Minkchocolates

Waiting for Fredot

Friday. 11:00 a.m. Fred calls and says he has tickets for the Interior Design Show at the Vancouver Convention Center and asks if I want to go. It’s taking place on the waterfront, a block away from the Café, and couldn’t be more convenient for me, so I say OK. He says he’s walking up and he’ll see me soon.

11:15 a.m. I’m thinking it will take Fred 30 minutes to make the 15 minute walk from Yaletown so I run up to the bank to get the coin order for the weekend. I get back just as my chocolate order is walking in the door. I check it in, merchandise the display shelves, update the inventory for the online store, and pull a few bars aside for dating and quality control.

1:00 p.m. Fred’s still not here, but that’s not unusual. He’s a fast walker, but he’s easily distracted. My work done, I make a coffee for myself on the Clover, and go sit outside and wait for him.

2:35 p.m. I’ve answered half a dozen emails, talked with a couple of regulars, eaten a Taj Masala, and played BrickBreaker on my BlackBerry but still no sign of Fred. I go in to get my jacket, make another cup of coffee, and go back outside.

4:10 p.m. I go to the bathroom to pee. The Café has gotten extremely busy, and with both of the opening staff now off shift, I jump in to help out. Next thing I realize, the Café is closed, and I’m cashing out.

Thursday. 3:05 p.m. Fred calls. He’s in a rental car in Lloydminster, parked on 50^th Avenue, the road that famously divides the city in two, with half being in Saskatchewan and half in Alberta. He’s trying to Google a KFC because he wants to try their Double Down and his iPhone is showing him a map of Kitscoty, AB.

“You by a computer?” he asks. “I’m starving.”

“Nice to hear from you too,” I say. “Good thing I had to go to the bathroom or I’d still be waiting for you to go to a show that closed last weekend.”

“I started walking but realized that your direction wasn’t convenient, so I turned and walked the other way.”

“And five days later you wound up two provinces over?” I ask with just a hint of incredulity. “And I suppose you’d also have me believe half a five dollar bill is worth $2.50?”

“Don’t try and be funny,” he says. “It’s not in your genes. I flew out for a quick sales trip. I’m on my way back, and I have hockey tickets for tomorrow. Wanna go?”

Friday. 5:30 p.m. I’m sitting outside the Café, having a coffee, eating chocolate, playing Word Mole, waiting for Fred. The game starts at seven. It’s a 20 minute walk to the stadium. Déjà vu all over again?

Marc Lieberman

Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.

Call the store: 604.633.2451
Call my mobile: 604.376.3464
Call toll free: 1.866.283.5181

Shop: minkchocolates.com
Tweet: twitter.com/minkchocolates
Join: facebook.com/mink.chocolates
Read: blog.minkchocolates.com
Watch: youtube.com search mink chocolates
In Person: 863 Hastings Street West, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N9

Nine out of every ten persons say they love chocolate. The tenth lies.
– Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Keep Calm and Carry On

My sister recently put a small page ripped from a magazine up on her fridge. It was a reproduction of the WWII propaganda poster Keep Calm and Carry On.

Commissioned by the King to give Britons comfort and inspire them should the massed armies of Nazi Germany ever cross the Channel, the poster was never in wide circulation back in the day because of course, there was no invasion.

I’ve been thinking about that slogan a lot lately.

In the face of rising commodity prices, a newly imposed consumption tax, or production delays in the manufacture of new product that needs to be on the shelf for Christmas but probably won’t, Keep Calm and Carry On.

When young Mink staffers who’ve been vying for opening shifts finally get them, then complain they’re tired, or a long-time staffer gives notice when our staffing resources are stretched to open our new store, there’s no choice but to Keep Calm and Carry On.

The new store recently had its final building inspection. We were told our handicap washroom isn’t a handicap washroom because the sink is 1-1/2 inches too close to the toilet, which, being a wall hung European model, could only go where it went because of what was in the floor when we x-rayed it before coring for the drain. Never mind that the washroom is fifty five square feet and that we’ve exceeded the turnaround radius for a wheelchair, or have more than the required number of grab bars. It’s technically not a handicap washroom, so we were required to remove the universal symbol for wheelchair accessibility from the washroom door.

Instead, the building inspector would rather we put up a sign on the outside of the door that said, “If you have mobility issues, you may want to consider using this washroom because it’s more spacious than the other one and has certain amenities that will enhance your toileting experience”. Keep Calm and Carry On.

