Conversation between Peter (caregiver) and Mr Tucker (restaurant manager)

Situation: Peter has agreed to make a reservation at a local restaurant on behalf of Mrs Jones, as she wishes to celebrate her birthday with a small group of friends. The conversation focuses on access for elderly people, one of whom is in a wheelchair, and the nutritional value of the meal.

Audio: Listen to the audio file here.

Grammar points:

Conjunctions expressing cause and effect

Persons: Peter (caregiver) and Mr Tucker (restaurant manager) speaking by telephone Location: The telephone conversation takes place from an office at the Bridge Street nursing home

Peter:	Hello, is that Mr Tucker from the Coalville Inn?
Mr Tucker:	Yes, it is, how may I help you?
Peter:	My name’s Peter and I work at the Bridge Street nursing home. I would like to make a reservation for a group of five people, including four senior citizens. I wanted to call first because one of the group uses a wheelchair.
Mr Tucker:	That won’t be a problem as we have ramp access and we have a lot of room in the restaurant area. We also have a disabled toilet.
Peter:	Oh that sounds great, however, I also wanted to ask you about your menu as our care home doctor has advised some of the group to eat more healthily.
Mr Tucker:	Can you explain what that means?
Peter:	The doctor has advised the residents to try and avoid high fat food because they are not all able to take regular exercise.
Mr Tucker:	That makes sense.
Peter:	Although the group would like to eat traditional British food, can you make any healthy adjustments to the recipes?
Mr Tucker:	In spite of the rising costs of fresh local produce, we still buy locally and cook all of our meals fresh each day.
Peter:	Does that mean that you can make some healthy adjustments?
Mr Tucker:	We can if your party can choose their meals a couple of days in advance. Otherwise we will only be able to serve standard meals.
Peter:	I think that can be arranged but where can we get the menu from?
Mr Tucker:	We have a website at www.coalvilleinn.co.uk and the menus and prices are all on there.
Peter:	OK I’ll download the menus and ask the group to choose their meals in advance. I can call you with the order or drop a copy off on my way home from work tonight. Which do you prefer?
Mr Tucker:	It’s best to drop a copy in at the restaurant in case I’m not around to take the telephone call. I wouldn’t want there to be any confusion.
Peter:	O.K I’ll bring it there myself. Just for my own interest, how do you make your meals more healthy?
Mr Tucker:	It depends on each meal but I can give you some general principles that we follow.
Peter:	That would be useful.
Mr Tucker:	With our meats we tend to grill or braise them and avoid frying where possible. If we do need to baste meat we tend to use a little wine or fruit juice, otherwise we use fat\-free vegetable broth.
Peter:	Does your restaurant also specialise in pies?
Mr Tucker:	Yes, we do, however we use whole wheat flour instead of white flour, as it has a lot of good health benefits.
Peter:	It sounds as though most of your food is quite healthy anyway.
Mr Tucker:	We try to offer healthier food now because people are generally more aware of the need to stay healthy. All our vegetables are fresh and locally sourced even though this restricts us to seasonal vegetables.
Peter:	The lady who is having the birthday has been advised to avoid cakes and pastries. Can you provide any healthy alternatives?
Mr Tucker:	Our healthy alternatives for desserts include reduced sugar options. We use either vanilla or almond flavouring to achieve the desired sweetness. We can also use fat\-free milks in our creamy desserts because it reduces the calories by around 66 calories.
Peter:	This all sounds wonderful and I’m sure the guests will appreciate your efforts. I’ll discuss the dates when I bring the menu choices to you later.
Mr Tucker:	I look forward to meeting and if you have any more questions about the food you can ask me then. Goodbye.
Peter:	Goodbye.