Tag: setup

The Best Thing We Never Did

At the risk of being repetitive, good food was important to me. We added salads, sandwiches, chicken breasts, smoothies, and fresh-baked brownies and cookies. Anything that had to be heated was put through the oven. We had to experiment a little but it was worth it to avoid the fryers.

Opening a restaurant is expensive, so we didn’t buy any equipment until we found we needed it. Which is definitely a good plan as many vendors will supply equipment if you buy their product. Again, I thank our Sysco rep, Mike, for helping us with all of that.

So we never bought a microwave. As we added new menu items, we were able to make them with the equipment we had and just never found a need to purchase a microwave. I liked it better that way, as we had no plans to reheat food and sell it. You’d think that would make our customers happy, too.

To this day, I’m so glad we didn’t have a need for a microwave. You would not believe how many people have the guts to bring their own food and coffee to a restaurant and ask us to warm it up for them. One woman even brought a fried egg in a baggie and wanted us to warm it for her. First of all, we’re in business to make money and how dare they even ask. Second of all, taking outside food into our sanitized kitchen is a major health code violation and how dare they even ask. Third of all, if our microwave rendered their food inedible they would expect us to replace it free of charge. How dare they! People don’t care about any of that so it was great to be able to say we didn’t have a microwave and therefore couldn’t help them. Still, many people got very angry. Go figure.

We also had a lot of people bring in outside food and expect us to supply all the ketchup, plasticware, sugar, creamer, and cups they forgot to grab where they purchased the food. Really? How many restaurants do you go to and ask for a table to eat food you purchased somewhere else? My mistake here was that I seriously underestimated other people’s actions.

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.