Good Offense is the Best Defense

Many people go on the attack when they know they are wrong. Every problem in the relationship is your fault. They are completely exonerated, because none of this ever would have happened if it weren’t for your bad behavior. More specifically, Pierre never put in his seed money, wasn’t marketing the cafe, wasn’t helping mend our relationship with our landlord and stop the blatant theft, and wasn’t up on the current facts, so he attacked me to distract from the real issues. This wasn’t the first time he had lashed out at me, but it would be one of the last. At some point, you have to be realistic and see that it doesn’t matter that you are right. It’s not worth losing everything to take a stand when you are surrounded by crazy people who have the financial backing to crush you like a bug and laugh over your remains.

In November, I was shocked to find out that once again Pierre had hired Max, after all the times Kyle and I had reminded Pierre that you don’t reward someone for sabotaging you and your business. I sent Pierre a text and here is his response.

Val,
I chose not to respond to your text yesterday, because I realized it would escalate into an argument, after working almost 30 hours straight through Thanksgiving Day, I was disappointed when I received your text, I thought it was petty and another example of your inability to allow some things to settle, in this case with Max, and move on.However upon sleeping on it, I have decided to respond in a more appropriate format of e-mail.
Your Text: 11/25/2016
“So even after Max totally betrayed you and went out of his way to hurt our business, you hired him again???”
Here are the facts, Max is working as a contract laborer for Ice Stars, to work nights building the Outdoor ice rink and making ice until 3am and 4am, HARD to find experienced people to work at 2am he is NOT an employee, even if he was, its NONE of your business.I would suggest you work on building relationships at Champions as opposed to destroying them, I guess now you want to start doing that to me.Whilst, I insist that the Ice Stars business should not be your concern, as you have no vested interest. That brings me to Champions Cafe which I do have an interest and financial stake in, while respecting your role as managing partner over the last 2 years.I have concerns about you continuing in this position, and can’t help feeling that the business may be better served with new day to day management, with someone who is energized and motivated to build the client base, and also may be more open to change, and have a more conciliatory attitude to the StarCenter staff and management, that are at the end of the day quite vital to our success. A possible candidate may be Kyle or someone with a similar temperament and personality.Unfortunately over the last 2 years, you have managed to alienate, pick battles, chastise customers and staff that are important to the success of Champions Cafe, while always playing the role of the victim in nearly every conflict.In my opinion you have a passive, aggressive personality which has led to a history of conflict at the Champions, it’s time to stop playing the victim and stop blaming everyone else including myself, and take some responsibility for the problems at Champions.I have to ask, why do we have none of our original staff working for us ? or even staff from 6 months ago ? why do we have such a high turnover of staff ? it’s a fact that the restaurant business does have high turnover, but nobody seems to want to work for you.Last week with schools on vacation all week, why did we not open the cafe for the morning public sessions ? when we were busy and had customers in the building, yet we open at 10:30am or 11am during the week when we have nobody in the building ? On that note it’s high time to sit down and give me full disclosure of our financial records, monthly sales, liabilities, true expenses, it’s my understanding that you don’t think that I deserve that courtesy as a partner in Champions Cafe because, “I haven’t worked hard enough for the business and don’t ever do anything” I guess you have different expectations of my role.As the managing partner you have a fiduciary responsibility and duty, to disclose the financials of the business, disclose our liabilities, and most importantly take inventory of assets, so we can regularly monitor our financial viability as a business.I would like to ask, when was the last time we did a full stock inventory at Champions ?If we do sit down to talk, let’s also discuss what has deteriorated into a pathetic relationship we have with the staff and management at the rink who are critical to our success, and I fear in recent weeks this situation could result in the termination of the Champions Cafe lease.Also, let discuss why we had to upset Lucas the McKinney rink Hockey Director, because you felt is was necessary to charge him 25 cents for a cup of water or ice, this escalated into you offending him to the point he never bought from us again.On a side note, I was told last week that Lucas has moved to Frisco because he has been promoted to Director of Youth Hockey for all the StarCenter rinks, and will be in charge of Youth Hockey and all youth Tournaments, so I ask was it worth 25 cents to alienate someone who could, and now can clearly help your business in the future.It’s time to have more people advocating our business, and not boycotting it because of personality conflicts.
Val, I want to reiterate, I do not want conflict, and I do not want to argue with you, it’s not productive and not in the best interests of either of us. However this exchange is long overdue and it’s important for me to relay my perspective and opinions, and I ask you to respect that, and understand that it is just that, my perspective and opinions.
I propose we meet and discuss the contents of this e-mail so we can move forward, for the best of everyone involved in Champions Cafe.
Pierre.

I’m not sure why an email is more appropriate than a text. Anybody know the finer points of these communication devices??? I don’t know why Pierre thought he had a vested interest in the cafe. His name was on some of the paperwork and he bought the coffee machine, but he never put in his seed money or worked any kind of regular hours – not even at home, setting up marketing campaigns or calling people to drum up business. Regardless, he had every right to all financial information and he is the one who told the accountant not to send monthly statements. I guess it was my fault Pierre turned off the financial reporting and never turned it back on. And if Pierre would have taken the time to stop by and talk more often, and maybe even help out, he would have known that Lucas came back in and apologized for his behavior with the promise of continued patronage. I’ve also never heard of theft referred to as ‘a personality conflict.’ But I’m sure they all get along now – the rink employees steal Pierre blind and he uses it as a tax write-off. Everyone loves you when you give them free access to your bar and restaurant. Who knows how many underage adolescents Pierre is supplying with free alcohol.

