On a mission...

Snow by mabufeu

When I come to write my book¹ on skiing the Bar 50-fifty in Meribel will feature prominently.

Not for the cheap vin chaud (though it was) and not for the live cricket on TV (though there was some), and nor even for the unusual sextuple vodka-shot holder.

No, bar 50-fifty would be listed for the quality and precision of its mission statement.

In the business world large corporations waste spend millions of pounds on consultants who can find out for them what their mission is and then write it down in a single sentence.  In our case it turned out to be "Partnering with our clients in innovative ways to create real shareholder value" which in my view lacks a certain je ne sais quoi to the extent that that I am never quite sure when I read my mouse-mat each morning whether it entirely captures what sort of company we are and what it is really like to work there.

In Bar 50-fifty they don't have mouse-mats (and anyway laptops are not allowed on the bar, mate, sorry) but instead, fixed to wall just above the Yard of Ale, there is notice which says, in red marker pen

SUSHI

OR

CHILLI NACHOS.

Served all day

The perfect mission statement...in just seven tight words.. what more about Bar 50-fifty could you possibly want to know?

Underneath the Yard of Ale was scrawled the best times achieved this season, that week, and that day², which did nothing at all to change my favourable impression of the place.

And because the mission statement is so clear and so precise, the staff of 50-fifty actually live by their values: I know this, because I tested them “A plate of chilli nachos please, and a side order of sushi”
“Sorry, mate.....”


As it happens, the famille Botogol are partial to neither chilli nachos nor sushi, so looking for a place to take them that evening I wondered a few bars along to Cactus where there were cheap pizzas and rumours of an apres-ski live band.

“What sort of music do Bigfoot & the Mirabelles play?” I asked the not unfriendly barman.

“No mate, sorry we don't have any apres tonight”, he told me, “It's half term – the place just fills up with families sharing pizza and not spending any money”.

I told him I could see how that would present a problem. That evening: we stayed in

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¹No Poling by Alibert Botogol: The lazy skier's guide to motorway reds, sleazy apres ski, biere pression (bien sur,  tres grand) and the campaigning against pistes that are not actually sloping.

²2 mins and 13 seconds by Dwayne Wright of Preston