The year 2023 was an important one for the Telegraph Cafe. You probably noticed some changes when you visited our cafe. Alžběta Smejkalová, Telegraph House Manager and Terezie Mojžíšová, Telegraph Cafe Manager, will tell us what has changed and why.
A: Teri, we've had a year of working together and moving Telegraph Cafe forward. Can you still remember what it was like in the beginning?
T: You talked me into helping you set up the processes in the cafe, but it eventually grew into a much broader collaboration (laughs).
A: And it took a few months before you even said yes (laughs). I was learning to swim in uncharted waters at the time. I took the café under my wing in November 2022 from the then tenants. I had to make a major decision whether to look for someone new to lease the café or to integrate it definitively into the Telegraph's operation. I had 0 experience of running a "gastro" to begin with and needed a helping hand.
T: It was a challenge then and it's a challenge today, actually. The business has transformed under our hands. When we started working together, there was a different product range, shorter opening hours, the team of people who worked there were going through their own turbulence. I saw a lot of things that could be shifted. Some harder, some easier. What thoughts do you have?
A: In retrospect, I don't understand how we could have taken over and opened the café in such a short time (laughs). We had less than a week to do it. Given that the café is basically supposed to be open whenever the gallery is open, there was a lot of pressure to get all the practical stuff (inventory, sanitation day, recipe preparation, standardisation ...) done in a couple of days really. But today our concerns are completely different.
T: But let's talk about what our joys are now, rather than our worries.
A: We definitely have a stable team that doesn't get scared of anything. I take that as a big win.
T: We have a skilled chef, reliable "girls on set"...
A: ... we have our own bakery...
T: ... a much more nuanced range of products.
A: There are a lot of positive things.
T: Those are the crumbs that we see. But, what should our customers see?
And what should they see?
A: The major shift happened over the summer. Hand in hand with the arrival of new chef Ales Hrabec, we reorganised Telegraph Cafe. I am referring to the practical changes that took place, especially in the kitchen, the warehouses, the redistribution of work tasks... The customer doesn't see this, of course, but these changes are then literally reflected in what he gets on his plate. The attitude of the cooks is also crucial. Aleš cares very much about the quality of the ingredients he cooks with and how his team handles them. It is to his credit that we now work with local suppliers. He's thinking a season ahead. In the summer, he plans what will be on the menu in the winter and prepares his stock of herbs or vegetables. I believe our customers are also seeing the quality of the food on offer has shifted. What change would you highlight?
T: By being in charge of the service team, of course, the thing I notice the most is them. We've adjusted our daily schedule: we used to only offer breakfast and lunch during the day, with desserts in the display case and sometimes savoury snacks. We still have breakfast, lunch and desserts, but we have a tapas menu every day from 4pm. Smaller dishes that can be combined in different ways. Visitors can have one portion to themselves as an afternoon snack or small dinner. But if he/she chooses two or three dishes, it's already a good dinner to share with a partner or friends. And tapas definitely encourages a glass of wine as well.
A: But not everyone will be drinking wine on a weekday afternoon ...
T: Well, that's another new one. To ensure that customers can enjoy the wine and tapas in the proper atmosphere, we have extended our opening hours. From Thursday to Saturday, we are open until 10 p.m.
A: So it's a "café" that's open until 10pm at the end of the week?
T: If we were to nitpick, conceptually we're basically a bistro from morning to afternoon.
A: And then? What's after 4 p.m.?
T: Then we're more of an "afternoon bar." Sometimes it's hard to come up with names in English. You can still come here for coffee, tea and dessert. But now you can get into the sexier & juicy stuff - croquettes, duck rolls with that "deck" of wine.
A: Why should a person with "guilty pleasure" wait until Friday, right?
T: Exactly. And what is the Telegraph Cafe now?
A: Bistro and Bar? Like a B&B? Telegraph B&B? (laughs)
T: Maybe! We can now say that with the shift that Telegraph Cafe has gone through this year, we feel the need to change the name. To make it clearer to customers what to expect from us.
A: We'll let you know the new name soon.
Alžběta Smejkalová, Telegraph House Manager
- Since 2022 she has been managing the Telegraph
- She had zero experience in gastro, but enough naivety and drive to take over the running of the Telegraph Cafe as the next (and final) part of the Telegraph
- To keep her mind fresh, she practices Iyengar yoga regularly
Terezie Mojzíšová, Telegraph Cafe Manager
- Doma has 3 children, but has left behind several in her professional line in the Czech Republic and Ireland
- She lived in Ireland for 8 years, where she started as a runner on set and worked her way up to manager of the largest branch of Itsa Cafes
- In Olomouc, she invented the FreshUP bister concept for the university
