Clarity

The rose colored glasses are gone. The world is a dull gray, at best. My hope for the future and seeing the best in the human race is gone. My vision of a group of people working together to build a successful restaurant has been stomped into the ground.

The General Manager of our rink and many of his employees are thieves. My contact at corporate has made it clear, he is not interested any issues we are having. Even after agreeing to start over and work together, Todd and his cohorts continue to sabotage our business. My partner doesn’t have my back. It almost seems as though he and Todd have been in cahoots to drain me of my savings before continuing to build the cafe and bar into a viable business. I can hardly pay my bills and definitely cannot invest another penny. My body is falling apart from all the hard work.

No knight in shining armor is going to gallop in and whisk me off on his mighty steed. Chef Irvine and Jon Taffer will not be calling to help me get back on track. Not even a wonderful philanthropist like Ellen DeGeneres can save me now. It’s time to quit.

After letting Pierre’s email sink in for a few days, I replied, ‘Buy me out’. He acted surprised. I don’t know why. After reading this blog, I know you’re not surprised. You’re probably more surprised that I stayed so long. Me, too, now that I’m looking back. It was truly a mistake to believe things would work out once these issues started presenting themselves. I was very sad. I really did love having a cafe and bar.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you should not believe in your vision of starting a business. All I want you to do is think way outside the box about what may go wrong and plan for that. After reading about the issues I encountered, you can see there are a lot more hurdles than drawing people to your doors and fixing equipment. Be prepared and make your dreams come true.

Rink Cameras

We had always talked about putting cameras in the rinks. Our dream was to be able to have a membership app so parents could check on their kids from a remote location, like work, or another venue when they had multiple children in different sports, etc. Similar to a nanny cam, right? But to start with, we just wanted 1 camera mounted at the end of each rink (there were 2 sheets of ice), a camera cover as kids liked to target such things in hockey practice, and a line run through the ceiling to a tv in the bar. Very simple, no wifi, no recording devices, nothing else. And there were 2 flat screens side-by-side in the bar that were perfect to have a live feed from each rink. A perfect setup for parents to check on their kids while enjoying a little downtime in the bar.

Once again, Todd was dead set against any ideas we had that would contribute to our success. His reason here? Cameras in the rinks could be considered child pornography. What??? Did I hear him correctly? You gotta be f****g kidding me! Heck, with hockey you can’t even tell there’s a kid under all that equipment. Figure skating dresses may be skimpier but competitions are broadcast worldwide and no one considers it to be porn. And we weren’t even talking about broadcasting at this point, just a live feed in the same building.

We loved the idea of putting cameras in the rinks. Parents adored the idea. And even though Todd always talked about how important our success was, he would not approve the idea. I felt totally roadblocked in every direction. The cafe was bleeding money and every lifeline to success was brutally severed, by one man. Why was this man so fixed on our destruction? And where was Pierre? Why wasn’t he advocating for us? Pierre always talked about wanting the cameras, too. Why wasn’t he talking to Todd? Why wasn’t Pierre talking to his former coworkers at corporate? Cameras would be an excellent marketing tool; why wasn’t Pierre pushing for them? How can I ever build this business with no support? Such a simple request with so much potential, and nothing.

Be a Good Example

From the very beginning, we gave our employees something to eat on every shift. We wanted to make sure they tried everything. Many customers ask about the different menu items and we wanted our employees to be able to describe and recommend our food. That is especially important when you’re cooking food in a non-traditional way. Most people have never had baked French fries so we wanted our employees to honestly say they are good. And they are – especially when you dip them in the nacho cheese.

We also made a rule that our employees could not bring in food from another restaurant. It’s very hard to build a restaurant when people are allowed to bring in outside food, so we couldn’t risk customers seeing our employees eating outside food.

The only person not on board with this plan was, of course, Pierre. We tried to tell him how important it was, but he still brought in food. How can anyone go around telling everyone that they own the cafe and then not eat there??? Sometimes, I wonder why in the heck Pierre ever wanted to do this. He never seemed at all engaged in making the cafe a success.

Do Your Employees Understand the Purpose of Plastic Gloves?

At the time we opened the cafe, Texas regulations said you could wash your hands and put on fresh plastic gloves or you could wash your hands twice and prepare the food with your bare hands. That may have changed in the last couple years, to push people to always wear plastic gloves when preparing food for public consumption. Sadly, that doesn’t insure that your food is protected.

I am shocked at how many people don’t understand why they are wearing gloves. If you watch closely, you will see what I mean. Some food handlers treat the gloves more like the gloves are protecting their hands rather than the food. As instructed, they wash their hands and put on their gloves. (Sometimes, they don’t even wash their hands they just put on the gloves.) Then they prepare some food, put their hands on their hips (contaminating the gloves), lean on the wall with their hand (contaminating the gloves), brush their hair back (contaminating the gloves), handle your money (contaminating the gloves), and go back to prepare more food still wearing the same gloves. I have seen this a number of times at national sandwich chains. Even the Hunt Brothers men who trained us, did these things.

You must instill the importance of protecting the food when you’re training your food handlers. If your employee touches ANYTHING other than food or sanitized dishes, no matter how briefly, they MUST CHANGE INTO FRESH GLOVES! Often, you have to watch them closely and start pointing out these movements as they do them, as many people are unaware of these subconscious habits or unaware of the significance of these habits.

Of all the mistakes I made in my restaurant endeavor, I believe this was a good catch on my part. A small but very important success. It’s one thing our restaurant definitely did right!

Sans Sandwiches

We met with Great Outdoors several times. Once, we met at the rink so they could see the restaurant space. In our last meeting, they asked if we would consider a franchise at a location other than the rink. We were only interested in having a restaurant at the rink. Great Outdoors felt very strongly that their restaurant would not do well at the rink and they already had a store a few miles away. Unlike some chains that will sell a franchise right across the street from the one they sold you, Great Outdoors is very protective of their brand and want to give you the best opportunity to be successful. One thing they did say – the rent for the space in the rink was a very good deal as retail space goes.

I was very appreciative of their candor. Great Outdoors has been in business a long time and I have a lot to learn from them. So I trust when they say it’s not a good location for their market. Robbie, on the other hand, was pissed. Later, he said he would never eat at Great Outdoors ever again. This was the first time Robbie showed me his resentful side. I had no idea how vindictive he could be, but I would find out later.

Robbie obviously didn’t understand that you want people to be honest with you in business and help you be successful, not sell you something just because you said you wanted to buy it. Great Outdoors saved us a lot of money. Pierre and I knew it was time to start looking at pizza and burgers. I was a little disappointed, but glad we dodged an expensive bullet.

My mistake here was continuing to partner with someone who clearly did not understand business. However, I wasn’t looking to him for business experience. He was young, so I was hoping more for hard work and support from him. He could learn more about business.