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.