{"id":9534,"date":"2021-05-20T12:36:06","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T11:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/?p=9534"},"modified":"2021-05-20T12:33:11","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T11:33:11","slug":"graham-poaches-chef-to-expand-his-oven-cleaning-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/graham-poaches-chef-to-expand-his-oven-cleaning-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Graham \u2018poaches\u2019 chef to expand his oven cleaning business"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p>Graham Barnard made sure to gain the approval of his better half before taking on a subcontractor to expand his oven cleaning business, Ovenu Brentwood.<\/p>\n<p>For at the time applicant Tobias Titchner was working as a chef for Graham\u2019s wife Gemma at The Artichoke Toby Carvery, where she is general manager.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFortunately, poaching one of her employees didn\u2019t cause any family ructions,\u201d he joked. \u201cI\u2019d had a conversation with Tobias around Christmas, and he mentioned he was looking for a change of career, and I needed someone of his calibre to help grow my business.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, I did make sure I got Gemma\u2019s approval first!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-9536\" title=\"OBRENTWOOD2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/OBRENTWOOD2-300x241.jpg\" alt=\"OBRENTWOOD2\" width=\"300\" height=\"241\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/OBRENTWOOD2-300x241.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/OBRENTWOOD2-150x120.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/OBRENTWOOD2-20x16.jpg 20w, https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/OBRENTWOOD2.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>\u201cTobias is a dab hand in the kitchen and certainly knows his way around an oven and, as a chef, appreciates the importance of keeping an oven spotless, as well as delivering great customer service.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/ovenu-welcomes-new-franchisees-business-is-never-better\/\">setting up Ovenu Brentwood<\/a> in September 2019 after taking redundancy from his previous job as an operations manager for BT Openreach, Graham has seen demand grow, despite the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the last few months, I found myself having to turn bookings down because there just weren\u2019t enough hours in the day. Now, with Tobias on board, I can meet that extra demand and expand the business.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always been busy but as lockdown restrictions have eased, the number of enquiries has grown in line with the roll out of vaccinations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tobias, who is from Brentwood, and started out as a waiter at The Artichoke, said: \u201cI\u2019m relishing this new challenge and I\u2019m pleased to say that, despite the career change, ovens will remain a constant in my life!<\/p>\n<p>Rik Hellewell, founder and managing director of the Ovenu franchise, said: \u201cIt\u2019s fantastic to see Graham growing his business despite the challenges of the past year \u2013 I only hope his wife has forgiven him for pinching one of her chefs!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ovenu Brentwood continues to accept bookings at its discretion, with the strict stipulation that both parties observe the two-metre social distancing rule, along with guidelines on hygiene and cleanliness.<br \/>\nThe valeting process involves dismantling key components of an oven such as the door, interior panels, fan, and shelves and placing them into design-registered tank equipment, which uses safe, non-caustic products to clean the oven parts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Graham Barnard made sure to gain the approval of his better half before taking on a subcontractor to expand his oven cleaning business, Ovenu Brentwood. For at the time applicant Tobias Titchner was working as a chef for Graham\u2019s wife Gemma at The Artichoke Toby Carvery, where she is general manager. \u201cFortunately, poaching one of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9535,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ovenu","category-cleaning-franchises"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/OBRENTWOOD1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}