Bettys Tearooms in Northallerton recently won a national award for excellence and the business as a whole has been named one of the best companies to work for. Julia Breen tries her hand as a top-notch waitress

IT'S like another era, a stylised Edwardian tea room. You can just imagine portly, waistcoated gentlemen and ladies in grand hats sipping tea in here, little fingers at right angles to their china cups.

Stepping into Bettys tea rooms in Northallerton is like stepping into history.

When Frederick Belmont founded the first Bettys in the early 20th Century, it was inspired by an Edwardian ideal of excellence.

Today, tea is served in silver pots on trays, and treats on elaborate silver cake stands. Even the way the tea pots are laid out is an exact science.

And here I am, looking like a maid below stairs, in a crisp white blouse done up to the chin and secured with a Bettys brooch, shin-length black skirt and starched pinny.

I might look like I'm from the bottom of the staircase in the upstairs/downstairs stakes, but I certainly don't feel like it. The ethos at Bettys is service, not servitude.

I neglected to mention, when I agreed to be a Bettys waitress for the morning, that the last time I had a waitressing job I was 16 and nearly sacked for being rude to the customers. Still, 13 years on, I hope I'm mature enough to be polite this time.

I got the brief for the job a few days ago. "Please make sure you wear your hair in a bun or plait if it's long, flat black shoes, 15 denier black tights, and white underwear so it doesn't show under the white blouse. Nail varnish, even clear, is banned.

"No stud earrings are allowed, just small hoops, and you can only wear a single wedding band." Apparently this is so your earring backs or engagement ring gems don't fall into the customer's soup.

Bettys in Northallerton is elegant and quiet, with indoor palm trees dotted around the light, airy space. It is one of six Bettys tea rooms around Yorkshire; the others are in Ilkley, Harrogate, Harlow Carr Gardens, near Harrogate, and two in York.

Like all great institutions, it has a loyal customer base. Dawn Jackson, who has been a waitress at Bettys for 22 years, discreetly points out some of the more regular customers at Northallerton.

Dawn took the job, initially as a temporary measure after being made redundant from somewhere else - and has never left. She's a natural. She's friendly, jovial but not overpowering, and the job is second nature to her.

She proudly sports a silver badge, which denotes 20 years' service at Bettys.

After a decade staff get a bronze badge, and after 30 - which is not as rare as you might think - they strike gold.

Dawn is training me in the art of Bettys waitressing this morning, although I'm not likely to be let loose on the customers after such a short induction.

The first thing she shows me is how to present a tea cup. A coaster goes on the saucer, then the teaspoon is placed at an exact angle on top, then the tea cup with the handle facing to the right. All this is so when the customer picks up their cup of tea to take a sip, they see the Bettys logo the right way up on the coaster facing them.

The next lesson is the tea tray. A silver teapot, with real tea leaves, goes at the top, then below it the silver hot water pot. The sugar cube bowl goes on the right, above the cup, then the strainer on the bottom left.

"Make sure the sugar bowl isn't wet when you put in the sugar," says Dawn.

"And ensure there are no smears on the cutlery or the pots."

There are cloths in the draw, a wet one and a dry one, to wipe any smears.

She even places the tea tray in a certain position on the table. Although, she tells me, when there are young children sitting at a table it is always placed as far away from them as possible, because their temptation is to reach out and touch the scorching silver.

How on earth do the waiting staff remember all this? There's more, far more than I have column inches or memory for.

"I've been doing it so long, it's second nature," says Dawn. "But for our new staff, we have a book in the draw which shows how to present everything. We call it the Bettys Bible."

Staff also have to know as much as they can possibly remember about each meal and drink that is served, and the ingredients in them. And the top-notch service has to reflect the care that has gone into all the food.

Each morning, in Bettys' Harrogate factory, every baked ingredient that is served in the shops is made by hand.

From olive bread buns to chocolate brownies, each is freshly made that morning. Every raisin, every strawberry, every nut has been put on to every cake or bun by hand.

DAWN takes me into the kitchens, divided into different preparation areas, and then upstairs where the staff room is and to a room beyond where all the aprons are washed and pressed. The overwhelming smell of clean laundry is almost as delicious as the food and coffee smells wafting up from the kitchens. On the walls are dozens of pictures of staff.

"Do they all work here?" I ask, astounded.

I had thought it must be the whole company. But no, they all work at the Northallerton café. The company as a whole, encompassing Taylors of Harrogate as well, employs over 1,000 people.

And Dawn says that chairman Jonathan Wild, who is the third generation of the family that started Bettys, knows them all by name. "When he comes up to the café, he knows everyone's name and he will take the time to chat to each person," she says.

"It works both ways - I can be quite flexible with my hours, even though I have children. But I know that if I am really stuck they will change my hours.

They look after you."

Benefits of working at Bettys - named one of the top employers by the Sunday Times last year - include a good pension scheme, a profit share scheme, subsidised private healthcare, and childcare vouchers.

One of the best perks is free meals, drinks and snacks during working hours and a discount on purchases.

But it's hard work - Dawn once measured how far she walks in a day at work and it topped three miles. And even when you're feeling less than happy, you have to be cheery.

"If you're feeling bad or a bit miserable, you still have to go out there and serve the customers as if everything's fine," says Dawn. "But most of the time, just doing that makes you feel better."

She particularly relishes the challenge of more cantankerous customers - although she's far too polite to ever describe them as such. "Some people can be a bit difficult," she admits. "But I see it as a challenge. The challenge is winning them round."

10:24am Tuesday 15th April 2008

Print   Email this