Not a Friendship Membership

When we opened the cafe, Pierre went to Sam’s to buy a membership but they made him mad so he got a membership at Costco. It was handy and cheaper than Sysco for items like candy and water bottles. We got a business account that was enabled for tax exempt purchases since we were buying most things for resale. Pierre was good about making Costco runs for us when we were getting low on water, but he always bought sanitary wipes while he was there. I told him we didn’t need them because we already had sanitizer in squirt bottles for cleaning counters and equipment. He continued to waste our money buying the wipes, which tells me he didn’t watch the Food Handler videos or just didn’t care. Like I told you earlier, it wasn’t his money so I guess it was easy to waste.

I went to Costco and got my membership card. For the account we got, 2 people get membership cards and you have to pay extra if you want to add more people. Pierre wanted to add Nick to our account. I didn’t like the idea, because Nick wasn’t part of the cafe. Nick was a former student of Pierre and now a skating coach. I love Nick, but he’s not part of the business and really didn’t even support us much. He hardly ever bought anything from the cafe. Mainly though, Nick wasn’t qualified for tax exempt purchases and I didn’t want to be involved in any kind of sales tax fraud.

So one day, I went to Costco and when I got to the checkout they told me my membership was no good. Turns out, Pierre had put Nick on our membership even though I wasn’t in favor and when Nick was added Costco took me off. What the Heck! This is a business, not a friendship membership. I don’t know if Pierre and Nick are more than friends, but I sure don’t see any reason to have Nick on our account. It’s cheaper for him to have his own account anyway since personal accounts are cheaper. I had Nick taken off the account and got everything straightened out. I did find out later that Pierre paid the extra money for Nick to be put back on the account as a third member. I told Pierre he better make sure Nick was paying sales tax on his purchases.

This is the kind of crap you shouldn’t have to deal with when trying to build a business. I don’t know where Pierre’s brain was, but it wasn’t on building a restaurant. It’s a bad sign when your partner goes behind your back on business actions. I should have run away as fast as possible.

Is That a Threat?

From the very beginning, I wanted the cafe to make money in a lot of different ways. Diversity is the key, so you aren’t relying on one cash flow stream. One of the things I decided to do was sell boxes. All of our food and supplies came in fresh clean boxes. People are always looking for moving boxes and some people pay moving companies a lot of money for boxes. So I posted our empty boxes on craigs for $2 or less per box. We sold exactly 0 boxes. I was shocked. So we finally just started throwing them away. What a waste.

Another idea was to sell mini-bottles of toiletries. People travel to rinks for competitions, tournaments, and to train with a specific coach. They often forget something, like a toothbrush or shampoo, and could buy from us instead of looking for a store. Customers also need tissues and lip therapy in an ice rink. We were asked for hockey tape several times, so we sold some tape too. We didn’t sell this stuff everyday, but it was handy when customers needed it.

Todd went ballistic. He told me he couldn’t compete with us. I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I reminded him that he competed with us everyday. He had vending machines all over the building that sold the same stuff we did – coffee, hot chocolate, soft drinks, candy, chips, granola bars, to name a few. (Another problem with not having an exclusive food provider rule. Not only could people bring in food from another restaurant, they could buy from vending machines rather than spend money with us.) Todd went on to explain that we could not sell sundries as our contract only allowed us to sell food. I didn’t remember that being in the contract so I said I wanted to see that in writing. Todd said, “I am not someone you want to go to war with.” Was I just threatened? I should be able to discuss anything with my landlord and see it in writing without being threatened. In the interest of good relations, I decided to ignore it and just comply. So now, I’ve allowed this man to steal from us, allowed his people to steal from us, allowed his people to disparage our business, allowed him to dictate what we could or could not sell, and even to threaten me, all to keep good will with our landlord.

I shared all of this with Pierre. He kept saying he would talk to Todd, or talk to Max (the main rink employee disparaging our business), but nothing changed. I don’t know what Pierre did or didn’t do, but he didn’t help our business. Like I’ve said before, Pierre never put in his seed money, so he probably didn’t care that these people were affecting our bottomline. It wasn’t his money we were losing, it was mine.

Sexual Harassment?

Today, I watched a movie/documentary of the gymnastics scandal. I have been appalled from the very beginning and thought the Karolyis should have left gymnastics as soon as the story broke. How dare those people take children from their parents care and not protect them! At that time, I had no idea coverups led all the way to the USOC. Now, I’m really mad. Not sure why I’m mad. I’ve seen stuff similar to this throughout my entire life. I’ve posted numerous times that people talk about discrimination and harassment like they’re bad but when it comes down to it, no one really cares. I have brought issues to management’s attention numerous times and almost every time I was the one to lose, my job or my voice. It’s sad but true. I’m so glad these gymnasts were finally able to be heard and save others from the same fate. They were brave and I admire them. I’m also impressed with the judge, who was able to see through this abuser and punish him.

This brings me to one night at the rink. I was training a new employee. She was a cute 15-year-old with a lot of energy. We didn’t usually hire anyone under 16 but her friends worked for me and she really wanted a job. At one point a young boy – maybe 12 or 13 – came over and I asked if we could help him. He was embarrassed and said the guys at the front desk had sent him over to check out the new employee and radio back how hot she was. I was offended, mad, etc. These 20-something men gave a young kid/customer a radio and sent him over to harass a young girl while they watched from the front desk. The next morning, I reported the incident to Todd, the General Manager. He informed me that this was not sexual harassment because we didn’t work for the same company. They are our landlords and have power over us. So just like Todd didn’t punish his people for stealing from us, he didn’t punish them for harassing us and their own young customer. Clearly, these young men needed a mature adult to work with them at night but it didn’t happen. This incident seems minor compared to the gymnastics story, but no one should be treated like a piece of meat especially a 15-year-old.