I never said any of this to Pierre, because I don’t like to argue and people who take this stand won’t be listening to anything you say so what’s the point of talking? When people say they don’t want to argue, all they’re really saying is they are going to express their opinion but have no interest in hearing yours. I didn’t respond right away because so many things were going through my mind and I wanted to let it soak in first. I waited a few days and replied with my express desire for him to buy me out. Clearly, theft and intimidation were ok with him and I needed to get out before I lost one more penny in this business.

The Intervention

After 18 months in business, Pierre, Todd, Kyle, and I were meeting to air out our differences and ‘start over’. Little did I know, I was walking into an intervention. First, Pierre and Todd talked about how important it was to have a good relationship. As usual, Todd went into his little speech about our success was good for the rink. I just smiled, swallowed my skepticism, and tried to overlook the fact that he had been saying that the whole time he was sabotaging our business. I didn’t want to undermine the chance to make things better. I needed the stress of bad landlords and bad rink management to dissolve into dust and blow away.

Next, we talked about Max telling all the parents not to buy from our cafe and bar. Todd’s response was that Max was very loyal to him. What does that mean? Max only badmouthed us because he liked Todd? Was it Todd’s idea? How does that fit into ‘our success is Todd’s success’? Does that mean Todd is not going to make it stop?

Kyle brought up a few points about the bar. Each time I tried to talk, either Pierre or Todd would cut me off and go on with something else. Here I am, the one with the most to say, not getting to talk at all. I’ve been robbed, threatened, and sabotaged and I don’t get to let any of it out before we start over?

At one point, Todd brought up our hours so I explained how our open hours came about. Todd decided to be offended at what I said – I don’t know how anyone could be offended at our choice of hours. So Kyle jumped in and explained that Todd’s reaction wasn’t what I was saying and went on to talk about our hours. Todd was then ok with our explanation. It’s ok if Kyle says it, but not ok if I say it. Kyle was the only one who defended me during the entire meeting. The rest of the time, Pierre and Todd just cut me off.

Todd needed to leave but he wanted to clear the air on some things that really ‘bothered him’. Once again, he repeated his same petty grievances. After 18 months, can he not just get over it? That’s what they’re asking of me, after all. Todd reiterated our huge business mistake of not listening to him and frying our French fries. Todd, the food service expert, who allows his employees to stick their dirty hands in the ice machine to get ice for ice packs. The same ice we use to serve beverages. We’re supposed to hang on his every word and do his bidding? How in the world can someone hold a grudge against you for not frying French fries? Does it get any more petty than that? Is that the biggest control freak move on the planet? And then Todd had to hurry out for another commitment. I guess we have wiped the slate clean and are starting over. Really? One good thing did come from this meeting. Before Todd left, he assured us our success was important to the rink and he intended to partner with us to keep us informed of events and make things better.

I was devastated. The air was perfectly clear to me. No one was going to listen to me, ever. Nothing was going to change. Pierre, my partner, was not truly a partner and did not have my back. My retirement money was almost gone and there was no light at the end of the tunnel, not even an oncoming train to put me out of my misery quickly. I went home and cried.

No Outside Food

Before we signed a contract for the cafe and bar, we toured the kitchens in all the rinks. All the snack bars were closing, so we had our choice of locations. Pierre said McKinney was the best choice, as it was the newest, nicest rink and had the most business. Also, the McKinney rink had a true restaurant and bar area with it’s own seating. The other rinks had very small bars hidden upstairs with no separate seating. Our plan was to be a destination restaurant and bar, so we liked the layout in McKinney. Sadly, the general public never saw a bar in an ice rink as any type of destination or hangout.

Like I said earlier it didn’t take long for us to realize signing a contract without exclusive rights to food was a big mistake. No matter how many times I brought it up, Todd was adamant he wouldn’t support ‘no outside food or drink’. Months after we opened, new businesses opened cafes in the Farmers Branch and Euless rinks. Farmers Branch was opened by a guy with a food truck. I thought that was a brilliant idea. He could use the big grill in the rink to prepare some of the food ahead of time and then travel around doing business in the food truck when business was slow in the rink.

Next thing we knew, the other rinks had put up signs saying ‘no outside food or drink’. Again, I went to Todd, but to no avail. Clearly, the General Managers at the other rinks were far more supportive of their restaurant’s success. Even though Todd would say our success was important to the rink, he had no intention of helping us be successful and in fact did whatever he could to sabotage us.

It was devastating to me to see the other rinks be supportive and watch my business and my money sucked down the drain. I don’t know if Todd and Pierre were in cahoots to use my money to get started and then squeeze me out or Todd wasn’t supportive because it would mean he would actually have to come to work everyday and work. Maybe it doesn’t really matter. Eventually the food truck guy closed his restaurant in Farmers Branch and walked away. I’m sure he wouldn’t have done that if it was making good money. I hope his food truck is doing well.