VIVA NOSTALGIA

Adventurous dishes and flamboyant music were all very well, but first she had to convince the regulars to join in

- Christabel Smith

Tying on her floral apron, Kathy checked herself in the mirror. Her hair was neatly rolled, her red lipstick nicely applied.

‘Every inch the wartime woman,’ she thought.

The fact that she was actually a child of the 1970s was neither here nor there, because she ran the Nostalgia Café, where every day was 1942.

Flicking on Vera Lynn’s Greatest Hits, she turned the sign on the door to ‘Open’. She was soon run off her feet, serving bacon and eggs, and tea in brown teapots to tables of customers.

‘Our Kathy knows how we like breakfast,’ they’d tell each other happily.

Opening up a vintage cafe in a sleepy, seaside town had been a smart move.

The mainly-retired clientele enjoyed the way she’d decorated the place with pictures of the Queen and Winston Churchill and ration books – cottage pie, cheese on toast, jam roly-poly with custard.

Kathy was delighted she’d tapped into what her customers wanted. The only problem was, as a talented and versatile cook, making the same old food day in, day out, was a tad boring.

‘KATHY STOPPED TRYING TO INNOVATE AND STUCK WITH WHAT THEY LIKED BEST’

In a quiet moment later on, she decided to conduct a little market research. Topping up Jim’s tea, she asked what else he’d like to see on offer.

He thought long and hard. ‘Strawberry jelly,’ he sighed, ‘With evaporated milk.’

‘Tomato soup’s my favourite,’ smiled his wife Mary.

Kathy took the hint and, the following day, chalked tomato and basil soup on the Specials blackboard.

When Mary tried it, she wrinkled her nose.‘It’s a bit tangy for me, dear,’ she said.