Worst Managed Rink in the World

Pierre taught lessons in this building at least once a week, so I trusted him when he said opening the cafe was a good opportunity and this was the best facility in the chain. He also reminded me regularly that Todd was never around and certainly not trustworthy. Like I have said before, I had no idea how bad it could really be.

It’s true Todd wasn’t around much. I was there all day everyday and I hardly ever saw him. On one side, that’s a good thing because he was very disrespectful of me, his tenant. However, there was also a downside to his absence. During the day, he had some women running the show. They may not have smiled a lot, but they were very professional and knew their jobs. Evenings and weekends, the kids took over. They may have looked like adults, late teens and early 20s, but calamity reigned. These guys sat with their backs to the front desk and chatted most of their shift. This band of miscreants wasn’t welcoming or helpful. They didn’t enforce the rules or take care of business – and many of them stole from our cafe.

Max, the ringleader, would call me names and tell parents not to buy from us because I was such a bitch. I don’t think he ever stole from us, but not sure about that. (Your landlord should never campaign against your business.) I brought this to corporate’s attention, but Max was not punished and later he was promoted, and the harassment continued. One night someone vomited in the lobby and there was a trail leading into the bathroom. People had to step over it all evening because the employees didn’t feel like cleaning it up and there was no adult working to teach them to do the right thing. I brought this up with corporate, but it continued to happen. Who wants to buy food when there’s vomit on the floor? And some of the boys stole from us after we closed for the evening.

It’s truly heartbreaking when you give people free leftovers almost everyday and a discount on everything they buy, just to be treated like dirt. My mistake here was not hanging out in the lobby at various times of day and talking to people who were there regularly. At this point I felt trapped in hell. How can your landlord be so dedicated to your failure?

Be a Good Example

From the very beginning, we gave our employees something to eat on every shift. We wanted to make sure they tried everything. Many customers ask about the different menu items and we wanted our employees to be able to describe and recommend our food. That is especially important when you’re cooking food in a non-traditional way. Most people have never had baked French fries so we wanted our employees to honestly say they are good. And they are – especially when you dip them in the nacho cheese.

We also made a rule that our employees could not bring in food from another restaurant. It’s very hard to build a restaurant when people are allowed to bring in outside food, so we couldn’t risk customers seeing our employees eating outside food.

The only person not on board with this plan was, of course, Pierre. We tried to tell him how important it was, but he still brought in food. How can anyone go around telling everyone that they own the cafe and then not eat there??? Sometimes, I wonder why in the heck Pierre ever wanted to do this. He never seemed at all engaged in making the cafe a success.

Baby, Bye Bye Bye

I can’t read minds, so I have no idea what Pierre and Robbie were thinking when we were planning the restaurant. Now, it sure seems like they both thought we would stock the restaurant, hire a bunch of people at $10/hour, and sit back to rake in the dough. So it’s no surprise Robbie decided he wanted out not too long after we had our fight. I was pretty disappointed because I thought sure Robbie was our ace in the hole. He was young and had the energy to really make things happen.

Robbie didn’t say much to me, just that he thought working more hours would make him feel burned out and he didn’t want that. It was Pierre who told me Robbie wanted out. Of course Pierre’s idea was for me to give Robbie his $12,500 back and I would become 2/3 owner of the restaurant. He thought that was fair because I was doing most of the work and would reap more benefits when we started making money. So, I gave Pierre a check and he got Robbie to sign away his partnership in the restaurant for the return of his money. I went along with it because I thought our finances would turn around when we got the liquor license and eventually I would make my money back and more.

That’s when I learned how vengeful Robbie could be. His friend, Dawnell, had already quit. Another friend, Dan, had just started working every other weekend. After Robbie left, Dan didn’t show up for a shift and then said he was quitting because he was only working to help Robbie. We owed Dan about $150 and he wanted to come by and pick it up in cash. I told him he would have to turn in the payroll paperwork so we could take out withholding and report the earnings. Dan never came back. Robbie said some mean things to me because I didn’t pay his friend. I had every intention to pay Dan, I just wanted to do it legally. I don’t know why Dan didn’t want to get a regular paycheck. Before Dan quit, Robbie sent me another friend and her daughter. They didn’t show up for their interview, so I called the Mom. She said Robbie told her not to come because the restaurant was closing. Their family really needed the money and we really needed the help but Robbie made her feel like a traitor if she were to take the job. Really? We didn’t do anything to hurt Robbie and yet he sure wanted to hurt us.

My mistake here was refunding Robbie’s money without question. We had a fight and Robbie quit, Pierre attacked me verbally, Pierre hadn’t put in his seed money, and I was killing myself working all the time. Restaurants fail even in the best of circumstances. With all this crap, we didn’t have a chance.

