Let’s get this party started.
My name is Delila. Tomorrow I will finally open the doors to my new restaurant Delila’s con Carne. I am a sole proprietor. We experienced some delays during start up, but at least we will open during the Christmas holiday, which should be good for business. I am so excited.
I have never hired people before, but I think I’ve done okay. Actually I think I’ve done great! One of the star football players from nearby Central High School just happened to apply; he said that football season had just ended and he was looking for something to do, and I just couldn’t help myself; the guy was so cute, I gave him the job right away! Later he brought a few of his teammates and friends along, and I gave them jobs too. They are all so cute. Also, there is a halfway house nearby with people who are in desperate need. They are kind of yucky, but I want to do what I can to help, so I employed a few of them as well. I haven’t started training my staff yet because, to be honest, I think training is over-rated. And all that talk of “teams” and “teamwork?” Again, over-rated. That’s just macho-man talk. Just give people a chance, and they will appreciate you and work hard for you. I don’t have a manager to help run the operations for me, but I don’t really see the need. I can handle everything myself. My refrigerator and freezer are stocked to the limit. I wasn’t sure how much to order, so I ordered plenty of everything. That pesky insurance guy has been by a couple of times, but his prices for worker’s compensation, general liability and so forth are just too high. I think I can wing it the first few months without insurance. If I’m careful, nothing will happen. I’m ready to open, actually over ready. I felt that I was ready some time ago, but I never knew I had to collect sales taxes for the county and city. I didn’t know that to register with those taxing authorities I had to have an EIN, an Employee Identification Number. In fact I didn’t even know what an EIN was. That caused me to backtrack and do a lot more legwork right when I thought we would open. Also, I never knew that I would have to have my plumbing and electrical systems inspected, so that took more time. Next, I had to be inspected by the health department prior to opening, and then, just when we again thought we were ready, a sign-off by the fire marshal was required. Guess who was on vacation? Finally we needed a certificate of occupancy. Nobody ever told me any of this was required. Also construction took much longer than expected, not to mention the fact that the cost of the job ran 50% above initial estimates. All of these things created further delays, and as a result I did lose a few of the people I hired, actually about half, but I think I’ll be all right because I hired more than enough to start with.
I know I’m going to do well because of my location. I have always heard that if you locate near McDonald’s, you will do well because they have already done all the feasibility studies for their sites and choose locations carefully, and here I am just across the street. Also I have been running a TV commercial for my grand opening for weeks now.
As my name suggests, my concept centers around beef. I’m going to sell burgers, steaks, and some Mexican dishes and a few BBQ beef dishes. My family and friends say I’m an excellent cook and I have some very good recipes. It’s an easy homerun, I can’t lose.
Good luck Delila.
Sometimes we don’t know everything we need to know, and we don’t know that we don’t know. We think we know, but we don’t. We don’t know which questions to ask; we don’t even know that there are questions we should ask.
When that is the case, you are the single greatest detriment to your own success. When we are young, and/or inexperienced, we don’t hear words of sage advice; they roll off us like water off a duck’s back. Then along comes life. Life doesn’t care that you don’t know. Like a deer in the headlights you are run down by the school bus of hard knocks. Often you begin to realize that there were questions you should have asked, but by then it’s too late. You knew those two bright lights coming at you and the strange noise growing louder and louder weren’t right, but you didn’t get out of the way. You’ll know next time—if there is a next time. This, my friend, is called experience. Experience teaches you that you don’t know everything.
Delila never knew. She had a good recipe or two and thought all she had to do was hang out a shingle, open the doors and start cooking. But wait, it ain’t that easy. There is so much more that goes into operating a successful restaurant and that’s why I wrote this book.
Delila finally opened her restaurant. As expected, they were packed on that first day. But because there had been no real training, there was no coordination at all among her service staff, or between her service staff and the kitchen. Her employees did not seem to pull together as a team, and more than a few customers were unhappy. One or two were heard to say, as they were walking out, that they would never return.
As unbelievable as it may sound, on the first day a customer slipped and fell on a spilled drink in the entrance foyer and an employee, Amanda, fell in the kitchen too. Amanda said she was absolutely fine, though, and returned to work. Delila had meant to look after the customer who fell, but was distracted by other things. The customer left. When the dust finally settled on that first day, Delila was able to sit in her office and recollect. Sales were really good. She had run out of a few key items, but, oh well, another delivery was coming in two days. One thing was certain: she had plenty of hamburger meat. Strangely, she had not sold many burgers at all that day. She wasn’t sure, but it was possible that maybe not even one burger had been sold all day. Maybe later she could dig through the tickets—if she could find them. They had taken orders by hand and used an old refurbished cash register like the ones Delila remembered fondly from her childhood. Come to think of it, a big stack of tickets had gone out with the trash, so she wouldn’t be able to research whether or not any hamburgers had been sold. She could not believe how tired she was and this was just the first day. It had been tough, because she was actually much shorter on staff than she had anticipated, and it seemed that her high school boys had picked on the halfway house people a little, but maybe she was mistaken. Also, the halfway house employees, who frankly she did not much care for, were too slow, and her customers did not appreciate their hygiene. Josh, the high school football star, had been her saving grace all day. It seemed he was just where she needed him at all times; he was reliable and so cute too. Thank God. It occurred to her that she might have waited until a little closer to actual opening to do her hiring, but oh, she was so tired.
