I’m Confused

Posting my story is getting harder and harder. It hurts to dredge up these memories and sometimes it gives me bad dreams. My saving grace is to believe I will save at least one person from getting screwed like I did.

As I said in an earlier post, it surprised me when Pierre expressed interest in buying me out. And when we started discussing it, I became even more confused. He wanted time to check out some things, so I agreed. First, he wanted to meet with Todd and/or corporate to verify they were interested in extending our contract. We still had over 3 years of a 5 year contract and that wasn’t enough for him? I totally didn’t get that – the one person who showed little to no interest in the cafe wanted to make sure he was set up for another 10 years? Why? There were rumors of adding another sheet of ice, but the 2 that were there were virtually empty most of the time so how much more business would a third sheet bring? I’m sure Pierre was hoping Todd would confirm the third sheet of ice during the contract discussions. Next, Pierre wanted to have someone inventory the restaurant and look over the financial reports. Evidently, one of Pierre’s former students was a restaurateur in NYC. So, Former Student inventoried the entire cafe and bar and sat with me to discuss the business and finances.

Pierre also wanted to find another partner to help buy me out. No shock there. Pierre is good with other people’s money. And time. And hard work. An obvious observation from his lack of performance during the first 2 years. I think Pierre really wanted Former Student to partner with him. I guess Former Student was too smart to get involved with Pierre. Maybe he knew better from past experience. Of course, Pierre wanted to confirm Kyle the Bartender would stick around. Kyle and Pierre started barhopping to check out options for building the bar business. More confusion for me – why hadn’t Pierre been doing this during the last 2 years?

I don’t know if all this crap is a stall tactic or what. Funny, if you consider Pierre was just using me and my money to front his business, all the confusion goes away, doesn’t it? All I know for sure is, I’m sitting on pins and needles during all of this because I have to be prepared to sue a hockey franchise if Pierre doesn’t buy me out. At this point, I have no idea what will happen next and I don’t know what to do.

Now what???

Important decisions take a lot of thought. Too bad I didn’t invest more time before embarking on this adventure. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference, though. I never would have foreseen the level of deceit and theft I encountered during my time as a restaurateur. Now, it’s time to consider next steps.

I can close the restaurant and try to sell the equipment. Recoup what I can and move on. If Pierre really is interested in the restaurant, I can sell my share to him and move on. I can file a lawsuit against a giant hockey franchise for breach of contract, slander, theft, fraud, and conspiracy and hope for a David versus Goliath ending. I can get a loan and continue running the restaurant.

I definitely won’t be getting a loan. I have no support from my business partners, namely Pierre and Todd, and the environment it totally toxic. I already have a hoity toity downtown Dallas attorney, so I’m ready for a fight if I don’t get a better offer. That’s the thing about horse people, we’re used to dealing with entities that are bigger and stronger than we are and we accept the circumstances as normal everyday life.

I already suggested to Pierre that he buy me out, so for now I’ll wait to see his reply. I hate that it has come to this. That’s probably why this decision is so difficult. I love pouring beers and making pizzas for people. I enjoy meeting families and sharing in their stories. Part of me is not ready to walk away.

Questions

Pierre seemed interested in buying me out. I was shocked. Why would he even want this restaurant? He never helped do the work. In fact, as I found out later, he never got his TABC certification, never got his Food Manager certification, never even got his Food Handler certification. Clearly, he had no intention of being involved. Pierre never put in his seed money, never stood up to protect our profits, never fully engaged in marketing our bar. Why in the world would he want to take over ownership and management?

Millions of questions started bouncing through my brain. Was Pierre a con man? Did he lure me in with the idea of having me front the startup costs of the cafe and bar? Was Todd actually his partner in a good cop/bad cop game to get as much money from me as possible as they pushed me to quit? Was Max in on it, too? Am I the biggest idiot on the planet? Do I have an ‘idiot’ sign taped to my forehead?

Cyber Monday, I went to the bank and took Pierre off of the cafe checking account. After all my stupidity, I didn’t want my story to end, ‘then Pierre emptied the bank account and disappeared.’ For once in my life, I did something right.

