Nicola stared working as a kitchen hand helping in a local pub when she was just 15, realising here that she loved cooking, she moved her way up to assistant chef over the next couple of years before attending York collage to train and earn her NVQ 1 & 2 in food preparation as well as Service of Food and Drink.
Nicola went on to gain 10 year’s experience of catering in a selection of busy local restaurants, pubs and a local brewery canteen, often serving 800 people a day!
An opportunity then arose for Nicola to take on the catering franchise of a local Golf Club, and during this time Nicola was lucky enough to be able to combine her passion of Catering with her love of Motorsport by working for a rally team on the British Rally Championship (BRC). A further opportunity came again in 2014 to work with another team on the BRC and also on the Swedish World Championship Rally – a perfect way to test your skill of “Outside Catering”!
It was in 2007 when Nicola went into partnership with her Uncle and opened a Farm Shop and Café. After 3 years of building up the business Nicola started to run an outside catering business alongside the Shop and Café, with a view of eventually leaving the Shop and Café to go it alone with the Outside Catering that she loves so much.
In 2015 Nicola left the Farm Shop and Café and took the outside catering business on on her own, and Two Jays Catering was born.
Why the name Two Jays Catering?
50 or so years ago, my Granddad had a garage and service station, with a business partner. They decided to name it after their beloved wives, Jean and Jane – 2 J’s, but as my Gran was a nature buff, she said it should be called “Two Jays” as it looked nicer and you could use the birds as the logo…
My parents then bought the garage from Granddad, and ran it for over 40 years until 2012 when Dad retired.
Dad (Graham) would often come and help me cater on events, as he had always fancied being a chef, and was a great cook! I was always more than happy to have his help on any event we did and loved working with him.
In July 2014 we lost Dad, so when I opened the new business in February 2015 I thought it would be nice to keep the family business name going in memory of them all…