Oh my goodness, what has Melanie done with this place? I go away for a few weeks to move house and she’s completely redecorated Cafe Mint. When I walked into the shop I had to pretend I loved it, but I must confess: I really don’t. What was she thinking, decorating with lilies when roses are much better? I thought that would be obvious.
I’m not against redecorating, and good on her for making the place her own for a couple of weeks, but the books don’t look good. We’ve got fewer customers than ever because, quite frankly, the cafe looks terrible now. If she’d bought a hundred Floribunda rose arrangements, I would understand, but lilies? And you can’t just change the cafe’s appearance overnight. You need to build up to it, give people plenty of time to adjust to the changes. Otherwise, they get intimidated and don’t come back, which is exactly what’s happened.
I certainly would have done it differently. Had the redesign been in my hands, I would have started by doing some research on floral arrangements and found a few different types that really complimented each other. Then I would have gone to buy seeds online and waited for the delivery. While waiting, I would have put up a notice that the cafe is changing things up. Once the seeds arrived, I would have planted them and left it like that. Over the next few weeks and months, people would see these magnificent flowers blossoming. It wouldn’t be in your face or shocking, but refreshing instead.
It’s possible that this arrangement will grow on me but it’s just so aggressive. The lack of customers today speaks for itself. We’ll have to sit down and have a mature conversation about the cafe’s appearance going forward. Hopefully, we can come to a compromise, otherwise, Cafe Mint might be doomed. I’m sure neither of us wants that. As long as Melanie is reasonable about the whole situation we should be fine.