takeaways – Observations and Misunderstandings

Kick off is at five and I can see people outside at the door trying to get in. I used to have it closed but unlocked in the half hour before I began and as I did my prep but it soon became evident that people were keen on disturbing me in search of cake, pies and bread. As I’m more concerned with wanting to do my prep than help them not wait half an hour, the door is now locked. I avoid their pleading, desperate and starved eyes. I chop tomatoes. I realise everything else is still plentiful from last night. Pizza base count – only twenty. It’s Wednesday, twenty is probably enough. Prep done. Time to make eye contact and make the shrugged sorry shoulder gesture, spin my hand with pointed finger to signify the turning of something – in this instance time – and hold up five fingers for five o’clock. I wonder if they’ll come back in five minutes instead.

First person through the door decides to make a bad joke about getting a receipt just to check I didn’t put £300 through instead of £3 before waiting uncomfortably for the receipt. I decide not to put her out of her misery and tell her there’s a £45 contactless limit. It’s not because shes distrustful she wants me to know as she laughs nervously. I realised I haven’t cut any mushrooms and don’t have many pizza bases pre-passatered, perhaps starring at hungry customers trapped outside was not the best use of my time. I’m starting to feel a little heartburn from the sliver of walnut cake I just had, working in a bakery is not good for my health. First pizza takeaway sale and it’s two double cheeseburgers. I was vegan once.

My mate has just turned up with some official Lockdown Pizzas merchandise. It’s only taken four months and we close in less than three weeks but I’m now proudly sporting a red T-shirt with Lockdown Pizzas in black on the back and a black hoody with the same on the back but in red. They’ve put a space in Lock down but at least it’s spelt right. This might not be a co-operative or upholding any of the ideals I like to still believe I hold but it’s always good to be sporting the red and black. The fact these colours hide most of the likely ingredients I’ll cover myself in is simply a bonus.

…

That didn’t quite go to plan. I was hoping to have time to write a quick paragraph of each hour but the night turned out pretty busy and as it’s just me heroically working away, I barely got a chance to think let alone write anything. I’m sure there were all sorts of witty observations all throughout the night but they’re now lost in the ether of nothingness and non-existence. Unless time isn’t linear of course which would mean they’re happening now and always, both of which concepts wouldn’t exist either surely. I digress.

I messed up two orders tonight. One I realised I had done so as I put the pizzas in the boxes, vocalising my realisation as it came to me with an “Oh fuck” which was followed by me looking at the man and his asking quite intuitively whether I had forgotten the chips. He was fine about it, he could see how busy I was. The other time was right at the end I was probably about fifteen minutes late but they were fine about it too as they could also see how busy I was. People can be alright sometimes. It’s quite refreshing for this not to be a piece complaining about or making fun of customers as would be expected. Coincidentally with tonight being a night I attempted a running commentary, we actually sold out for the first time. Usually I have loads of bases in reserve but a mixture of me being slow to remind the guy in the bakery who makes them and him being slow to make them meant tonight was a special night. Amusingly the only person I had to turn away though was the actual guy who makes the bases as he thought he would pop in for one on his break. He says he’ll make one hundred for me tomorrow.

We have less than three weeks left and it will be the end of this little experiment. I’m alway keen on trying new things and now that I have a tshirt, hoody and scooter – which was only ever used a handful of times – I’ll probably have to come back next year and do it again. Saying that, this holiday I’m planning can’t come soon enough. There will be a lot of sleeping.

Drum roll please…now is the time to reveal what it was that got me all worked up the other day. Edge of your seat stuff I’m sure, it would be a surprise had you not already read the title. Yes myself and a couple of friends are selling takeaway pizzas. Let’s be honest there’s nothing like a good crisis to make a little cash. They own a bakery and as they’re still open delivering bread we thought we may as well make a few pizzas as a side project and see how it goes. It’s great though because they already understand bread so we have a really nice thin sourdough base and they have proper stone ovens so they’re stonebaked too. Genuinely they’re really nice. I’m the creative director / pizzas artist. There are no takeaways open at all in the area and people seem reasonably enthused by the prospect of being able to alleviate the tedium of this current social experiment with the idea of comfort food. On top of that we will use some of the money we manage to raise and either donate it to the NHS or if there are any local families who have been affected by the virus it would be a good thing to try and help them if possible, even just a weeks food shop. Like everything it’s a lets see how it evolves thing as clearly all is currently unknown.

But yes there was the stress. I was in a terrible fettle on Wednesday. The realisation of what we were doing all came to me at once and the intensity of the energy was just too much. I can’t remember exactly what I said in the piece on Wednesday but I think towards the end I said something about channeling the energy and even if I didn’t I have had the most remarkable two days since. Whenever I found the energy building up I detached myself from it for long enough to stop it being overwhelming, but more importantly I consciously managed to use it to focus on whatever task I needed to do. This means I have been running around like a mad man for two days but have done it in a focused controlled way which was an interesting experience for such an idle man ordinarily.

Today was ridiculous, first we found out the pizza boxes weren’t going to arrive which would make selling pizzas pretty difficult. The show must go on though so we can up with some solutions but in the end managed to buy some off a man in a van in a layby and then it turned out the vegetable order hadn’t gone through so we weren’t going to have any veggies or cheese for the pizzas. We managed to behave like toilet roll fanatics in the local co-op and emptied shelves. Ultimately both these situations would have destroyed me on Wednesday but today I managed to use the power they created for focus and drive. What a feeling. Maybe this is what people do.

Anyway I’m exhausted and I’ve got to be up in the early hours again to deliver bread tomorrow. It is simply non-stop at the moment. So as the show must go on, it may be wise to draw the curtain on this piece for today. Need to conserve my energy for another evening of pizza making after all.

Tag: takeaways

A Night In The Life Of Lockdown Pizzas