When you’re a husband-and-wife team and you run your own business, who looks after the kids?
We’re through the baby years now, so the Easter holidays haven’t loomed as large as they did back in the day. But it’s been a journey. Here’s a quick recap for those of you who don’t know about the crazy early years.
When we first started Taste Tibet Yeshi didn’t yet have a driving license, so getting him to his weekly market stall in town was a major challenge. A friend used to take him in our Peugeot 206, but on the days she couldn’t make it, me and the kids – they were 0 and 2 to begin with – would get up at 5.30am and I’d drive him over. The back seats were piled high with menu boards and gas burners, so Yeshi’s lap was the only only available child seat (shhh).
It made sense to try other ways of getting our food out there. After a few months, we leafleted houses in the local area, and curious foodies of the hood bravely shared their email addresses. Once a week we sent out a menu for pre-orders. Collection was on a Thursday evening at our home a few days later.
If you were one of these hungry strangers, you’ll remember our daughter bum-shuffling down the hallway to greet you. The children were hugely excited to receive visitors at what should have been bedtime. We’re pretty sure that some of our customers only came for the spectacle that was me or Yeshi trying and failing to tuck them in at some point during the course of the evening.
Meanwhile, Yeshi’s market stall was going from strength to strength. In the earliest days he ran it alone. Later I strapped our littlest to my back so that I could help him during the busy lunch hour. A better option was to time her nap so that she could sleep in the buggy at the back of the stall.
As the children got older and Yeshi still didn’t have his license, we would drive him home from the market at the end of the day. I’d pick the kids up from nursery and school first, then talk at volume and play loud music all the way to the stall: anything to avoid mistimed naps that would get in the way of bedtime. There would be a reward when we got there – Yeshi always kept back one portion of chicken curry for ravenous littles.
Our business grew and so did the children. Slowly, we started bringing them along with us to bigger events. They were 3 and 5 when we first asked them to look after themselves at the back of the festival stall. We were busier than we’d expected to be, and could not attend to their squabbles or gripes for the whole weekend.
All is coming good now. They’ve grown into excellent Taste Tibet workers who really care about what we do. They understand what’s important to us and they’re proud to jump in. We may have taken #familybusiness to its extreme, but it turns out that this way of life is an excellent education in how money is made and just how hard to you have to work to make dreams come true.
Our eldest is working this weekend, as usual. We’re open all throughout Easter, so if you fancy Sunday lunch Tibetan-style, bring the family and let us work our magic.
Here are this week’s opening hours:
Weds – Fri: 5-9.30pm (dinner only)
Saturday: 12-3/ 5-9.30pm
Sunday: 12-3 / 5-9pm
This week’s menu is up on the website – check it. Come for dine in, take away and a restock of your freezer.
Newsletter subscribers enjoy BUY ONE GET ONE FREE on a range of dishes from our freezers this week. Click here to sign up.
Also – these Postcards are now fully illustrated over on our Instagram, so if you don’t yet follow us there, head over for the full experience.
Looking forward to seeing you soon,
Julie and Yeshi
Opening hours this week:
Weds – Fri: 5-9.30pm
Saturday: 12-3pm 🥢 5-9.30pm
Sunday: 12-3pm 🥢 5-9pm
☏ 01865 499318
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