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28 images FEBRUARY 2017
KB HOSPITALITY AND CATERINGWEAR
A ccording to owners Mary and Nick
Galer, The Miller of Mansfield in
Goring near Reading is best de-
scribed as a modern inn. A world
apart from the ubiquitous gastro pub, this
pub-restaurant with 13 bedrooms won the
Good Food Guide’s Readers’ Restaurant of
the Year in 2016, and chef Nick has worked
with industry greats such as Heston Blu-
menthal.
They started the business in April 2014
and have around 25 staff. The kitchen
staff all wear chef whites while the front
of house team wear black trousers and
black shoes with grey polo shirts for the
women and blue polo shirts for the men.
The polo shirts are from Fruit of the Loom,
says Mary: “I wanted a quality one that
wasn’t going to look worn or tired within a
couple of weeks. I also wanted something
everybody would feel comfortable in so it
had to be not too fitted, but I didn’t want it
too baggy either. I picked the brains of the
company we went with, Oliver Harvey, and
they were very helpful in saying what they
thought was the right one to go for.”
An essential and much-loved part of the
front of house uniform are the aprons:
long length denim for the men, and short-
er, two-tone denim ones for the women.
as when someone leaves the apron can be
passed on.” The company also has grey,
embroidered fleeces for its fulltime front of
house staff when doing breakfast shifts or
bringing in logs.
Mary orders all their clothes from Oliver
Harvey, a Manchester-based company that
offers British-made chef clothing. They are
a bit different to some of the mainstream
suppliers, she explains, plus Nick had previ-
ously had some chefwear from them and
knew they were helpful and offered a full
range, right down to the shoes.
Another, interesting plus offered by the
garment supplier was that when Nick and
Mary were setting up the business, Oliver
Harvey offered them longer credit terms
than anyone else. For a new business, this
can be a dealbreaker.
For anyone who’s looking to supply a
business such as The Miller of Mansfield,
Mary has the following advice: “Just have a
personal approach to it. I wanted the uni-
form to be hardwearing, I wanted quality,
but I also wanted a personal service, to be
able to talk to someone who knew what I
wanted and knew our business so they’d
get it right.”
w
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Denim is one of the key trends in hospi-
talitywear this year, although Mary wasn’t
aware of this: “When I saw the uniform
with the denim apron I just fell in love with
it. It wasn’t boring, it wasn’t like a tabard
or a run-of-the-mill apron – I thought it
would look nice, but would also be quite
trendy.”
It is also practical, being very hardwear-
ing and comfortable, although she does
say it is hard to iron. It also has the added
advantage, as does the entire uniform, of
being in shades that suit everyone. “We’re
not asking them to wear a colour that’s
really difficult to pull off – there was quite
a lot of thought that went into it.”
The need for a hardwearing apron is
obvious in a busy catering environment, al-
though Mary highlights another advantage
in an industry notorious for high turnover:
when staff leave, the aprons can be given
to a new member of staff. The aprons are
also, unlike the polo shirts, embroidered.
“For wear and tear, embroidery lasts a lot
longer and looks smarter,” says Mary. “We
went for embroidery on the apron because
everyone is going to be wearing them.
The polo shirts for hygiene reasons can’t
be passed on to someone else, so it was a
case of let’s pay the money for the apron,
The Miller’s Tale
Mary Galer of The Miller of Mansfield explains how denim aprons –
and good credit terms – won their business
Nick in his kitchen at The Miller of Mansfield
The extremely on-trend embroidered denim apron
The female staff wear grey polos and embroidered
fleeces are also available