing now. It's one of the top places in the world. But at the time, we rewind 13 years ago, it was not the case. It was different. But you need to have that eye for detail. You need to be interested in offering the best experience you can. And for us, sometimes people say, oh, Alex, you could do that extra bit. And I say, yeah, but don't forget, on the weekend, we serve an average 500 people more.

So I say for that amount of service, there are certain limitations we have to make sure that we deliver consistently the best quality that is possible for that level of customers. So that attention to detail, think you have it or you don't, you see in people's homes, and you need to have that attention and that care to offer the best that you can to every single customer and how you treat things when they go wrong as well.

That's I think you naturally have that. And I like what you said about the operational side as well, because it's one thing to have a really nice brand and service and look and everything, but like you said, to deliver that on scale, which I suppose your hospitality background, like you said, has really helped you there. So you can take that detail and learn how to scale it.

Yeah. And, and then I've made some mistakes with this one. It's a very heavy machine to operate. know, cafe Yolk looks like a medium size or small size cafe from the outside, but it's very, very labor intensive. On the weekend, there's minimum 10 people working here to 11, you know, per day to deliver this five people in the kitchen, four or five people in the front. So there's a lot that goes into it to offer that quality. So I've opened Baby Yolk where, you know, I'm trying to do

Speaker 1 (08:34.806)
a capsule where it's very easy to operate because I've learned from some mistakes. say it can be quite expensive to offer that standard in that price range.

Is baby-yote your testing ground then?

Baby yolk is a capsule, really. I wanted to create a smaller capsule, which I can maybe in the future get replicated really easily without too much human error because cafe yolk rely a lot on the human presence. People in touch just say, okay, you know, that's not right. That needs to be readjusted. You know, I don't like this. And it's, it needs a constant presence. smaller units, it's easier to deliver consistency and it's key in the food business. The reason McDonald's is successful.

is because when you go to any McDonald's in the world, you order a Big Mac and the Big Mac's gonna look the same, it's gonna taste the same and it's the same experience. The service is the same experience. You know what to expect. If you come here and you want X Benedict, it needs to be the same, taste the same and be, if you come back for this and you say last time I had the avocado and chorizo X Benedict and I loved it, you wanna come back and have the same experience. And it's that consistency that is difficult to keep when you have

a lot of people involved.

Speaker 2 (09:50.382)
I'm so glad you mentioned McDonald's because what you said reminded me very much of the film The Founder, where you see them at the start and he's trying to streamline the process and it's very much who's standing in the kitchen and where, turning around. So I get the impression, for us part, it's everything. What you see behind the scenes, it has to be so slick. What is on what shelf is easy to do. Portion sizes, how do you know the same thing if it's not the same person doing it each time?

And it needs to be done, you know, with a standard but without being automated because people don't want to have that kind of repeat machine operating kind of format. So there's a fine line between the two that is very difficult to keep. So you need to make sure that you stay on it, you standardize it enough to offer the same quality at all time. But at the same time, you keep the human factor present. So it doesn't feel like I make, you know, like any change or, you know, any repetitive.

concept that people don't really put, you know, at some stage you lose that human factor which people want to keep.

Well, you said there about one of the challenges you've faced is getting that balance right. What other challenges have you faced over the years and how have you managed to address those challenges?

Well, most of the challenges are starting with all government decisions, Unfortunately, the government's decision makes things often extremely difficult, not just for our industries, for many, but any business people would say that the restaurant business is the hardest because we work on the smallest margins. know, people often say, oh my God, you know, you're charging that much. I could do it for a fraction of the price. Yeah, but the infrastructures, the house, you know, the building, the electricity, the labor,

Speaker 1 (11:30.346)
Often you make very little. At the moment in this industry, you're lucky if you're going to make about 12%. So it's very, very difficult. And it's all driven by government decision. Taxation. Every time they make a very challenging decision, it makes things more more impossible for us. And I think for any restaurant owner, we'll say the same thing. I mean, you need to have your heart in the game and love it.

You need to be able to reinvent yourself. need to be able to correct, make decisions, change your menu based on ingredients. There are shortages on ingredients as well. There are crops at some stage. remember mushrooms being unavailable because they closed a lot of farms. So sometimes there are small things, big things that increase your cost of refration massively. It depends, but you need to be very, very quick on your feet and you need to make decisions very quickly.

and be ahead on everything because if you're not agile enough, you can have the best product food wise and restaurant wise and concept. You won't be able to survive, I think.

I always think that at the core of something you need a very good product, which is what you have. But then once you have that product, you need the operations in place in order to deliver it, to streamline it time after time.

There's a lot of people in the industry that are passionate about food, but you all equally need to be passionate about business. If you're not passionate about business in that part of it and make decisions on what is financially viable and not viable, make hard decisions constantly every day and readjust. Sometimes I consult with restaurants and I say, you know what I'm going to tell you today, what my observations are today, it can be something totally different in a month's time depending on government's decisions.

Speaker 1 (13:16.026)
Like I just said, shortages in ingredients or whatever it is, there's challenges that come towards us every day. So said, what I tell you today might be totally different next month. And it moves that quickly. If you cannot make those decisions very, very quickly, it's a tough game. If you go into a medium-sized restaurant, if you stay quite relatively small, it's easy because it's a small operation to adjust. But if you go into the medium size, I think it becomes a bit more difficult.

