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.

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.

Financial Harassment

Like I mentioned earlier, rent was due on the first of the month and our contract gave very specific instructions about mailing the checks to Damon. Not only did we do that, we set up automatic payments from our bank account to ensure the rent would be paid on time every month.

I guess when you have a lot of money, managing the money doesn’t seem very important. I have never worked with any company or organization that was as bad at managing money as the local hockey team. Or maybe it was just harassment. I don’t know, but I sure got tired of proving we had paid our rent.

The first week in May 2015, Todd came to me and said he needed to collect all the rent since we had opened. I was taken aback because we had paid all of the rent, so I asked why. He said I had not paid any rent since we signed the contract and he needed that money. If you remember, I also told you earlier that Todd had told me to pay the rent according to the contract and not give the checks to him. I guess he forgot, and assumed we hadn’t paid because he had not seen the checks. I explained that we had auto-payments to Damon as the contract specified and we had paid all the rent – February was paid when we signed the contract (Todd should have know that as he was there), March was a free month according to the contract, and April and May had been auto-paid. He was glad we paid and went on his way. Seems like he would have a way to know about payments – a report, communication with accounting, or something.

In October or November, they accused us of not paying September rent. In January, corporate accused us of not paying December 2015; and then November 2015. Each time, I sent copies of our bank statement showing the money had been sent in plenty of time and the screen showing the checks had been cashed. Turns out, the missing payments were months before and each time we sent a check accounting would apply it to a previous month making it look like we paid late all the time. If they had just told us the same month a check was late, we could have stopped payment and resent right away. I have no idea what happened to our checks – lost in the mail, lost in Damon’s department, lost in accounting, thrown away to sabotage our business. At this point, we had been accused of not paying our rent 7 months out of the first 11 months in business. Their accounting couldn’t tell us when things had gone awry, so I had to go back through all the payments to find the checks that had not been cashed and replace them. I think it turned out to be July, October, and November. Accounting appreciated my work and repaid us by having a team lunch at our cafe in March 2016. Accounting has the nicest people in the organization.

Around the first week of January 2016, Todd came to me and said we had paid the wrong amount for our January rent. He suggested that if I checked my contract, I would know the rent went up and I should have paid the 2016 amount. I had to remind him the contract stated the rent increase began each FEBRUARY and I had already changed the auto payment to the new amount for next month.

In September 2016, Todd informed me there was another missing rent check and wanted proof of payment February through September. I reminded him we had already provided proof of February payment when we were researching November and December payments. How can you run a business when you’re constantly researching paperwork to prove you pay your rent? So this time, I took my time doing the research. It’s ridiculous that a company as big as a national hockey team can have this much trouble managing money. And why is it they don’t know when things went awry??? Seems to me all they have to do is look for the first month the rent was credited after the late-date. And why don’t they contact you that month so you can take care of it right away??? We were in our busy season and I did my research only when there was spare time, so I took several months to get back to them. Turns out, the March 2016 check had been lost. Meanwhile, Todd asked me to start handing our checks to him instead of following the instructions in the contract. I did, but I got a receipt from the person I handed the check to, as Todd wasn’t always there. I wanted proof we paid on time so no one could accidentally lose the check and say we didn’t pay or hold the check until after the grace period to make it look like we paid late. These people obviously cannot be trusted with money. But we knew that, because these are some of the same people that stole from us.

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.

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.

Pre-Contract Discussions

I would like to tell you this story has a happy ending, but it doesn’t. At least not for me. Even now as I share my story, my heart aches and I have bad dreams from all the feelings that come to the surface as I type. I still truly believe if Pierre had engaged and done the things he said, we would have been successful and made some money. You’ll hear more about that in future chapters. Right now, it’s important for me to share a conversation with Todd, the general manager of the building.

