The march of thyme

Last week, a 5-year-old memory appeared on my Facebook feed. It was one of my granddaughter’s, Evie who commented on her last shift at Krimo’s on October 31st 2014.
She had started working at Krimo’s in 2010 just weeks before the arrival of the tall ships to Hartlepool until the day Krimo’s closed for good. 
It seems so long ago and yet I remember that day like it was yesterday. Just like I remember the day we left our council house in Peterlee to move above Krimo’s at Seaton Carew, three weeks before we opened the restaurant on May 4th 1985. 
On the morning of Saturday, April 13th, Karen had packed all our possessions and left in the removal van while I went to work at the Coliseum for my last day as chef-manager and bottlewasher.
Before the end of the night, the restaurant owner tried to convince me not to leave. “The grass always appears to be greener on the other side, you know.”

I said that, if I didn’t follow my dream of opening my own restaurant with my name above the door, then I would spend the rest of my life wondering whether I could’ve made a success of it. 
Seeing how determined I was, he was kind enough not to persevere with the matter and even offered to give me a 4-pot bain-marie to help me out.
I left the restaurant at around 11pm for the last time to drive to Seaton Carew. As I hit Newburn Bridge and caught sight of the roaring North Sea, my heart sank and for a second, a shadow of doubt came over me. 
“What have I done? I’m leaving a steady job, a council house we are about to own under Thatcher’s right to buy, to embark on a precarious adventure with a massive mortgage of £26,000!” Then I remembered the words of Steve Adams, manager of the building society that had arranged the mortgage. “Even if the restaurant fails, you’ll still have a roof over your head and you’re young enough to get another job.” I was 32 years old.

The passing doubt immediately dissipated and history proved that I shouldn’t have worried at all. 
I arrived at the flat above a restaurant that had been closed for two years. The stale smell of oil nearly knocked me sick when Karen and I went to view the property a few weeks earlier. I thought she would take one look at it and walk straight back out but the words that came out of her mouth clinched the deal: “It’s got potential.”
Three weeks of hard graft ensued. Family and friends did not even need an invitation to come on board to help us out repair, clean, paint to get the restaurant open on May 4th.
The evening we opened, we were still painting one hour before the first customers walked in. 
Since then, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. Portofino and Casa came along later.
And thirty years of business just flew. 
It was very emotional to shut Krimo’s doors for the last time but looking back, it was just part of a natural progression and the realisation that one can never stop the march of time. 

Evie has just graduated from the Open University course which she started just before the restaurant closed.