Starting Up with Lucie Greenwood @ The Milk Shed

I’ve just returned from a fantastic Easter break in Cornwall which I managed to squeeze in straight after celebrating the second anniversary of The Milk Shed.

As always the minute I have a bit of time off I find renewed vigour and enthusiasm for all things culinary and several trips to the creek behind my sister’s house provided masses of wild garlic, some of which was smashed into a butter and smeared all over a dozen scallops barbecued in their shells, and the rest brought back to Oxfordshire and turned into a delicious soup for the specials board that made our kitchen smell like a woodland fairy’s heaven!

I feel refreshed, have a teeny bit of colour, albeit from a combination of sun and windburn, and am inspired.

The difficulty is that two years on, these short breaks that are the fuel for my passion and persistence are still a bit too few and far between. I never imagined how successful our little café would become and we are now busy all the time which is fantastic and amazing and more than I ever could have wished for but is also hugely challenging and is currently causing sleepless nights with the dilemma of whether or not to expand.

I wish I had a magic wand or a fortune cookie to tell me the answer, because while I love the cooking, menu writing, waitressing, coffee making, and even washing up; the business side of things still makes me want to run and hide.

To grow means employing more staff, more risk, more outlay, hell – more blooming freezers, and above all it means I have to speculate.

Aaaaaahg! I think I’ll just knock out a batch of ice cream to take my mind off it!

Back in the real world I was extremely touched when one of our lovely customers gave us a beautiful cake for our second birthday, which he’d had made especially by his talented sister.

It was so sweet and made me realise how many wonderful people I’ve met on this adventure, lots of whom are now my friends and to whom The Milk Shed has become part of their lives, just as they have become part of mine.

It’s lovely to be reminded of that and to indulge myself in a moment of satisfaction – that’s what drove me to do this after all – to make people happy.

It doesn’t happen 100 per cent of the time, but we are pretty much engulfed in a bubble of love here at the shed, so maybe expansion is the way forward, quickly followed by world domination?

Blimey, I’d better sign off on that train of thought and get cracking.

Lots to do!

TRY IT
The Milk Shed is in Northampton Road, Weston-on-the-Green. 
Call 01869 351387 or see themilkshedstore.co.uk