Liquor License

Getting a liquor license is very precise and time consuming. TABC is great about guiding you through the process. You have to get just the right signatures in just the right order and everything has to be notarized. I took far too long to complete this process. I’m not making any excuses. Yes, it’s hard to run a business, work the counter, do your partner’s job, and work on a liquor license, but I should have made it a higher priority. Oh, and I sold my house, bought a new house, and moved all during the same period.

You may wonder why I was still building the business after all the crap I’ve told you about so far. Well, the liquor license was that one ray of hope that the business would make a complete turn around for the better and all the torture I had endured so far would just melt away. Pierre, Todd, and Kyle all said it would make a difference and I believed them. During this process, I learned that Todd had lied about helping us set up pizza and beer in the locker rooms for the adult league. Once we got the liquor license it became a violation to have liquor on the premises outside of our space. We would have to change the liquor license to cover the entire building and Todd said he would never agree to that.

The liquor license did double our business almost immediately, but it didn’t turn the world around. Sadly, things continued to get worse. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you all about it as the saga continues. One thing I want to say here, I couldn’t have done any of this without Kyle. He is a hard worker and honest person. Even though Kyle no longer speaks to me, I will always be grateful to have worked with him.

Hockey Camps

You’d think hockey camps would bring good money to the cafe, but even the camps had limited participation. When the local hockey team held camps in our facility, we had good business from the kids once the parents found we had a good lunch deal – 1/4 pizza, chips or fruit, cookie, and squirt top water bottle for $5.25. However, the coaches from corporate didn’t eat with us at all. These are our landlords in the building for a week and didn’t buy lunch from us even one time – in fact, Tuesday they brought in pizza from an outside restaurant. So Friday afternoon, I went over and had words with them about patronizing their tenants and setting an example for the students to patronize us as well. There was one independent hockey coach, Ryan, who approached us as soon as we opened to let us know he would recommend us in all his hockey camp emails. It was so refreshing to have at least one person who believed in supporting us and appreciated that we were there.

Every summer there was some sort of hockey ministry camp. The first time we met them, they brought us their coolers to be filled with ice. Once filled, we took the coolers out to where the camp counselors were standing. I asked the woman if there was anything we could do to get their business sometime that week. She explained they had already set up all the lunches to be brought in and they told the kids not to bring money so there would be no business for us. Then she asked if we would add water to some of the coolers. We didn’t have a faucet tall enough to get the coolers under to fill, so I suggested they talk to the front desk to see if the building had a faucet or hose to fill the coolers. When the ministry’s lunch came in the next day, she wanted to borrow a large knife. We only had one in our sanitized kitchen so we couldn’t lend it – often people forget to return items and who knows what they did with it when they had it. Having a safe kitchen was our first priority. The third day, she asked for large buffet spoons for their lunch. We didn’t have any of these because we sell pizza; we have no need for buffet serving utensils. That’s when she totally chewed me out for not helping them when they needed it. These people are supposed to be mentoring children with Christianly advise. Some of the counselors would take naps on our couch in the bar. Other times, they would set up their Bible study in front of the cafe. A huge lobby with plenty of space to set up chairs without blocking someone’s business and they set up in front of the cafe, blocking the entire counter. I don’t think these people are qualified to call themselves Christian counselors – I certainly wouldn’t want them influencing my children. I did make some money off the kids, which I think made her even more angry with me. I baked fresh cookies at lunch time each day and fresh popcorn in the afternoon. Those kids who were told not to bring money, suddenly had enough to buy cookies and popcorn. I guess I’m just evil.

Once again this boils down to ‘no outside food or drink’. It’s a must-have rule in an environment like this. Just like retail stores make deals that their competitor can’t be in the same strip center, you have to make deals in favor of your restaurant. You can always compromise outside food on a case by case basis, because no one can eat pizza for lunch 5 days in a row, but at least you have the power to deal. And where was Pierre in all of this? Why didn’t he talk to the ministry people and make a deal for the next year? He’s marketing, he should be taking care of this. And why isn’t he talking to corporate? He used to work with these guys and probably has all their emails. It is unacceptable for corporate to decide not to patronize their tenants.

The Best Thing We Never Did

At the risk of being repetitive, good food was important to me. We added salads, sandwiches, chicken breasts, smoothies, and fresh-baked brownies and cookies. Anything that had to be heated was put through the oven. We had to experiment a little but it was worth it to avoid the fryers.

Opening a restaurant is expensive, so we didn’t buy any equipment until we found we needed it. Which is definitely a good plan as many vendors will supply equipment if you buy their product. Again, I thank our Sysco rep, Mike, for helping us with all of that.

So we never bought a microwave. As we added new menu items, we were able to make them with the equipment we had and just never found a need to purchase a microwave. I liked it better that way, as we had no plans to reheat food and sell it. You’d think that would make our customers happy, too.

To this day, I’m so glad we didn’t have a need for a microwave. You would not believe how many people have the guts to bring their own food and coffee to a restaurant and ask us to warm it up for them. One woman even brought a fried egg in a baggie and wanted us to warm it for her. First of all, we’re in business to make money and how dare they even ask. Second of all, taking outside food into our sanitized kitchen is a major health code violation and how dare they even ask. Third of all, if our microwave rendered their food inedible they would expect us to replace it free of charge. How dare they! People don’t care about any of that so it was great to be able to say we didn’t have a microwave and therefore couldn’t help them. Still, many people got very angry. Go figure.

We also had a lot of people bring in outside food and expect us to supply all the ketchup, plasticware, sugar, creamer, and cups they forgot to grab where they purchased the food. Really? How many restaurants do you go to and ask for a table to eat food you purchased somewhere else? My mistake here was that I seriously underestimated other people’s actions.

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!