Clarity

The rose colored glasses are gone. The world is a dull gray, at best. My hope for the future and seeing the best in the human race is gone. My vision of a group of people working together to build a successful restaurant has been stomped into the ground.

The General Manager of our rink and many of his employees are thieves. My contact at corporate has made it clear, he is not interested any issues we are having. Even after agreeing to start over and work together, Todd and his cohorts continue to sabotage our business. My partner doesn’t have my back. It almost seems as though he and Todd have been in cahoots to drain me of my savings before continuing to build the cafe and bar into a viable business. I can hardly pay my bills and definitely cannot invest another penny. My body is falling apart from all the hard work.

No knight in shining armor is going to gallop in and whisk me off on his mighty steed. Chef Irvine and Jon Taffer will not be calling to help me get back on track. Not even a wonderful philanthropist like Ellen DeGeneres can save me now. It’s time to quit.

After letting Pierre’s email sink in for a few days, I replied, ‘Buy me out’. He acted surprised. I don’t know why. After reading this blog, I know you’re not surprised. You’re probably more surprised that I stayed so long. Me, too, now that I’m looking back. It was truly a mistake to believe things would work out once these issues started presenting themselves. I was very sad. I really did love having a cafe and bar.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you should not believe in your vision of starting a business. All I want you to do is think way outside the box about what may go wrong and plan for that. After reading about the issues I encountered, you can see there are a lot more hurdles than drawing people to your doors and fixing equipment. Be prepared and make your dreams come true.

Good Offense is the Best Defense

Many people go on the attack when they know they are wrong. Every problem in the relationship is your fault. They are completely exonerated, because none of this ever would have happened if it weren’t for your bad behavior. More specifically, Pierre never put in his seed money, wasn’t marketing the cafe, wasn’t helping mend our relationship with our landlord and stop the blatant theft, and wasn’t up on the current facts, so he attacked me to distract from the real issues. This wasn’t the first time he had lashed out at me, but it would be one of the last. At some point, you have to be realistic and see that it doesn’t matter that you are right. It’s not worth losing everything to take a stand when you are surrounded by crazy people who have the financial backing to crush you like a bug and laugh over your remains.

In November, I was shocked to find out that once again Pierre had hired Max, after all the times Kyle and I had reminded Pierre that you don’t reward someone for sabotaging you and your business. I sent Pierre a text and here is his response.