I mean, you say about the prices, and obviously some people always say, I could get that. Nowadays, I really doubt you could get that. By the time you go to Tesco's or wherever you shop, you buy the eggs, buy the bacon, or you buy the hash browns, you are probably easily looking at a good 25 plus pounds at least.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's very difficult. Even a slice of bacon when I started with five pence a unit, now it's almost 45 pence, one slice of bacon. So, you know, it's the price of ingredients has increased massively.

So what does your typical week look like then? Because you have, like you said, you've got your staff there behind the scenes doing things, but you are there to keep things going. So what does your week look like?

So I'm here every day at some stage, not the full day like I used to. Before I used to do a lot more floor presence. Now I have a big team. think we're close to 22 staff now within the CafeYoke family with BabyYoke and this one with Dunnington that we're opening now. We're going to be close to Turkey. So I have a lot of resources and a lot of really strong people that operating the place really, really well. So now I just come in, we assess together with my manager.

Speaker 1 (14:53.824)
and my assistant manager will manage all the sites and then we assess what the situation is daily and what needs to be addressed. But it's a daily exercise and what was a priority yesterday might be totally different today and then we decide what our plans of action are for the week. at the moment my week is a little bit less focused, cafe-yoke more, across the road building that new project and like I said, arguing over color of paint.

But overall, it's going to be a bit of service. later on after this, I'm going to have a little catch up with everybody, see where we are, what needs to be taken into action right away. And then after that, payroll and then designers and you know, so it's very diverse. It's quite interesting. I love the time where I was on the floor every day. I love the interaction with customers to get, know, to use one of your terms, the pulse of, you know, what's happening and there's nobody better than your customers. You know, when you interact with them, when I serve them, they tell me.

Here in the community, know lot of people are still going to tell me if something's wrong so I can readjust right away. Alex, I came yesterday, I didn't like it. Or, know, I like this, that was amazing. So, you know, this very important. But yeah, very diverse.

You've got a lot of experience, you've been raised in hospitality too. What advice do you have for other business owners in the hospitality, but maybe not necessarily hospitality for how they can run their business or what they need to do to succeed?

Yeah, would say just be curious and just make sure that you're really open to new ideas. You know, don't never think that you have it all together. I always come with the the idea that somebody is doing everything they can. There's new blood. Like I said, I'm not in my 20s anymore. So there's a lot of people in their 20s and their 30s with all the passions and the heart in the game and they want to deliver the best thing. And I wish, you know, I wish them all the best. So you need to

Speaker 1 (16:42.496)
really make sure that you stay ahead of the trends, that you know what's happening outside of your own neighborhood, what people are doing, your customers are happy, that you readjust when things are going wrong because things do go wrong. Sometimes it's just the reality in any industry, how you address that, how you make the changes that are required. But yeah, stay ahead of the game and bring enough to your customers to keep them coming back and interested. So I haven't done a menu change in quite some times now. So we're launching a new menu actually next week.

So usually I used to do it every six months or so. So that's going to come back where that's another thing to keep people interested because we have a lot of rapid business. Sometimes you want to have, they love the classic, but they want to see one or two different dishes that can be, you know, their new flavor of the month, right?

As I said before, you've got to keep things familiar, but then keep adding a twist every now and just to keep some people interested.

And the trends, you know, the trends are good, but the trends fade. So I don't build anything on trends. I add one or two at the time and then until they go. But the classics, I think you can't go wrong with the classics. And when it comes to branch, benedicts are ex benedicts and traditional full English is a traditional full English. Correct? So, you know, there's things that just cannot be reinvented. You just need to deliver it to the best of your capability. Like a pot would deliver a great roast.

So what's in the future for Cafe Yolk then? You've got Baby Yolk, do you have plans to expand that further as you said before? What do you think?

Speaker 1 (18:09.454)
I'm in between minds when it comes to this. I would love to expand it. I said for a long time, no, I don't know, but there was other personal reasons for this. I think now I'm in a better position to potentially expand the brand, but it really depends on which direction we're taking economically and decisions that the government's going to make. And then based on this, then I'll make the decision on how I approach the expansion of Café York.

I would never expand Cafe York to a point where it loses the feeling of love and personality and the one-to-one feelings. I would always want to keep a very personal approach to it. So I haven't decided yet, am I going to do more little capsule like Baby York? Yeah, potentially, you know, where people can have their great coffee and their great breakfast burger and maybe, you know, a few of the big ones. I don't know. Let's see what the...

the future reserves.

Do you have any final thoughts for our listeners today?

No, I just appreciate that you're giving us the time and you're interested in finding out about Cafe York. So thank you, Maria, for reaching out. yeah, I'm there if people have questions and are interested in understanding a bit more how this all came about and if we can help. If I can help be more than happy to, but yeah, thank you for giving us the time. And I wish good luck to everybody in this industry. Such a beautiful world, you the food industry.

Speaker 2 (19:35.374)
you deliver such good product. I mentioned to people like, I've been to Cafe Yoke, I'm going to speak to Alex at Cafe Yoke, and they say, oh my goodness, I love Cafe Yoke. I think it's good quality food, as you said, but it's the portion sizes as well, because normally you think of somewhere really nice, you think of the small portions, you have proper portions, good prices, very good quality food. So honestly, Alex, you're doing a brilliant job. Well done. And yeah, I can't wait to see what you do next.

thank you, Maria. Thank you very much for being here, too, for visiting us today.