Well, things didn’t improve the rest of the week. The business still came in droves, far more than she was prepared to handle. The coordination—no, you couldn’t call it that—the lack of coordination among the staff was appalling, and oh yeah, her initial hunch had been correct: there was definitely friction between those nasty halfway homeless people and the high school students. In one short week it had grown into an all out war and the sad thing was it had caused the loss of two of her better employees. She tried to placate, to mediate, but all to no avail; the harder she tried the worse the morale. She noticed she had to fight her own distaste for the halfway house people. What made matters really worse was that she had actually heard, with her own ears, grumblings from these people. THEY seemed unappreciative of her efforts to help them and made snide comments about helping her to get rich and the paltry amounts they were paid. They seemed to work even slower, if that was possible. This really hurt Delila’s feelings and made her mad. As if that wasn’t enough, now Amanda was complaining that her back was bothering her from the fall in the kitchen and that she was going to the hospital to get it checked out.
Meanwhile, business was good, but Delila was truly exhausted and was remotely aware that this factor might be affecting her decision-making abilities. Being out of those key items had seemed to compound her problems. Delila could not seem to get a handle on what items to order, or in what quantity. It seemed everyone wanted only the things she was out of. Hamburger meat was absolutely not moving. No burger sales, no Mexican food sales. She had made little progress on saving order tickets. Everything was moving so fast and she was having trouble containing it all. Staffing issues were becoming very troublesome with three employees out and no time to hire new ones. Actually, staffing was really critical, but again Josh had been her savior all week. She had good feelings about him and he was so handsome and big and strong, which had been very useful for the work that needed to be done.
By the end of her first month Delila was wondering what had ever made her want to be in the restaurant business. Nothing was going well. She was perpetually out of items she needed, but had had to throw away a large quantity of hamburger meat that had gone bad. She had finally figured out what was wrong there; in anticipation of her opening, the McDonald’s across the street had lowered the price on the Quarter Pounder to 79 cents. Also Burrito Mundo, the Mexican buffet two doors down, had lowered all of their prices as a holiday special and that was generating a lot of buzz throughout town. The result: no burger sales and no Mexican food sales. Delila felt really stupid that she hadn’t caught on to these things earlier; there may have been some way she could have responded. Her employee situation, well, she couldn’t even stand to think about it. All she had wanted to do was help, and those damned, smelly, inept, halfway people had really pushed her over the edge. They really seemed to resent both her and the high school kids. Their grumblings had gotten louder about all the money SHE was making and now she was even hearing that from her high school kids.
Funniest of all, though, was the fact that she had thought that she was making a whole bunch of money. Delila labored under some false assumptions about profit. With all the business she had, she could not figure out where her money was going, but it was definitely going. For example, she noticed that she was paying an awfully large percentage of her revenues to her employees and that there were payroll taxes on top of that, something she had not even known about, and the aggravating forms she now had to fill out to make her payroll tax deposits; no one had ever told her about that either, but, come to think of it, she had never asked. And where was she supposed to find the time to do this? And sales taxes! She didn’t even have the money at the moment to pay them. Also, food was costing an enormous amount and yet she was continually out of certain items and had too many of others. Amanda had become a big problem; her hospital bills were coming in and Delila had no idea how she was going to pay them or even if she had to. And now, a letter has arrived from an attorney representing the lady who had fallen in her foyer—she was being sued. She had completely forgotten that incident. Oh my God, when is it gonna end, she thought to herself.
A couple other things weighed on Delila’s mind as she sat in her chair recalling her first month. In her mad dash from one thing to the next throughout those busy days, she had forgotten one very important group of people: her customers. They came, so she just did whatever needed to be done, but now as she thought about it, she realized that the service her customers received was horrible. There was no set way to approach a table and she had not really formulated any strategy for handling complaints; it seemed—no, her employees were definitely doing a poor job of it. She realized that people were not returning for subsequent visits to her restaurant. She resolved to think on this some more and do something about it real soon.
The other thing on her mind was that night last week. It had involved Josh, who had continued to be her saving grace. One night, late, after a long day, she and Josh were the only ones left in the restaurant and they were standing in the office talking. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was she had intended, but she knew she wanted to say something about just how much she appreciated Josh’s help. She had laid her hand ever so delicately upon his bicep.
It was over in a flash. She wasn’t even sure how it happened and she had not meant for it to happen, but one thing was for sure, she had done nothing to stop it. They had sex in her office.