Our First Fight

I started out working 6am – 10pm everyday, midnight on the weekends. However, as soon as it became apparent the figure skaters weren’t going to support us, I started coming in around 9am or so. I got to go home at 4-5pm some nights when I had someone to work the evening shift. I did all the day-to-day activities including food prep and sales, ordering, stocking, cleaning, hiring, accounting, and working on getting a liquor license. Robbie worked when he felt like it. He still had his full-time job, so he didn’t come in very often. Pierre only worked in the cafe in an emergency. He went to the bank and the store for us when we needed help. Granted, I was the only one pulling a paycheck, but I couldn’t do it all by myself. And my paycheck wasn’t much. It didn’t pay all my bills, just helped me survive until we started making money.

So it’s no surprise we had a big fight after a couple months. I told Pierre and Robbie I didn’t feel they were pulling their weight. Pierre responded by verbally attacking me – saying I was too old and he wasn’t sure I could even do the job, etc. I was shocked considering I had been doing almost everything so far. Pierre did say he expected Robbie to put in at least 20 hours per week to help us get the restaurant going. And once again, Pierre reminded us that his job was marketing.

You’d think between the money (or lack there of) and Pierre’s attack, I would have walked out that day, but I didn’t. I still believed our restaurant had big potential. I drank Pierre’s kool-aid and continued to pursue the dream. Big Mistake!

Kyle Joins the Team

The best thing that Pierre did was introduce us to Kyle. Kyle was the bartender at the Farmers Branch rink. He had a lot of restaurant experience and was a hard worker. We offered him a job, but he turned us down. It would have been a much longer commute to our restaurant and he was still going to college.

Fortunately, Kyle was willing to give us some much needed advice. We opened the restaurant in such a hurry, we didn’t have adequate procedures in place to protect our inventory and our money. Kyle was instrumental in designing our bar setup, recommending food prep procedures, and creating more money handling procedures.

During all this, we lost our first employee. She quit the day we told her about the new money handling procedures. Turns out she was robbing us blind and padding her time card. I was already suspicious and this confirmed my fears. I was really bummed because she was a great worker when she was there. Dawnell was a good friend of Robbie’s and even lived with him and his family for a while. I couldn’t believe he didn’t warn us when he recommended her for the job.

As luck would have it, the Farmers Branch restaurant and bar gave Kyle 2 days notice that they were closing and he didn’t need to come back to work. We scooped him up in a heartbeat and paid him whatever he asked. He was worth every penny, and still is. Even though Kyle no longer speaks to me, I will always think of him fondly. He was my only saving grace for 2 years.

I Am the Stupidest Person On the Planet.

While we’re talking about money, let’s go back to the beginning for a minute. Before we opened, I paid for the Hunt Brothers startup out of my own pocket – over $4,000 for the new oven and supplies. I also paid some City of McKinney fees, $500 to open the checking account, and some other needs itemized on an expense report with receipts.

I told Pierre and Robbie I planned to deduct these expenditures from my $12,500 seed money and deposit the difference into the checking account. Pierre suggested I talk to the CPA before I did that, as the CPA would probably want us to deposit the entire $12,500 and then get reimbursed later. I called the CPA and he said to put in all the seed money. So I did. And I reported his wishes back to Pierre and Robbie.

Robbie deposited his $12,500. Pierre put in NOTHING. Not one penny. Yes, Pierre bought the fancy coffee machine – which was under $5,000. Pierre also supplied the Keurig, but he got that back once the fancy coffee machine was hooked up and working.

So here I was, a few weeks into opening the restaurant. One of my partners has not deposited his seed money and had to be pushed to give us our unverified credit card money. Looking back, I am the stupidest person on the planet for staying. It’s embarrassing to think I still thought we would be successful and make some money. You will see as we continue on with the story, Pierre never did put in his seed money. He always had some excuse when I asked him for it. After about 1 year in business I told Pierre we needed money for payroll – it wasn’t the first time I told him that. He deposited $2,000 into the checking account. Two weeks later, he wrote himself a check for $2,000 and took his money back. I just feel so stupid for trusting him.

Trust Your Partners, But Verify

Because we opened in such a rush, we didn’t have a POS system for the first couple weeks. Pierre lent us his iPad that he used for his businesses, already set up to accept credit cards and everything. He said he set up a separate account for the cafe and showed us how to use it for our sales. It wasn’t as good as a cash register when you have a line of customers, but it worked.

Choosing a POS system was easy. HarborTouch was the only one to call us back. Getting set up is straight forward but it takes some time to add your entire menu, even when it’s small. Then you have to set up your employees and train everyone. It was a good system and did what we needed. It’s amazing how many companies do not respond to your inquiries, but hound you months later to switch to their system – meaning they expect you to switch out your system, reenter all of your menu, retrain your people, and somehow merge your sales figures for the year.