Val,
I chose not to respond to your text yesterday, because I realized it would escalate into an argument, after working almost 30 hours straight through Thanksgiving Day, I was disappointed when I received your text, I thought it was petty and another example of your inability to allow some things to settle, in this case with Max, and move on.However upon sleeping on it, I have decided to respond in a more appropriate format of e-mail.
Your Text: 11/25/2016
“So even after Max totally betrayed you and went out of his way to hurt our business, you hired him again???”
Here are the facts, Max is working as a contract laborer for Ice Stars, to work nights building the Outdoor ice rink and making ice until 3am and 4am, HARD to find experienced people to work at 2am he is NOT an employee, even if he was, its NONE of your business.I would suggest you work on building relationships at Champions as opposed to destroying them, I guess now you want to start doing that to me.Whilst, I insist that the Ice Stars business should not be your concern, as you have no vested interest. That brings me to Champions Cafe which I do have an interest and financial stake in, while respecting your role as managing partner over the last 2 years.I have concerns about you continuing in this position, and can’t help feeling that the business may be better served with new day to day management, with someone who is energized and motivated to build the client base, and also may be more open to change, and have a more conciliatory attitude to the StarCenter staff and management, that are at the end of the day quite vital to our success. A possible candidate may be Kyle or someone with a similar temperament and personality.Unfortunately over the last 2 years, you have managed to alienate, pick battles, chastise customers and staff that are important to the success of Champions Cafe, while always playing the role of the victim in nearly every conflict.In my opinion you have a passive, aggressive personality which has led to a history of conflict at the Champions, it’s time to stop playing the victim and stop blaming everyone else including myself, and take some responsibility for the problems at Champions.I have to ask, why do we have none of our original staff working for us ? or even staff from 6 months ago ? why do we have such a high turnover of staff ? it’s a fact that the restaurant business does have high turnover, but nobody seems to want to work for you.Last week with schools on vacation all week, why did we not open the cafe for the morning public sessions ? when we were busy and had customers in the building, yet we open at 10:30am or 11am during the week when we have nobody in the building ? On that note it’s high time to sit down and give me full disclosure of our financial records, monthly sales, liabilities, true expenses, it’s my understanding that you don’t think that I deserve that courtesy as a partner in Champions Cafe because, “I haven’t worked hard enough for the business and don’t ever do anything” I guess you have different expectations of my role.As the managing partner you have a fiduciary responsibility and duty, to disclose the financials of the business, disclose our liabilities, and most importantly take inventory of assets, so we can regularly monitor our financial viability as a business.I would like to ask, when was the last time we did a full stock inventory at Champions ?If we do sit down to talk, let’s also discuss what has deteriorated into a pathetic relationship we have with the staff and management at the rink who are critical to our success, and I fear in recent weeks this situation could result in the termination of the Champions Cafe lease.Also, let discuss why we had to upset Lucas the McKinney rink Hockey Director, because you felt is was necessary to charge him 25 cents for a cup of water or ice, this escalated into you offending him to the point he never bought from us again.On a side note, I was told last week that Lucas has moved to Frisco because he has been promoted to Director of Youth Hockey for all the StarCenter rinks, and will be in charge of Youth Hockey and all youth Tournaments, so I ask was it worth 25 cents to alienate someone who could, and now can clearly help your business in the future.It’s time to have more people advocating our business, and not boycotting it because of personality conflicts.
Val, I want to reiterate, I do not want conflict, and I do not want to argue with you, it’s not productive and not in the best interests of either of us. However this exchange is long overdue and it’s important for me to relay my perspective and opinions, and I ask you to respect that, and understand that it is just that, my perspective and opinions.
I propose we meet and discuss the contents of this e-mail so we can move forward, for the best of everyone involved in Champions Cafe.
Pierre.

I’m not sure why an email is more appropriate than a text. Anybody know the finer points of these communication devices??? I don’t know why Pierre thought he had a vested interest in the cafe. His name was on some of the paperwork and he bought the coffee machine, but he never put in his seed money or worked any kind of regular hours – not even at home, setting up marketing campaigns or calling people to drum up business. Regardless, he had every right to all financial information and he is the one who told the accountant not to send monthly statements. I guess it was my fault Pierre turned off the financial reporting and never turned it back on. And if Pierre would have taken the time to stop by and talk more often, and maybe even help out, he would have known that Lucas came back in and apologized for his behavior with the promise of continued patronage. I’ve also never heard of theft referred to as ‘a personality conflict.’ But I’m sure they all get along now – the rink employees steal Pierre blind and he uses it as a tax write-off. Everyone loves you when you give them free access to your bar and restaurant. Who knows how many underage adolescents Pierre is supplying with free alcohol.

I never said any of this to Pierre, because I don’t like to argue and people who take this stand won’t be listening to anything you say so what’s the point of talking? When people say they don’t want to argue, all they’re really saying is they are going to express their opinion but have no interest in hearing yours. I didn’t respond right away because so many things were going through my mind and I wanted to let it soak in first. I waited a few days and replied with my express desire for him to buy me out. Clearly, theft and intimidation were ok with him and I needed to get out before I lost one more penny in this business.

Continuing Threats and Coverups

Some of the corporate employees had kids who played hockey at our rink. While I really wanted to discuss our issues with corporate and the rink employees, I tried to be respectful of their family time at the rink. I don’t know why I wanted to be respectful of them when they were so clearly disrespectful of us. I guess I still had hope that if we did the right thing and treated people well, eventually they would do the same for us. Now I just feel stupid for respecting our landlord and all the rink employees.