Now the holiday season was ended and Josh had gone back to school just when she needed him the most. That meant he couldn’t or wouldn’t work when she wanted him to and this was causing big friction between them. She was angry all the time and he seemed surly and non-communicative. She counseled him often when they were alone in her office and she really had to work at not yelling at him. Worst of all Josh had said that he felt he was being harassed and had even threatened to hire a lawyer. HE WAS BEING HARRASSED AND IT WAS HER THAT WAS BEING GOOD TO HIM was all Delila could think. And, lord, she was tired.
Okay, Okay, enough already. I know that you, gentle reader, can’t take anymore of this nightmare. Thankfully this is a cautionary tale filled with just some of the things that can go wrong in this business when you lack experience. Give it six more months and Delila will be out of business. By that time she will do anything to be released from the hell she has found herself in: file for bankruptcy or beg to go to debtor’s prison and work on the chain gang breaking rocks all day. If you think this business is easy, think again. And if this scenario scares the hell out of you, then good, for it should.
Delila’s failure was Ignorance and its twin Hubris. She had failings at every level of management, and, at the end of just one month, was completely entangled in a web of her own making. All of this proceeded from the assumption that this undertaking would be a walk in the park; never dreaming that maybe there were questions she should ask. The restaurant business is far and away the most complex type of business to own and operate. Volumes could be filled on the details and complexities, the nuance and finesse, of this business. This little book is just an introduction.
As can be seen in this little vignette, too much business can be as destructive as too little; Delila was right about her location, and her advertising worked. In many ways she was a victim of her own success. Let’s talk briefly here about Delila’s major shortcomings; the following chapters will handle them in more depth.
• From the beginning Delila’s assumptions about employees were incorrect. Her criterion for hiring was exactly wrong. She hired from feelings, on a whim, people she thought were cute or that she misguidedly wanted to “help.” She hired people from backgrounds that were too divergent, and, as a result, had an all out war of conflicting interests, needs and personalities on her hands with her workplace as the battleground. One of her worst mistakes was hiring people who were desperately needy. (See chapter 7)
•
Her distaste for her halfway house employees was always obvious to everyone but herself. Those employees felt shame and took it out on her customers and through the snide remarks they made. This is known as passive aggressive behavior. (See chapter 7)
•
Delila was never a leader, and you must be a leader in order to garner the respect of others. In turn you must respect your employees. Where mutual respect exists, morale will be high. (See chapter 7)
•
She hired prematurely and had not adequately researched what opening a restaurant entails; as a result she had delays, during which she lost valuable employees. (See chapters 7, 8, 9, 10)
•
She never adequately anticipated competition. (See chapters 1, 2, 6)
•
She did not see the need for professional management. (See chapter 10)
•
She did not have systems in place for anything: training, ordering, tracking sales, financial statements, customer approach, recovery strategy for unhappy customers, preventing accidents both on the job and to her customers. (See chapters 5, 6, 8, 9, & 10)
•
She was dismissive of training and teamwork. (See chapter 7)
•
Delila failed to keep written reports and to document the two slips and falls on her first day of business. (See chapters 10, 13)
•
She failed to provide proper insurance coverage (See chapter 10):
· Worker’s comp.
· General liability
· Fire
· Flood insurance
· Business interruption
•
Delila failed to have a unique or “core” product that would differentiate her from the crowd. (See chapter 1)
•
She forgot her most important group of people: her customers. And even when she realized this, when she had this incredible epiphany, she resolved to think about it later. She procrastinated. (See chapter 8)
•
She had no idea of the tremendous costs of unchecked labor or food. (See chapters 8, 9)
•
Never did she research a Point of Sale (POS) system that might have helped her in many ways. (These machines have come a long way from the days of the old cash register.) (See chapters 9, 11)
•
She is a sole proprietor, so now Amanda and the customer who fell in her foyer will come after her personal Assets, including bank accounts, stocks, bonds, home, car—everything. Every asset Delila owns is now on the line. (See chapter 4)
•
Delila was unreasonable about her prospects for success. There is never a guarantee of success even if you have great sales. Success is a function of operating correctly, building sales and controlling costs. (See chapters 2, 8, 9 & 10)
•
Not only did everyone else assume that every penny coming in was her profit, Delila thought so too. She knew she would have to pay rent and light bills and such, but then thought everything else was gravy. She had never really given expenses any real thought. (See chapter 5)
•
Delila counseled an employee of the opposite sex alone in her office while angry. She failed to have a witness. (See chapter 10)
She made important business decisions while tired. (You don’t make your best decisions when you are tired.)
•
And finally, she did the unspeakable with Josh. It only happened once, but it will open a Pandora’s Box of problems for her. (See chapters 7, 10)
This might seem like a nightmare that could never happen to you, but believe me, all of these things happen every day in business; there is plenty of Ignorance and Hubris to go around. Don’t let this be you. Take my advice: Follow the words of this book and educate yourself further on the many facets of the restaurant business before you get started. Also, use www.cookingwithgas.net as a resource.
What Delila lacked was experience in management. Good management is all about planning and never happens by accident.
The rest of this book is dedicated to keep you from being Delila.
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