People of the Pavilion: Stuart Mintram

We were delighted to celebrate a significant milestone for a member of our café team, Stuart Mintram (affectionately known as ‘Minty’), who joined us exactly 15 years ago yesterday. We caught up with Stuart to ask him a few questions about his time at the Pavilion, and what his plans are for the future. Here’s what he had to say:

My name’s Stuart, and today is my 15^th year working in the café bar at DLWP.

I started on the 27^th July 2007. I did my first coffee training up at illy in London, and joined the café team down here soon after. Speaking of which, I actually had a coffee training refresher, about a month and a half ago now, which was great. Got told off for the amount of coffee I drank though. I do drink far too much coffee. But I’m seasoned to it nowadays so it doesn’t affect me as much as it could do.

My very first day was the antiques roadshow, which was incredible. And I’ve loved the job ever since. The team was very welcoming, and still is. It’s a great building to work in, I love the place. The view from the café is amazing and it gives you a sense of pride to work in a grade one listed building.

Being here for so long, I’ve got a great rapport with the customers, who are very loyal and keep coming back. And I like making them smile, so I keep coming back too.

I only planned to be here for two years originally, but I got stuck into it and I still love it to this day. It’s absolutely fantastic working on the bar. You get to meet so many people from different walks of life. So I love it. Will I stay for anther 15 years? Who knows – we’ll see what happens.