One night, Damon was at the rink with his kid(s). I didn’t want to discuss work problems during his family time, so I asked him to call me when he had time. He asked what I wanted so I pulled out a picture of one of the rink employees in our cafe early in the morning before we opened for the day. He excused the employee’s actions using the same words Todd had used so I knew they had talked and were prepared to defend the rink employee. So I invited Damon into the kitchen and showed him the employee was nowhere near the ice machine in the picture. Damon works at the corporate level, so now the theft cover up goes all the way to corporate. Then the threats began. Damon explained that they had installed new TVs in the bar and they could take them out if we weren’t feeling grateful. What? Is he saying we should be grateful they were updating all the rinks and just let their employees steal from us with no complaints? Now, I’ve been threatened by Todd AND Damon. Is that how hockey franchises work? They just take what they want and lay waste the rest of the world?

At one point in this conversation Damon said, “What do you want from me?” I bet every one of you reading this blog can answer that question. So, why can’t Damon??? Was he not listening all those times I talked to and emailed him and Todd??? I want the employees of a multi-million dollar hockey franchise to stop stealing from me, a senior citizen investing her retirement money. I want the employees of a multi-million dollar hockey franchise to abide by our contract, including staying out of our space when we are not there. I want a multi-million dollar hockey franchise to fix their security cameras and protect our assets. I want the employees of a multi-million dollar hockey franchise to stop harassing us and treat us with the respect we give them. I want my organization and my landlord’s organization to be mutually supportive of eachother’s success. Apparently, I want too much.

Ice Rinks Need a Playground

I’ve touched on this several times. Ice rinks are a family place, but not everyone in the family skates. Siblings of skaters run madly about the lobby and ice rink, wreaking havoc where ever they go. They lock all the bathroom doors, stick their fingers in the spigots of the water fountains and coffee machines, leave clothing strewn throughout the building, spill food and drinks all over the floor, break anything that can be broken, steal things off the snack bar counter and front desk, open all the sugars and creamers, throw stuff at the tv screens, and scream as loudly as they can. Not because they’re mean, just because they’re bored. Many siblings don’t skate and have nothing to do for hours.

It’s not so bad during the day, when more adults are working in the building. At night when the young bucks are in charge, all hell breaks loose. The nighttime rink employees sit behind the front desk with their chairs facing away from the lobby, collecting a paycheck for doing nothing.

I suggested a fenced, outdoor playground several times. I doubt Todd even considered it or passed the suggestion to corporate management. A playground would have solved many issues and given kids a creative way to burn energy. A few rinks tried setting up a little floor hockey area, but that didn’t go well and was soon dropped. The best way to keep kids out of trouble is to give them options. McDonalds learned this early on. Take note, hockey franchise.

The Women of the Arena were Terrific

I’ve touched on this before, but I wanted to talk about it in more detail. The arena was our landlord. They employed quite a few men, but there were a few women at the front desk and in charge of the figure skating programs. A couple of the women were a little grumpy, but for the most part all of them were nice and treated us with respect.

I feel confident in saying the women didn’t steal from us. When we asked for the arena employees to stop getting ice when we were closed, the women started bringing their bowl to us so we could fill it with ice. The men were the ones who still came when we were closed so they could continue to contaminate the ice and steal from us.

When our trays had disappeared, the women were the ones who returned them to us. Most of our customers would return our trays when they finished eating, but some would leave them at various places around the arena. Before we started making rules to stop the theft, arena employees would bring us trays they found as they were working. After the young men got angry that we reported theft to the police, the trays started to disappear. A box of 25 trays costs over $100 and we were struggling as it was, so it was frustrating to have to buy more boxes of trays. Every day, we would go over to the front desk to see if they had found any trays or to let them know we were looking for missing ones. We would walk around the arena searching and sometimes we would find one. But eventually we would get down to less than 10 and have to buy another box. One day, one of the ladies came over with a big stack of trays she had found on top of the Lost and Found cabinet. It’s my belief the guys were mad and so they put our trays up there to hide them from us but no one could say they stole them. Still the trays continued to disappear and we would have to buy more. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guys were using them as hockey pucks until they broke and were thrown away.

