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?

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.

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.