Pros
The team at the Aldeburgh Bakery is very friendly and lovely to work with
Cons
The management of the bakery chain are incompetent and cheap. On Easter Sunday, they either forgot (incompetence) or intentionally ignored (cheap/naive) that the clocks were going forward. As a result, the factory in Walpole started production for Easter Sunday an hour late, resulting in all the freshly baked goods arriving very late. As a result, staff could not layout the shop fast enough. Customers had been queuing to enter since 7:45am, for doors to open at 8am, as a result of the late delivery the doors did not open until 8.15am. This was greatly embarrassing for the staff involved who had to apologise to every customer. The Aldeburgh branch of the Two Magpies Bakery is by far the most profitable of its now 10 (opening one in Framlingham) branches. However, management severely under invest in the branch. 1) the dishwasher breaks multiple times of the week and fails to produce hot water. The branch mangers been forced to arrive on their days off/holiday multiple times to attempt temporary repairs, This has been a problem for months. The management of the Two Magpies chain have refused to invest in a new dishwasher. 2) The staff toilet has been broken for over three weeks, two weeks ago it was promised by engagement that a plumber would come fix the toilet, it has not happened. Staff members are forced to que alongside customers in the cramped Cafe for the customer toilet. This is an especially unfortunate situation for female members of staff. 3) The technology used for tills is insanely slow. The tills run through an application three ipads. The Ipads are insanely slow, which for a very busy takeaway/cafe results in longer service time and longer ques. The till in the takeaway takes 35 seconds to print a receipt needed by the barrista to make the coffees, this results in the que taking a ridiculously long time to be served. A simple investment in new iPad's and undated tills would enable customers to be dealt with significantly faster. 4) The team at Aldeburgh is excellent at dealing with customers and is often offered the reward of a tip by the customer. However, every time we have to reject their tip and say "our card machines won't accept tips". We use sumUps that are connected to the entire bakery chain, thus we would never receive the tips we take from customers. Why can't management provide us with card machines that can accept tips? It's frankly disgusting, given most of the staff are not wealthy and multiple have children to support. These tips as rewards for excellent customer service as a magpie representative could really help their personal finances, yet management does not invest in new card machines. 5) The quality control. The prices of the food is exorbitant, charging over £4 for a sausage roll (takeout) and over £5 if eaten with the luxury of a plate in the cafe. However, often the quality of these sausage rolls are incredibly low, the sausage is a cylindrical dense tube of pork meat, it has been know to just fall our of the pastry completely as if a sausage roll is in fact a dish of pastry and sausage as two separate elements. This is just one example that is possible to explore across almost all products sold by Two Magpies Bakery. 6) what arrives? As a member of staff member it is like a lottery to see what you are delivered each morning. You might have only sold 10 bakewell on wednesday, so have say 20 remaining. Well the next day you have a delivery of an extra 30 for no reason. The chain's in ability to track supply and demand for its products results in an embarrassingly high wastage. Which given the quantity of people using food banks in UK it is a true tragedy. 7) There just isn't enough for anything. For a Cafe you need crockery and lots of it, because you're constantly replacing it after customers have eaten. However, at Two Magpies Aldeburgh there is barely enough for when the cafe is full, let alone when there is a que around the block (Most days in summer). Across the bank holiday customers who paid £4 for a latte were lucky enough not to receive a teaspoon but a wooden stick because teaspoons were served with cakes because management had not provided us enough cake forks. This will sound all very tiny violin vibe, however, when charging an old lady £9+ for a sausage roll and a latte you at least want to know that the quality of the product is excellent. At the moment its just embarrassing. Overall, the team at Two Magpies are lovely to work with, but the management of the chain repeatedly screw us over. For context, across the bank holiday weekend, the Aldeburgh branch will have made more than enough profit to fund all of this investment. But nevertheless it will not see the money and instead for forced to continue with less. Each of these problems are not major however when combined they show systemic behaviour from the management of ignoring investment as the expense of efficiency and providing an excellent customer experience.