One man's view of starting up his own restaurant - this week: St Giles' Cafe

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more that he can chew, hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it” – Roy Ash.

The opening of the new St Giles’ Café is the second time that I’ve started up my own business. The first one was way back in the pre-internet days when we sent things called faxes and spoke to people on telephones. It was a marketing communications agency called Mind the Gap and came about after I took myself off to walk the North Cornwall coastal footpath and ruminate upon my life and the imminent birth of my second child. The birth of that business was so very markedly similar to the current one. Born out of frustration that I wasn’t doing what I really wanted to do and a vision that what I wanted to create was something that I, as a customer, would find much more appealing than what was currently on offer.

stgilescafe.com In both situations, it’s evident that hours and hours of thinking and discussion go into the research and planning. And much of this is, I think, sub-conscious. For many, many years I’ve cooked, eaten out and cast a critical eye over the experiences, taking mental notes of what I would do when, and if, the day were to come. But for all the thinking and planning, the hardest bit of all is to actually make the decision to just do it. When I first read the Roy Ash quote above, a very big green flashbulb went off in my head. I knew more than a few basics about the restaurant business and starting up a new venture. But I knew there was so much to learn and that there were bound to be things that I didn’t yet know that I didn’t know!

Nine weeks after opening the new St Giles’ Café the green light still burns brightly in my head. Sometimes, usually at 3 o’clock in the morning, it flashes amber, as I think about the day coming or what happened yesterday. But luckily for me, in the immortal lyrics of Stevie Wonder, for once in my life I have someone to turn to...

TRY IT St Giles’ Cafe is at 52, St Giles', Oxford Call 01865 554200 Earthy breakfast, brunches, light lunches, snacks and afternoon teas home made everyday from dawn to dusk.