Building a new store is fraught with peril. Trades people, regardless of how good they are at their craft, need constant supervision, lest a decision be made that costs the client money and can’t be undone, like the stonemason cutting a granite slab for the fondue bar too narrow and missing the part of the pattern that was the reason for picking that slab to begin with. Keep Calm and Carry On.

Or the plumber installing the ice machine and not hooking up the drain because that wasn’t part of the original quote, but letting us turn it on to start making ice by the kilo, only to have it melt and flood the backroom. Keep Calm and Carry On.

 Not enough backing in the wall where the shelving system goes? Keep Calm and Carry On. Stainless steel guy who seems to have vanished off the planet? Keep Calm and Carry On.

Suddenly these days, the slogan is everywhere. I’m seeing it on necklaces, pins, t-shirts and iPhone screensavers. I’m sure someone somewhere is sporting it as a tattoo. For myself, I’d like a simple amendment. Keep Calm and Carry On (With Chocolate).

Marc Lieberman

Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.

Call the store: 604.633.2451
Call my mobile: 604.376.3464
Call toll free: 1.866.283.5181

Shop: minkchocolates.com
Tweet: twitter.com/minkchocolates
Join: facebook.com/mink.chocolates
Read: blog.minkchocolates.com
Watch: youtube.com search mink chocolates
In Person: 863 Hastings Street West, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N9

Nine out of every ten persons say they love chocolate. The tenth lies.
– Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Hey Buddy, Need a Lift?

Fred sauntered into Mink looking like a man who’d just had sixty minutes of Shiatsu and was too relaxed to shower afterwards. He called me out from behind the bar and tried to give me a complicated handshake that I’m either too old or too white to comprehend.

“You’ve lost your hipness”, he said, berating me in that playful tone one can when one’s been friends over three decades. “You’re slippery”, I shot back, “and I’m not referring to your methodology”.

“I’ve been walking all over downtown. You should try it sometime. Or maybe you’re just sympathetically pregnant”.

It’s now public fact that Mrs. Mink is expecting in the spring. Still, that jab hit above the belt, so to speak.

I offer him a cappuccino, which I suspect is the sole reason for his having hoofed it from Yaletown. We could have easily talked or texted to catch up.

“Remember Danny Kaide, from high school?” he asks me. “I saw him at an opening last night. He told me no one in his family has lived past 61. I said we should have dinner soon”.

As disturbing as it is to hear that from a man sweating profusely in a chocolate shop, I laugh. “Thanks for the update”, I say. “What else is going on?”

He tells me his daughter is turning eight, and he’s planning her birthday party. All she wants is an afternoon limo ride with a dozen of her closest friends. No bouncy castles, no Barbie impersonators, no magic tricks. Just some urban cruising. Because Fred walks everywhere, I sense she’s feeling auto-deprived, and like her Dad, she’s a go big or go home kind of kid.

He asks me for loot bags, figuring that’s the missing element to making this party a success and I’m happy to oblige. The logistics are simple. I’ll make twelve bags with black and white chocolate cow lollipops, ladybug and dinosaur truffles and milk chocolate cell phones, gender neutral because he doesn’t have a girl/boy headcount, and he’ll pick them up the day before.

Now any parent who’s ever thrown a modern day birthday party for their kids, or at least picked their kids up from a birthday party, knows the loot bags are given out at the end, to take home. Fred made the cardinal mistake of giving them out as they piled into the car. Lots of kids, lots of chocolate, confined space, and stop and go city traffic, equals motion sickness.

Twenty minutes into a two hour tour and the limo driver calls Fred and tells him he’s bringing the kids back, and is expecting help dealing with the barf fest. Fred’s out walking, so the car has to swing by and pick him up first.

I’m laughing, yet I’m disturbed, and it makes me want to take a shower just thinking about it.

Marc Lieberman

Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.

Call the store: 604.633.2451
Call my mobile: 604.376.3464
Call toll free: 1.866.283.5181

Shop: minkchocolates.com
Tweet: twitter.com/minkchocolates
Join: facebook.com/mink.chocolates
Read: blog.minkchocolates.com
Watch: youtube.com search mink chocolates
In Person: 863 Hastings Street West, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N9

Nine out of every ten persons say they love chocolate. The tenth lies.
– Anthelme Brillat-Savarin