Summer of Robin

We have been busy since our trading début back in June at Gottwood. Rather than beg or borrow lots of the gear needed to vend we decided that getting our own stuff was key. Jack Dash's 'heap of crap' provided a curious afternoon resulting in a new lightweight sink and rolling table.

Skilled draughtsmanship was necessary in the planning of our new bar.


Next stop was the Underhill Festival down Dorset way. This is a prime example of misleading marketing, the website was slick the concept niche, we were stoked. However we have now learned that you really have to pick and choose your events carefully. Visitor numbers were not what the organisers had made out and while extremely helpful sparky, Trevor, did all he could to help the tiny generator was not up to powering the mighty Roberta's 5Kw needs. With fuel running out every hour or so and a funnel fabricated out of an old coke bottle we struggled to get the old girl up to heat and trading was slow.

Some charming yet hammered punters made the evening hilarious and we did manage to shift a hundred odd of Robins' finest. The young Irish gentleman below was more carted than Oliver Reed on his birthday and lacking pounds sterling offered us €50 for a pizza, being the honest types we are (but at the same time generally accepting only legal UK tender) brokered a deal that we would exchange 3 pizzas and £25 cashback. Our celtic chum took his cashback and wandered off with only one pizza. So whilst selling our most expensive pizza to date we are more than happy to offer a refund.

Some Qypers were next in-line for some Robiny action at the Guru event organised by tireless freelance journo Jo Webber. Fifteen qypes turned up for free Pizza; we did some dough rolling, all got a bit floury and everyone had a go at making their own bespoke versions. Cheers to those who reviewed the evening and thanks a bunch to those who didn't.

Last Saturday night saw our first private party, a hundred or so guests were being generously entertained in a lovely house in Kingston and we were there to provide the booze absorbing sustenance. I hope one day that I will attend a party with a pizza bar knocking out its melty wares, I can't think of a single food stuff that I would rather idly munch on whilst slurping on someone else's stash. An excellent choice by the party organisers if I say so myself. If you or know of anyone having a party or organising an event we would be more than happy to be there!

In other less good news we have sadly had to pull out of the Thames festival. It was with great regret that we made this decision. The Thames festival will be a huge affair and we worked out that to make a real go of it we would have had to be kneading for about eight hours a day to produce enough dough to keep up with projected demand. We are currently working towards accumulating enough capital in order to afford a mechanical mixer. This is the next step in Robin's adventure and we aim to have this sorted in time for festival season 2011, if anyone can help find us a nice second hand at a bargain price you will be awarded with free pizza for life!

We will be holding an underground takeaway very soon, with all proceeds going towards the mixer fund (details TBA) and please follow us on Twitter @RobinsPizza and check out all our photos on our Facebook page.

See you all soon!

(Images by A.A Coe & Cleo Leng)