Stock here consumes labour while it waits. Watering, feeding and potting on are a daily rota rather than a task, and two missed days in July turn a full bench of plants into a skip.
Plants arrive with documentation. Where a batch came from and what it is has to be recorded and retained, because a disease notification means identifying exactly which deliveries were affected rather than clearing everything.
The takings follow the forecast more than the calendar. Two dry weekends in April can carry the month, so staffing and ordering work from what sold on comparable days rather than from a monthly average.
The café obeys other rules entirely. Its own suppliers, its own waste, its own busy hours and its own staff: run as a line inside the shop accounts, it conceals both what it earns and what it quietly costs.