We returned Pierre’s iPad, but didn’t see a deposit from him. I checked several times and finally asked him when we were going to get our credit card money that had gone through his iPad for the first couple weeks. After a couple reminders, I finally saw a deposit for $900+. It seemed like we had made more money than that, but every time I asked Pierre, he said that was it. He never showed us the figures in the iPad. He never gave us a report. He never gave us anything to verify this number. Was it correct? I have no way to know. I do know we made more credit card sales than that on every single tournament weekend after that. For us to make less than $1,000 in credit card sales for 2 weeks of business including a tournament weekend feels wrong.

My big mistake here was not seeing the writing on the wall and leaving the business right then. If your partner has to be reminded to deposit money into the checking account and doesn’t provide verification of the figures, there is something very wrong and you should cut your losses and get out. Run away as fast as you can.

Some Employees Need to Go

Even though I’ve been fat most of my life, I’ve always been very active. I used to work full-time, and then go home and participate in all sorts of activities – tennis, softball, bowling, camping, horseback riding, etc. I was only home long enough to eat and sleep. It was great!

So, it’s no surprise I thought I could open a restaurant. I’m no stranger to hard work and was ready to give it my all. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize my all was somewhat less than it used to be. Getting old is hell. Your brain feels the same as when you were younger, but your body takes hard work a little more personally and punishes you if you do too much. I worked all day, 7 days a week. Some nights, I could hardly walk when I got home and still hurt when I got up in the morning.

We hired people of all ages and in the beginning we paid them way too much. The pay rates were set by Pierre and Robbie and I trusted them to know. With more experience, I learned our pay was way out of line. And the people we overpaid didn’t even appreciate it. Some that we overpaid even stole from us. I could tell you a million stories about employees. Once I figured it out, the starting pay was a lot lower. It was still good money compared to other restaurants because we paid regular minimum wage. Customers don’t tend to tip in a snack bar type environment and we compensated for that.

I lost 35 pounds while eating pizza everyday. So you know I was literally working my a** off. I needed employees I could trust to give me time off, as a snack bar can often be run easily by 1 person. It was very hard to find people like that and sadly I trusted the wrong person more than once. And I kept employees longer than I should have just so I could go home. My recommendation is to let people go as soon as you see they are not going to respond to your personal improvement talks. Keep everything in writing and count the money and inventory often.

Do Your Employees Understand the Purpose of Plastic Gloves?

At the time we opened the cafe, Texas regulations said you could wash your hands and put on fresh plastic gloves or you could wash your hands twice and prepare the food with your bare hands. That may have changed in the last couple years, to push people to always wear plastic gloves when preparing food for public consumption. Sadly, that doesn’t insure that your food is protected.

I am shocked at how many people don’t understand why they are wearing gloves. If you watch closely, you will see what I mean. Some food handlers treat the gloves more like the gloves are protecting their hands rather than the food. As instructed, they wash their hands and put on their gloves. (Sometimes, they don’t even wash their hands they just put on the gloves.) Then they prepare some food, put their hands on their hips (contaminating the gloves), lean on the wall with their hand (contaminating the gloves), brush their hair back (contaminating the gloves), handle your money (contaminating the gloves), and go back to prepare more food still wearing the same gloves. I have seen this a number of times at national sandwich chains. Even the Hunt Brothers men who trained us, did these things.

You must instill the importance of protecting the food when you’re training your food handlers. If your employee touches ANYTHING other than food or sanitized dishes, no matter how briefly, they MUST CHANGE INTO FRESH GLOVES! Often, you have to watch them closely and start pointing out these movements as they do them, as many people are unaware of these subconscious habits or unaware of the significance of these habits.

Of all the mistakes I made in my restaurant endeavor, I believe this was a good catch on my part. A small but very important success. It’s one thing our restaurant definitely did right!

We Appreciate Your Support!

While the figure skaters didn’t seem to care if there was a food source in the building, there were lots of hockey families who totally embraced us. The after-school crowd patronized us frequently. It was so handy for them to come straight from school and eat while at the rink. Many families were there from 3pm – 8pm (or later), so it was great to be able to feed their children at the exact time it fit into their child’s hockey schedule. We got tons of compliments on our menu. Many families are trying to reduce the amount of fat in their diets and none of our food was fried. Their kids could carbo-load on french fries and chicken nuggets all day and none of it was cooked in grease. And of course we had plenty of ketchup and ranch dressing.

We did our best to be accommodating because these families were in the rink several days a week, week after week. We had 1 or 2 families whom we carried a tab for – but that was unusual because you don’t want to get stuck with people owing you money. We had many families with multiple kids in multiple sports, so sometimes they would pay ahead for their child to have dinner while they went to the football field for another child. When their child came off the ice, we would cook their meal fresh and hot. We also had a meal deal, especially during hockey camp, 1/4 pizza, fruit cup, squirt water bottle, and a cookie for $5.25. You can’t beat that.

The hockey families kept us alive. I think they supported us because we were handy and reasonably priced, and also because many of them are business people and know a business needs a lot of support to get started and keep going. If you want a business to be there when you need them, you must support them other times as well. I will always be grateful to the people who supported us, figure skaters and hockey players alike.