Once Robbie and I had a copy of the contract and were deciding whether to sign, I was looking at the space one more time. Todd and I were walking across the lobby towards the snack bar. He encouraged me to follow the instructions in the contract about how to pay our rent. Todd explained that it was best to mail a check to Damon at the corporate office as the contract stated, rather than handing our check to Todd as some tenants had done. Todd went on to say that paying him was an inconvenience as he would have to carry the check over to the corporate offices himself and he preferred not to do that. It made sense. Why wouldn’t you follow the instructions in the contract?

Once again, I brought up adding exclusive food rights to our contract. Todd adamantly refused. I wasn’t happy, but Pierre had assured us he had talked to a lot of skaters and they would buy from us if we carried healthier food. So I felt we could win over the skaters to buy food from us. It’s my understanding the rinks enforced ‘no outside food or drink’ when they were in charge of the snack bars, but once they contracted out the food space they didn’t want to be bothered with policing the food situation. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds likely. Continuing with the cafe without exclusivity was probably the biggest mistake I made and you will hear more about it later as we continue with the story.

Todd also told me that he would add our cafe to his letters to the hockey teams when they were coming for a tournament. He said some teams might want to schedule a party or team lunch while they were here. Todd also said once we got our liquor license we should offer a deal to the adult teams to have pizza and beer in the locker rooms at the end of their games. These sounded like great ideas and good support from our landlord.

Pierre warned Robbie and me over and over that Todd was not to be trusted. I believed Pierre, but I wasn’t overly concerned because I didn’t think we would have to deal with Todd much as long as we paid our rent on time. Another huge mistake on my part. That will become quite clear as we continue on with the story. I lost so much in this endeavor – money, dignity, friends, confidence, time, health, etc. To this day, it takes everything I’ve got just to walk into that building. Thank goodness I no longer have any reason to go there.

To Fry or Not to Fry, That is the Question.

In most rinks, there are two distinct groups – Hockey Players and Figure Skaters. Hockey players tend to be carbo-loaders. They are usually male, play hard, and eat hardily. Figure skaters are always on a diet. They tend to be female, practice obsessively, and eat like birds. And of course, you have a lot of moms hanging around the rink and they are often on a diet, too. Previous food service at the rinks had been pizza, burgers, and a lot of fried foods. Mostly junk food. We wanted to change that.

I have been fat my whole life. I have probably lost the weight of several people in my lifetime and always gained the weight back. It’s a horrible struggle, so it was extremely important to me to offer healthy choices in our cafe. Pierre said he had talked to a lot of figure skaters and they all said they didn’t eat at the snack bars because the snack bars were never open and never had healthy food they could eat. I made the decision not to use the fryers or the grill at all. We would cook everything in the ovens, even the burgers and fries. Pierre and Robbie thought that was a great idea.

Since we opened in 2 short weeks, we only had pizza, wings (Hunt Brothers also does chicken wings), and a few other choices. After the big hockey tournament, we could add more menu items. And we did, but everything had to be cooked in the oven. I thought the oven french fries were great and we had a lot of people tell us how happy they were that we didn’t have fried foods. Parents didn’t have to say ‘no’ to their children when they wanted wings or fries because our food was virtually grease-free.

There is a big down side to this plan. The ovens can get very backed up when the restaurant is busy. We were only using 2 ovens and there were days we could have used 3 or 4 to keep up with business. We had asked the rink to pull out the fryers and grill to give us more room, but they refused. I’m still glad we chose to forego the fried foods. After all my struggles with weight, I want to help others make healthy choices.

Cannonball!

Open a restaurant in 2 weeks? We decided to cannonball right into the deep end. I started googling pizza. Hunt Brothers came up in every search. Even though I had never heard of them, I finally decided I should try them. Then I noticed they were only available in convenience stores near me. That couldn’t be good. I never think of getting good food at a convenience store. So one day I headed to the store nearest me that had Hunt Brothers. I looked in the frozen foods and refrigerators and didn’t see anything labelled Hunt Brothers. I had no idea it was something the store cooked and sold fresh and hot. I finally asked the attendant and he said they have it but their pizza oven was broken. I asked him if they were planning to fix the oven or if they didn’t sell much pizza and didn’t care that it was broken. See, I had no idea Hunt Brothers pizza was a thing. He said they planned on fixing the oven because the pizza was actually good and sold well. I couldn’t wait so I looked up the next closest store and headed there. The girl at this store said it would take about 45 minutes because the oven wasn’t on and would have to warm up. I ordered my favorite pizza and sat down to wait. I was shocked at how good the pizza tasted. Robbie and I scheduled a demo at the rink.

