Good Advice

Writing this blog has been difficult for me. It stirs up memories best forgotten. I feel so stupid believing and trusting people. Sometimes, it makes me cry. Some nights, I have bad dreams after blogging. What was supposed to be a $12,500 investment almost took everything I owned. But if I save even 1 person from losing money in a business venture or prevent a good human being from being exploited by Pierre, Todd, or Damon, it’s worth every tear.

Pierre kept telling me I needed to be nicer to Todd and the rink employees so we wouldn’t have any issues with them. I had already smiled and joked with those guys. I had given them free food almost every night for months. I had given them a discount on their purchases. I hadn’t done anything except ask them to stop when I found they were stealing from me. I hadn’t reacted when they called me names. In fact, I literally let them treat me like dirt as I smiled and gave them freebees. How do you be nicer than that? After months of this behavior, it became clear to me it wasn’t going to stop unless I stopped it. Pierre hadn’t been any help at all. I was watching my retirement fund disintegrate before my very eyes and I’m supposed to be nicer? So yes, I finally drew the line and put up security cameras and stopped rewarding their bad behavior with free pizza and cookies. These actions in no way make me the bad guy and yet everyone was treating me like I was.

One of the owners of The Great Outdoors Sub Shops remained my mentor the entire time I owned the restaurant. For that, I am eternally grateful. When I discussed these issues with her, she told me to get out as fast as I could. I wanted to, but I was in too deep to just walk away. I truly believed we could make this cafe lucrative with Pierre’s help. And I wanted to recoup some of my money. I had lost so much since Robbie dropped out and Pierre had never put in the cash he had promised from the beginning.

Besides The Great Outdoors, I also asked some questions on one of those free lawyer advice websites. The lawyer who responded didn’t really answer my questions, he just encouraged me to get out as fast as I could. While this advice wasn’t comforting, it told me I wasn’t the crazy person Pierre, Todd, and Damon made me out to be. But what do you do when you’re caught in a riptide of people bent on sucking you dry? Sink or swim?

And Baby Makes 3

Pierre wanted to bring in a third partner. I was fine with that. Robbie joined us for several lunches and discussions with the rink and Great Outdoors. He was young and I thought that would be our ace in the hole. We needed someone with more energy and the ability to do the heavy work I couldn’t do.

Pierre, on the other hand, would do marketing and only work in the cafe in emergencies. We knew we would have to spend a lot of time reaching out to the neighborhood because no one thinks to go to an ice rink for a good bar and grill. We had to build some outside business along with the skater families who come to the rink regularly in order to have a thriving business.

Robbie had $12,500.00 to invest, so we decided we would all invest that amount. At this point, I was feeling pretty confident in our endeavor. Even if it didn’t work out, I could recover from losing $12,500.00. And I really thought we had some great ideas to make this restaurant a success.

Now, I’ve made several mistakes. Restaurants are known for a high failure rate and I dove in anyway. I didn’t have a strong restaurant background so I relied on Pierre and Robbie for that; and of course we would get some excellent training from Great Outdoors. I have a very high work ethic and I assumed career skaters had the same work ethic or they wouldn’t have gotten where they did. At this point, I’m totally screwed. I just didn’t know it yet.

An Idea is Born

In 2008, I looked into buying a franchise in The Great Outdoors Sub Shops. Great Outdoors has been one of my very favorite restaurants for many years. I was a burned out IT Developer and needed a change. The more I looked into it, the more it appealed to me. In November, I was 1 contract away from a big loan and getting started when the stock market took a dive. Everyone involved knew this would be a bad time to open a restaurant and the dream was gone. Back to the computers, I went.

Fast forward to 2014. My friend, Pierre, took me to dinner on my birthday. He started talking about wanting to open a business. He had several ideas including a restaurant and a limo service. Well, I jumped right on it. Here’s another opportunity for a sub shop. It felt right. Pierre started telling me about the cafes closing in the local ice arenas – not the big arenas, the local training facilities with 2 sheets of ice. The McKinney rink was the newest, nicest rink and it had a real cafe and bar area, not just a corner counter. He went on to tell me how busy this rink was and the previous food vendors didn’t do well because they didn’t offer decent food and were never open. Pierre suggested we would both invest $35,000.00 to start a restaurant.

It was worth looking into. I was excited. That was probably my first mistake. It’s hard to remain unbiased when you’re excited. This is a business, a risk, and you must look at it with both eyes wide open.

In the next few weeks, I will tell you my story. It’s all true. I feel so stupid and part of me wants to stay silent and hide my embarrassment, but I want to share my experience so no one else will make the same mistakes I made.