If there’s one thing running a café has taught me, it’s that chaos doesn’t politely queue. It barges in, sits itself at the front, and orders a flat white before you’ve even had time to tie your apron.

This weekend was one of those weekends.

It started on Friday, when the Goods Shed next door had an event at lunchtime, great, lovely, brilliant for business, except for the small detail that no one told me they’d sold 97 tickets.

Ninety. Seven.

So I was prepping for what I assumed would be a normal Friday, and suddenly it was like the doors burst open and someone had emptied 3 or 4 coach trips into the café. The queue formed instantly. The coffee machine started rattling like it knew what was coming. Mince pies began disappearing at a speed I can only describe as concerning.

And then Saturday and Sunday followed… and all hell truly broke loose.

We had a constant queue, literally out of the door, from the moment we opened.
By midday on Sunday, we had sold out of mince pies.

Now, when I say “sold out”, I don’t mean a tray or two.
I mean the big batch of mincemeat I made in October, the one I smugly thought would carry us beautifully until we closed for Christmas, gone.

Across Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I baked and sold 200 mince pies.
Two hundred.
And when you make everything from scratch, and you’re short-staffed anyway… that number hits differently.

And then… the coffee machine decided it had had enough.

At 1.30pm, right in the thick of Sunday lunchtime, it spluttered, hissed, made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a cry for help, and then simply gave up. Complete shutdown. Third time this year.

Honestly?
I think it was having its own mental breakdown after this weekend.

And truthfully?
I didn’t blame it.

Everyone else looked horrified, a coffee machine dying mid-rush is basically a café nightmare, but deep down, I felt… relieved. There was a tiny pocket of silence where it stopped whining and steaming and spitting milk everywhere, and I just thought:

“Thank God. I need a minute.”

As if that wasn’t enough, my eldest, Riley..... who works with me three days a week and is usually brilliant with customers, came in on Sunday like a full-blown space cadet. He’s so lovely with people, more than a little neurodivergent, kind-hearted, and full of charm… but this Sunday?

The boy was buffering.

He’d walk with purpose into the kitchen, stop, blink, look around, and clearly have no idea why he’d gone in there. It was like watching someone act out the menopause in real time. And meanwhile he’s front of house, on the till, in the eye of the storm.

And I’m standing there thinking:
“How on earth is he going to cope with the rush that’s already here?”

But then, the bit that nearly tipped me over emotionally, came the customers.

And through all of this, the queue, the mince pie madness, the surprise 97 guests, my coffee machine preparing its resignation letter, and Riley doing slow-motion circles in the kitchen like he was buffering, the customers were lovely.

Truly lovely.

It didn’t matter how frantic it felt behind the hatch. They were patient, kind, full of compliments… the sort that catch you off guard when you’re running on adrenaline and crumbs. And Riley, my gorgeous, neurodivergent space cadet who had arrived looking like he’d forgotten how to human, somehow pulled himself together.

Muscle memory kicked in, his charm switched back on, and customer after customer kept telling me how brilliant he was, how friendly, how helpful, how lovely he’d been.

I swear, it nearly tipped me over emotionally more than the coffee machine dying.

Because in the middle of the madness, seeing him trying so hard, and being seen and appreciated by customers, was the bit that made it all feel worth it.

By the time we closed the doors on Sunday, I was covered in pastry, running on fumes, and questioning why I ever thought that batch of mincemeat would last until Christmas.

But despite the chaos, the brain fog, the breakdowns, human and mechanical, there was so much kindness threaded through the whole weekend.

And sometimes, that’s all you need to keep going:
a few lovely customers, a compliment when you didn’t expect it, and the reminder that even on the busiest weekends… people really do see you.