Robbie liked the pizza, too. While we were watching the demo, one of the hockey dads came over to the cage and asked when we would be opening. He said they couldn’t wait for some decent food in the rink. And beer, of course. I had never met Brent before, but he became a great customer and I appreciate his support during the time I had the cafe. We decided to be a Hunt Brothers pizza store. Rocky put up banners before he left and we scheduled training and opening with him. Rocky and John came to the rink on another day to test the ovens in the cafe. They were old and had not been cleaned and serviced regularly, so we would have to buy a new oven to cook the pizzas. I signed the contract and paid for the oven and supplies out of my own pocket.

Choosing a food supplier turned out to be easy. Sysco was the only one to call me back. And how fortuitous that turned out to be. Our rep, Mike, was a terrific mentor and got us all set up. He gave me good advice the whole time I ran the restaurant. Dr Pepper had their name on the building, so we had to carry Dr Pepper. Another easy decision and setup. Robbie had a friend draw our logo and make t-shirts for us. I had to call quite a few insurance agents before I found one who does restaurant liability. Got that done.

Robbie and I went to the bank and opened a checking account. Pierre was too busy to join us that day, so Robbie took Pierre another day so Pierre could sign a signature card and get a credit card. Robbie had a friend who needed a job, so we had one employee already. Everything was falling into place.

The rink did nothing to service the restaurant equipment or clean the space. There was grease from the fryers on the walls and especially on the big vent. Pierre had a friend come in with a power washer and clean the restaurant. It looked so much better.

Should you really open a restaurant in 2 weeks? Probably not, but we did it. One thing I want to point out here is, of the 3 equal partners who is doing most of the work? Me.

Get It In Writing

Surprise, surprise, the rink called to see if we were still interested in opening a restaurant. The big food service company had moved out on January 1, 2015 as planned and now the snack bar was empty and closed. Pierre, Robbie and I talked and decided we were interested. Pierre suggested we use his CPA because the CPA would do our books and payroll for a reasonable monthly fee. All 3 of us met with the CPA and discussed the plan. We would each put in $12,500.00 to start the restaurant. We agreed upon a name. The CPA suggested he set us up as an LLC.

The rink gave us a 5 year contract. For some reason they had put in the contract that we had to open as a Great Outdoors franchise. I was surprised that was in the contract. We explained we would be a pizza and burger place like all previous food providers. The rink was hesitant at first but agreed. I don’t know why they cared. Pierre still wanted to remain invisible, so Robbie and I would sign the contract. The rink had one stipulation. We had to open in time for a February hockey tournament. If we signed the contract, we would have 2 weeks to open a restaurant.

I had researched retail space in 2008 so I believed Pierre when he told us the rent was a good deal. It looked like a great deal. For a monthly fee, all utilities were included and we could use all the equipment in the space. There were 2 pizza ovens, 2 fryers, a burger griddle, an ice machine, refrigerators, a walk-in refrigerator freezer, a full bar with 2 stations and 2 taps, about 20 tables with 4 chairs each and bar stools, a Dr Pepper soda fountain, lots of shelves and cabinets, a 3 compartment sink, hand washing stations, and plenty of work space. No build-out would be needed.

Then we committed the ultimate sin. We didn’t put it in writing. Everything was happening so fast, we didn’t draw a contract with our plan to put in $12,500.00 each and each person’s responsibilities. The CPA would set up our LLC with each of us as 1/3 partners and I’m sure he put something in his hard-bound notebook as we described our plan, but we never wrote down our plan and signed it. WE NEVER WROTE DOWN THE PLAN!