On Saturday, just before evening service at Andersons Restaurant in Boat of Garten, head chef Marco Bencini started to feel unwell.
Originally from Tuscany, Marco had undergone an operation a couple of weeks earlier for sepsis. So when he fell sick on Saturday, he was taken straight to Raigmore hospital in Inverness.
On arrival, he suffered a massive stroke.
“It’s really serious,” says Steve Anderson, who has owned and run Andersons for the past 15 years. Marco remains unconscious in an Aberdeen hospital.
‘I have to protect my family’
Steve is devastated over his chef’s plight. The two became firm friends after Steve hired Marco last year, along with Marco’s wife Rosa, who is sous chef at Andersons.
Steve describes the pair, both in their earlier 50s, as “just the nicest people”.
But Steve also has other worries.
Marco and Rosa arrived at Andersons amid a near-crippling staff shortage that almost put the 15-year-old restaurant out of business.
A year on, and demand for staff across the north and north-east is even more acute.
Down two people and unable to find replacements, Steve had no option on Saturday but to close Andersons. Two tables already seated were sent home and all bookings for the weekend cancelled.
As with everything at the moment, the financial hit to Steve, which he estimates to be about £3,000 a night, is put in sharp relief by the £50,000 loan he took out to keep the business running post-Covid.
He still has £41,000 outstanding on the debt, and the anxiety it provokes has taken over his life.
“Marco is a good friend, but I have to protect my family as well and my business and I have to keep it going because we’re already in debt coming out of Covid,” Steve says. “I’ve already had to close for a few weeks in the busy time this year, so my cash flow’s just been destroyed.”
Steve and his wife Claire can’t afford to sell their restaurant because a sale wouldn’t cover the debt. Even when Andersons is running smoothly there’s no profit to make, such is the rise in costs over the past year.
At the moment, says Steve, the restaurant is running only to keep the staff paid.
“It’s losing money at the moment,” he adds. “But I’ve got a duty to my staff as they have supported me so well.”
Hiring in the midst of a staffing crisis
Right now, Steve’s focus in on finding new staff so he can get Andersons open again.
Everyone is pulling together – Rosa is in Aberdeen by Marco’s side but may return to work this week, Steve says.
“She says she needs something to occupy her mind,” he explains.
Steve knows Andersons is a great place to work. He has one other chef in the kitchen and six front-of-house staff. He’s only open five nights a week to ensure staff have at least two days off work.
“We are a small, friendly team passionate about what we do,” says Steve.
But finding employees these days is an increasingly difficult task, even for venues as well run as Andersons.
Kitchens across the region are struggling to fill rotas as experienced chefs ditch the industry to become delivery drivers or other less stressful – and generally better paid – roles.
Two prospective hires have already been in touch but were asking for £19 an hour on a minimum 45-hour week, which is out of the range of an independent family restaurant like Andersons.
Steve would strap on an apron himself – the 45-year-old has been a chef his entire career. But since Covid, he’s been unable to step foot in his own kitchen, such was the trauma of dragging Andersons through the pandemic intact.
“When I go to my own kitchen, I get bad anxiety, hence why I employ a head chef.” Steve explains.
“It all got too much. During Covid, I watched my business that I’ve built up over 15 years going down the toilet.”
‘A weight off my shoulders if we do get to sell it’
Steve now spends all his time looking after the Cairngorm Leaf & Bean coffee roasting business and wood-fired pizza delivery service he started in Grantown-on-Spey.
The two businesses are keeping Steve financially afloat, giving him time to pay off the Andersons debt. Selling the restaurant is now the dream, albeit a bittersweet one.
“It’ll be a weight off my shoulders if we do get to sell it,” says Steve, who doesn’t expect to turn a profit from a sale. “But that’s 15 years of work down the drain because we won’t walk away with anything.”
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