Orna Mulcahy on people we all know
Martin is thinking seriously of investing in one of those panini machines that squash your bread together and give it a nice grilled look. Pricey, but it means you can charge €3.95 a pop and it'll bring in the yuppie lunch crowd. Half-fill them with shredded lettuce, bit of tikka masala and you're away, even if it does take up a good bit of counter space. And God knows there's not much of that left what with the Lotto machine, the prima donna of a cappuccino maker (great little earner, though), the sandwich station, the raffle hamper and in the middle of it all - a sink, if you don't mind, so that they can all wash their hands. Health rules gone mad.
In Martin's book, every inch of shelf has to pay its way, and he's not done too badly now has he? Three shops, and he's looking at another in Celbridge, but keep that under your hat for the moment. Elbow on counter, Martin is a great man for a bit of unsolicited advice, so long as he doesn't have to give anything else away. "Trick in this business," he'll say, "is keep your margins tight, watch your staff (waggling fingers motion here to suggest till pilfering), and above all, know your customer." So you can fleece them, is what he means.
These days, though, Martin is mostly too busy to deal with the customers. He leaves that to Lee and Chi and the rest of their cousins, so that he can do the business side of things: slicing the tops off newspapers, filling up the cigarette machine, calling around the other shops to keep them on their toes or roaming the aisles of Musgraves, looking for value. Strange German chocolate bars that come two for the price of one, or new, violently-coloured fizzy drinks that go flat in seconds are specialities.
A man for all seasons, Martin has stands of sunglasses and umbrellas ready to wheel out from the back, depending on what your man above is doing. He hates being left with perishable things, like the Galaxy Easter eggs that wouldn't shift this year, even at half price. Still a few there out the back. No, you've got to keep the stock moving and sell anything - biros, candles, rubber rings, toothbrushes, even the free books that come with magazines if you scratch the "not for resale" label off the back.
Fresh flowers, of course, are hard to keep, but you'd be amazed at what people will buy when they're desperate.
Fruit and veg are a problem, as Martin hates waste. You'll always find an outlandishly priced lemon, or an avocado that a jackhammer wouldn't open, but the rest of it is difficult to keep. Slight technical problem there because the chill cabinets are just next to fruit and veg, blowing hot air out all the time, which is why he turns them down a bit at night, not off, of course, but there's no sense in cooling drinks all the time, and sure a lot of that yoghurt and stuff has bacteria in it anyway.