Sans Restaurant

The rink decided they didn’t want to rent the restaurant space to us. They didn’t say why. Rumor had it, Todd, the General Manager of the building, had a friend who wanted to rent the space. I heard his friend only offered a third the rent we were contracting. I have no idea if any of that is true. So I sent Todd and Damon (our contact at corporate) an email stating we were still interested if they changed their minds.

I had already paid for my certifications, so I decided to go ahead and take the tests. I got my TABC, Food Handler, and Food Manager certifications and sent the links to Robbie and Pierre in case they wanted to take the tests. It was the holiday season so we didn’t meet to discuss alternate plans. I was starting to think about going back to a computer job. Merry Christmas.

Show and Tell

Pierre and I met at the McKinney rink on a Saturday – the busiest day of the week. Everything Pierre had said was true. The rink was busy and the snack bar was not open. When the employees finally came in, they started making pizzas and then went into the bar and played on their phones. They didn’t open the cages. I don’t know why they would be there and not open the restaurant. Our guess at the time was they had some parties in the party rooms that had ordered pizzas in advance and they didn’t care about serving the public. I don’t know if they opened later on, but why not make money while you’re already there and paying employees. It’s no surprise this was not a lucrative restaurant. It looked like there was good potential for making money, despite what the financial reports indicated.

Pierre and I met for lunch at Great Outdoors. It was a weekday afternoon because we didn’t want to take up a table during a busy time. I don’t remember if he had eaten there before, but I wanted him to see how good the food was. Not only is the food fresh and tasty, you can actually see the meat on your sandwich. I always laugh at other sandwich shops. It seems like you get a lettuce sandwich and they kind of wave the meat over the sandwich to try to add some meat flavor. With Great Outdoors you get good value for your money. Also, most of the sandwiches can be purchased as a salad. I love Great Outdoors.

Pierre and I met at the Bedford rink for a tour of the kitchen. It was a Wednesday because Pierre always coached there all afternoon on Wednesdays. One of the rink employees gave me a tour. He said originally the rinks handled all the food service and he had loved working in the kitchen. Then Corporate had decided to hand off food service to a food service company and just charge rent for the space. That’s when the big food service company took over and the restaurants were hardly ever open after that.

My mistake here was not researching the financials and maybe even talking to the employees or the company that had contracted the snack bar. I was told the company had wanted the food contracts at the big arenas, but the only way to get that contract was to agree to handle the food in all the skating rinks in the area. I was told this big food service company just wasn’t interested in building the business in the small rinks and I chose to believe it. After all, Pierre was a successful business man with a lot of money. Why wouldn’t I believe him?

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.