If it weren’t for the women, there would be no redeeming value to the McKinney arena employees at all. I am so grateful they were there. Now you know why I think the women were honest and supportive. Girls rule! And in this case, boys are stool.

Why Am I Telling You This?

After reading through my blog, you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all of this. My hope is that it will inspire you to think past Murphy’s Law and be prepared for anything. So many horrible, unforeseen things happened with my restaurant and I don’t want that to be your experience. If I save even one person by helping them see a red flag before they sign their first contract, I will be thrilled. And it will make all my tears and embarrassment fall a little softer.

Sometimes the smallest thing can be the most inconvenient. Dr Pepper was a sponsor. Their name was on the side of the building and in the arena name and logo. So we were required to sell Dr Pepper products. I can’t tell you how many people got angry because we didn’t have Diet Coke. Even when I reminded them it was a Dr Pepper arena, they didn’t get it. Other people just said “duh”. And even though Dr Pepper expected us to comply, they didn’t take care of us. You’d think they would want to look good to the public when their name was on the building, but they did nothing to help us. We didn’t even get a good break on cost. We were supposed to use their styrofoam cups, but it got to the point where they let us run out all the time. We would order cups every week and they wouldn’t send any. Or they would send cups but no lids. So I finally started ordering plain cups from Sysco. You can’t sell fountain drinks without cups and when you ordered something from Sysco, you got it. The only problem we had with Sysco was sometimes they would send expired products. They didn’t have a very good system for rotating or return-to-vendor or something. So we had to look carefully when we checked in our orders.

Before you start a business, make sure you look at each piece and think of a backup plan if that piece doesn’t go as expected. Watch for red flags as you proceed. Make sure you have plenty of cash. Have a bailout plan. Talk to as many people as possible in as much detail as possible. Be prepared and knock ’em dead.

Drinking Alcohol in a Public Place

The City of McKinney owns the building and property where the McKinney rink resides. So we were always aware of being on publicly owned property rather than private property. The local hockey team leased the property from the City and we subleased our space from the local hockey team.

There are laws preventing the consumption of alcohol in public places. While many exceptions to the laws exist, the McKinney arena was not in one of the ‘excepted’ areas. So the adult hockey leagues could not legally drink alcohol in the parking lot. Since our liquor license didn’t cover the entire building, they couldn’t legally drink in the lobby or locker rooms either. The only place they could legally drink was in our bar.

You’d think that would be good for business. However Todd, our self-proclaimed food service expert, refused to enforce the law. To our faces, he said he wouldn’t allow people to break the law and he said he would help us be successful, but behind the scenes he was sabotaging our very existence. We could lose our liquor license if TABC came in and found alcohol in the locker rooms. Yet, Todd and Pierre did nothing.

The front desk was supposed to enforce ‘no alcohol’, but adult leagues brought in big coolers of beer and alcohol. Conveniently, the rink employees didn’t notice the coolers. So I started contacting Todd every time I saw a cooler come in, regardless of time of day. Still the employees let the coolers go right into the locker rooms. They also refused to enforce ‘no consumption of alcohol’ in the parking lot. So we had to start calling the police to break up the tailgate parties, making us the bad guys. We didn’t tell anyone we were calling the cops, but some adults figured it out and decided to boycott our bar. I guess we really didn’t lose anything since they weren’t drinking with us before, but still, this wasn’t the kind of business or relationships we wanted to build. It was a horrible situation.

Turns out Todd, the man who repeatedly said he was going to help us be successful, only made a big deal about the City owning our building when he thought he could hurt our business. If enforcing the law would help our business, Todd and his people were not the least bit interested in honoring our commitment to preserving the sanctity of public property. And once again, Pierre did nothing. As a former employee of the local hockey team, Pierre certainly had a lot more clout than the rest of us and could bring these issues to the surface to be resolved.