Once upon a time, a Canadian boy met a Polish girl.  But the Polish girl didn’t cook, so her friends set about to get the Canadian boy hooked on Polish food and drink and music.  Because, let’s face it, some addictions are fun.  Then those Polish friends had a problem, because the Canadian boy was SERIOUSLY hooked on Polish food … as well as the Polish girl.  And now they had to find a place where Poles could take there non-Polish mates and introduce them to all the Polish tastes in the rainbow.  But none of the 50 or so Polish restaurants inside the M25 made this mixed group of mates – Poles, Brits and Others – feel at home.  

So the Canadian boy said, “This must be rectified!  I shall build a home of Polish food, drink, art and music in the oldest run-down shopping centre in the UK, in the middle of the Elephant and Castle, call it Mamuśka! and introduce these Polish wonders to the world!”  And then the Polish girl said, “Oh oh” and quickly set about advancing her career anywhere else and making babies, all to avoid working in a business run by the Canadian boy, whom she loved, but let’s face it, got on her nerves when they spent too much time together.  Then a London boy walked in from the bus stop in front of the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre and said, may I have a take-away.  And the Canadian boy said, “No.  Eat in.  So that people see that our food is much better than our surroundings.  And also, please host an Open Mic night every week and do all of our IT for us and also manage the business for 12 months a couple of years from now, because in two years our Polish Air Conditioning guy will run off with our Polish General Manager and also make babies. 

Then a Polish boy jumped off the coach at Victoria Station and came directly to Mamuśka! to seek employment as a cook.  And the Canadian boy said, “Not only will I give you a job as a cook, but in a year, I will make you my Head Chef and a couple years after that give you 5% of the business.” And the Polish chef said, “I don’t know what you are on about, because I don’t speak English yet.”  Then the Canadian boy decided to move across the street from the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre, because he was quite sure that the place was about to fall down around their ears.  And the landlord tried to make the Canadian boy pay through the nose to get out of the lease, even though the landlord was busy forcing other tenants of that Pit of Despair out on their ear, but eventually relented and said, “Actually, now that you have made the location viable I will rent the space to an Ecuadorian restaurant”.

 Then another Polish Chef who was also a Front of House Manager and Barista came to see the Canadian Boy and said, “Please may I be your Bookkeeper?”  And the Canadian Boy said, “I think I like the idea of a Bookkeeper who can jump into the kitchen and make schabowy and take orders from customers and make drinks when other team members realise their grandmother on their mother’s side has died again even though she died 6 months ago, so they cannot come to work.  That will be quite handy.” And the Polish Bookkeeper said, “Oh oh.” And then 3 years later, the Canadian boy asked the landlord at was fondly referred to as Location 2 across the street from the Elephant & Castle Pit of Despair … sorry … Shopping Centre, for a renewal of their lease and the landlord said, “Actually, now that you have made the location viable, I will hand it over to my son so he can open a bar.”  And the Canadian boy and his Polish Chef and the London IT Geek and their new Polish Bookkeeper looked at each other and then they looked around the restaurant they had spent a lot of time and money renovating and realised they would never recover that investment and they were getting a little bit annoyed, at this point.  

But in the meantime, one of the development arms of the Department of Transport hired an commercial estate agent with a keen eye for talent and gullibility and the agent walked into Location 2 and said, come down to Southbank Waterloo to a street that is actually a scary tunnel that has no exit and a bunch of hipsters, smokers and jokers with a lot of spray paint and spend all the money that the Canadian boy has left and open up a massive new site here because we ABSOLUTELY will make sure you are by no means left alone on the front of the development far away from the Leake Street Graffiti Tunnel that you are paying to be part of, with no signage telling people where you are and how to get to you, and with no neighbours in the arches beside you but with a hole in the ceiling that somehow every once in a while let’s in the rain from the platforms above even though they are covered, and also for good measure an uncompleted front entrance that will make your staff wonder why the massive heater they have running all the time is having no effect on their freezing toes. We are the Government, and we would NEVER do ANY of that, obviously!  

And then the Canadian Boy did spend all his money, but 6 months later the massive new restaurant and bar was not quite finished because the Government Agency gave them the wrong building plans and delayed their construction, and the Canadian Boy, his Polish Chef, the London IT Geek and their Polish Bookkeeper looked at each other and said, “Oh oh”.  And then the Canadian boy said to the Polish Girl, “You are very smart for saying “Oh oh” 8 years ago and for building your career elsewhere. Will you please buy me everything I need to survive for the next few years?” And we don’t want to tell you what she said.  Then the London IT Geek said,  “I am very tired of you guys calling me a geek.  And also, I am tired of fixing the printer.  Printers are NOT part of IT!! ” and left to start a life with, you guessed it, someone he met at Mamuśka!  And shortly after that, the Polish Bookkeeper, who obviously spent more time looking at the numbers than the other three, bailed and went and got a job where he did not have to break out in a sweat every pay day.