Product Description

This is a book about a dream. The dream of running a restaurant. In Uckfield, East Sussex. Well, okay, Uckfield didn¹t actually appear in the dream. But for Christopher Nye it was the perfect choice: a small town, but not too small; a town with a rising, young population that was literally crying out for an American-style Diner; a town without a McDonalds. So here¹s the story of how to make it big in Uckfield. How to find the right premises (if not quite the right location); how to hire teenage staff with vital teashop experience while giving work experience to a haute cuisine chef; how to cater for customers who pop in at 11.20pm on a Friday night, flexing their tattoos after they¹ve been thrown out of the pub; how to avoid paying VAT on a Big Max and fries; and why you should never, ever, hire an Elvis impersonator on the cheap. Oh ­ and how to deal with McDonalds, when they suddenly realise they need an outlet in Uckfield after all. Maximum Diner is a tale of all this and more. Read it and laugh. And keep that dream alive. For this might all happen to you.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #386369 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Independent on Sunday
Hysterically funny...Maximum Diner is huge fun, and highly informative...this book will make you laugh and sigh.

The Independent
I never realsied until now what grisly fun VAT regulations could furnish.

The Guardian
Entertaining...the narration is self-deprecating and funny.

Customer Reviews

Two books for the price of one?
When I was given this book I was sceptical as to how the author’s experiences setting up and running a small-town diner could have provided enough material for a 400-page book actually worth reading to the end. Then (as I read it pretty much straight through) I worked out Chris Nye’s trick: he’s actually combined two books in one. The first is a very funny primer for wannabe entrepreneurs eager to avoid the obvious mistakes, or happy to enjoy someone else’s for a change. The second is a spot-on portrait of life in a small country town full (like all small towns) of bored youths, single mums and pound shops. The characters are pleasingly eccentric and the anecdotes always affectionately told. I understand Chris Nye’s brother is the man who wrote Men Behaving Badly, one of the best British sitcoms ever. Maximum Diner’s style is a lot gentler, but there’s never any shortage of laughs.

Cracking
Cracking book this. Funny, insightful, self-depreciative and entertaining. It's not a management parable - it won't help you run your business better, and if any retailers (fast food is retail see) out there are looking for help then 'Smart Retail' is a better bet. But if you just want to read something that will make you smile, will make you laugh and, best of all, that will have you desperate for things to work out then buy this book right now. Honestly it's one of the most enjoyable books, on anything, that I've read this year.

PS Don't read the author's biog on the inside-back cover - it gives away information that slightly spoils the story.

Mmmmm Burgers!
After spending an evening a week for about five years at The Maximum Diner, being the person that invented the slogan "Open Your Mouth and Shovel It In", attending the Mexican Night and being one of the people watching bits of Somerfield bobbing across the Boots crossroads in Uckfield in Oct 2000, I managed to gain about 5 stone in weight! Now living in Newhaven, I'm waiting for Chris to open Newhaven's first all night American Diner! This is an amazing book, with detail recalled in explicit detail, it's almost like a time machine, a book shaped time machine.... that's about burgers!