Minute on the clock: Kayleigh Thorogood, restaurant manager at Rogan & Co

The restaurant manager at Rogan & Co tells the stories of her suppliers, putting diners at ease and her love affair with cheese

 

How did you get into hospitality?

 

I started working in restaurants in my hometown of Grimsby in Lincolnshire when I was about 15. I worked in an Italian restaurant for about four years. I had always planned to go off and do something else, but I fell in love with serving people and being part of the dining experience.

 

Then, a fine dining restaurant opened locally and I worked there for a couple of years and I became more involved with wine tastings and [learning about] different ingredients.

 

When that closed I decided to look further afield and moved to the Lake District. Initially I worked at Forest Side in Grasmere, when Kevin Tickle was head chef. I stayed there for two years, starting as a chef de rang and leaving as assistant manager, and then I moved to the Rogan group, where I’ve been for the past four years.

 

What have you learned while working in hospitality?

 

There are so many different things you can learn about and different educational experiences, especially from suppliers.

 

How has your interest in cheese enhanced your role?

 

I started learning about cheese when I was at Forest Side – before that I’d never seen or known about a cheese trolley. I met a really amazing guy called Andy [Swinscoe], who runs the Courtyard Dairy in Settle in Yorkshire. He has this really infectious passion for cheese and that was it.

 

Since then I’ve looked after the cheese at every restaurant I’ve worked at. When I was at L’Enclume I was fortunate enough to work with the head chef and Simon Rogan in managing the cheese trolley – I was definitely the bossiest out of the three of us.

 

Cheese is a great thing to learn about and throughout the lockdowns we did masterclasses to keep the team engaged – I did a fair few talks about cheese and held tastings. I think it’s a great way to get the team involved.

 

We try not to overbear people with technical facts about cheese, but rather we learn the stories behind the people that make it. All our cheeses are from the UK and we learn about those small farms and the way they started as cheesemakers. Everyone is interested in a story.

 

Are you struggling with finding employees?

 

I think anyone who says they’ve not felt the strain since we came back in July 2020 would be lying, and it’s been the same for us. We were lucky and managed to keep the majority of our team through the lockdowns. Since then we’ve looked at different opening hours and different staff packages to attract people.

 

In April we closed L’Enclume and Rogan & Co for lunch on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays, which is a huge change. It definitely was not an easy decision for Simon to make, but it did benefit the team massively.

 

We guarantee our team two and a half days off minimum a week, which is incredible, and we aim for a three and a half day working week, which in hospitality is pretty good going.

 

What makes a great hospitality experience?

 

It’s all about the service, from the second you walk through the front door, and we put in a lot of effort to make sure everyone has a personal experience.

 

We always like to think about giving a warm hug to our guests – sometimes I think people can feel intimidated, especially if it’s something they wouldn’t normally do, but it’s about making people feel relaxed and comfortable and at home. I hope there’s no pretentiousness in our service style at all.

 

Where do you see your career headed?

 

I think I can see myself at Rogan & Co for the foreseeable future. I am really into cheese and if I could be surrounded by cheese all day, maybe that would be just perfect.