Pret

There is a rule I have with myself. One black coffee from @Pret every morning. That is it. A second coffee usually means I am moving faster than I should. A third means I have completely surrendered to the chaos. Getting older does not automatically mean you slow down. It just means you finally realise that you can. You begin to enjoy the little moments instead of racing past them. Read into that however you like. I am not here to talk about ageing.

What I am here to talk about is something far more enjoyable. Those rare moments when hospitality is truly enjoyed.

Every weekday morning I cycle 35 minutes to work. By the time I arrive, I have well and truly earned that first black filter coffee. Pret is my stop of choice. It is quick, it is good, it is inexpensive and, somehow, I have mastered the art of avoiding the endless queue of sleep deprived City workers desperately clinging to their caffeine fix.

Every morning I quietly hope one particular team member is working. She is always smiling. Not the rehearsed customer service smile that appears because the training manual said so, but a genuine smile. The sort that reaches her eyes. Every morning she greets me with, "Hello, good to see you," and every single time it feels sincere. You simply cannot fake that.

Last Friday, after a particularly sweaty bike ride and an even longer week, she took my order, made my coffee herself, walked around the counter, handed it to me personally and spared me the queue. That alone would have made my morning.

Then, with the same warm smile, she said, "This one's on the house."

If there had been a camera pointed at my face, you would have thought I had just won the lottery.

The smile cost nothing. The coffee probably cost Pret pennies. Yet the value I received was worth a million dollars.

That is the magic of hospitality. The smallest gestures often create the biggest memories.

People often say that great hospitality comes from great training. There is certainly some truth in that. But I think Pret deserves even more credit for finding people like her in the first place. You cannot train genuine warmth. You cannot train kindness. You cannot train someone to truly enjoy making another person's day. You hire those qualities first and then give people the tools to succeed.

So, well done Pret. Thank you for reminding me that hospitality is rarely about grand gestures. More often than not, it is a smile, a familiar face and a simple cup of coffee, given with genuine care, that leaves the biggest impression.

Pret has set the bar rather high. Whoever is serving me a dirty martini this evening has quite a reputation to live up to.

Hospitality Noticed.