So you want to open a restaurant?

32 reasons you may want to reconsider.

A tongue in cheek guide for the would be restaurateur.

Oscar Wilde once said, “Everyone has a great novel inside of them and that’s probably just where it should stay.” As novels go so go Restaurants. They say that small business is the engine of our national economy. I say small business is the fuel. People put up their hard earned money all the time to open restaurants. They enrich equipment companies, consultants, service people, banks, commercial real estate owners and insurance companies. They eventually open and keep burning up money until nine in every ten of them go belly up. The economy burps, rarely says thank you and waits for the next small business meal.

So you want to open a restaurant?

Accelerated aging; Prepare for days on end of missing your club or your work out if you had one. If you didn’t previously work out then just prepare to age. For the first few years you will not feel comfortable leaving your establishment for even a short period of time. The first few times you try to leave for an hour or two the energy it takes to put out the fires that start while you’re gone will convince you that it is more efficient to just keep working for the first three years. If you survive those first three years you may go to the doctor afterwards with a complaint such as anxiety and your doctor will look at you and with a straight face she will look into your blood shot thirty year old eyes and tell you your blood sugar is way up as well as your cholesterol and blood pressure. That’s when you let loose and explain to her that you couldn’t leave your restaurant for three years in a row. She will sympathize and as you tell her about your sore back, your constipation, your aching teeth, the pressure behind your eyeballs, the fungus rotting in all your finger nails from squeezing lemons, your carpal tunnel syndrome, your cut and swollen fingers, the tension in your neck and shoulders that’s causing numbness in your hands, your premature graying and thinning hair, your sore liver from drinking after work and your tight stomach from running on too much coffee all day she starts writing you prescriptions and three months later you can add battling an addiction to prescription drugs to your list of problems because the restaurant didn’t go away!

Hint; Get a good medical plan. Get life insurance to cover your family in case you have a heart attack. As owner you probably won’t be covered by Workers Compensation or temporary disability insurance so stay healthy and don’t disable yourself by catching your arm in a mixer or cutting off any fingers on the meat slicer.

Hint #2; Be anti-nike as my friend Big Tim says. He and his wife started the Hanalei Gourmet Pub the same time we started The Kilauea Bakery. Anti-nike? “Just don’t do it!”.

So you want to open a restaurant?

Power supply; You will over tax the wiring in your building. You will plug too many appliances into one circuit and the breaker will disconnect when the amperage demand exceeds its tolerance levels. This usually coincides with peak business periods.  Let’s say you’re serving coffee, toasting bagels and heating soup for lunch all at the same time, there is a line out the door and your four service people are moving as fast as they can. That’s when the lights go out, the coffee is suddenly cold, the toasters stop toasting and the stereo goes dead. To make it more realistic throw in the probability that you’re on the beach taking your first morning off in weeks and no one at the restaurant knows where the breaker box is or what to do if they could find it.

Hint; Take your pick; you could balance the amperage of all your appliances to fit all your plugs and breakers or you could just respond to this eventuality one black out at a time like we do.

Back pain; One poorly designed part of homo sapiens is the lower back. If you become a restaurateur yours will probably fall apart once or twice a year. If you are like me you will spend a week or two each year lying on your back in the living room of your house, an ice pack on your just above your tailbone, a bottle of aspirin to one side and a tumbler of the beverage of your choice to the other. You will learn that you can actually get a lot of management done with a telephone.

Hint; After that first little warning “PING” you feel just above your butt and behind the back of your belt stop, stand up carefully, go home and lay down. Better just to give up sooner rather than later.

To be continued…

So you want to open a restaurant?

Electrical; You will get a phone call one day while you are hours away trying to buy a food product like a locally produced goat cheese from a farm out in the hills miles from your shop. You need it because you’ve run out, it’s Friday night and it’s on the new menu and it has become a very popular ingredient. Unfortunately you hadn’t considered how sensitive goats are to weather and the farmer has a little supply problem in his hands. The phone call is from the person whom you left in charge of the restaurant. Hopefully by now you have a trained and qualified manager or chef but maybe it’s just the most resourceful person available. Let’s say it’s Sammy the dishwasher, he’s there because he’s worked all the other stations in the past and understands that as a dishwasher everyone needs and appreciates you and you can work at your own pace.  So Sammy calls you on you cell, “Boss, the oven is broken and the fan won’t work.” In this particular case the oven is the engine of your entire ship, the whole menu relies on the hot oven. You trust Sammy because although he drinks a lot he only starts when he’s finished working, he has years of experience in the kitchen and reasonable mechanical abilities.

He says he checked everything, he looked for obstructions in the back of the ovens, he tested the door switches, he checked the breakers in the breaker panel, he even took apart the fan switch and didn’t seem too shook up from the shock he received after touching the wrong wires with his wet hands. In the back of your head you are freaking because it is Friday and it’s a long weekend and it’s going to be extra busy because this is a three day weekend. By now, say one year into your restaurant career, you’re battle weary and your blood pressure barely raises a notch. You reflect on the loyalty of Sammy who didn’t have hold a live 110 volt wire for you and you just ask the obvious. “Sammy, did you check the plug? Is it plugged in?” Sammy says, “Lemme’ check” a moment passes and you listen to the background noise over the pbone of service personnel gossiping about a particularly fat customer. You make a mental note to remind your help that the customers they gossip about are the reason we all have jobs. Sammy gets back on the phone, “That was it boss! It was unplugged! You’re a genius! Thanks!” and he hangs up.

You try not to startle the farmer or the goat in front of you as they are intimately trying to produce some goats milk together.

When something breaks down a service man is going to cost you more than one or two hundred dollars even if it is a minor problem. You most likely will consider doing it yourself. If you haven’t dug into electrical problems yet let me tell you from experience that touching live 110 volt wires with wet hands or a metal tool is a wake up call. Putting you finger into a live 220 volt socket is truly shocking but once you pick yourself up from the floor where you landed you’ll most likely return to normal. It’s the Start Capacitors you want to avoid. If after several forays into repair work you think you are practically a mechanic you may try taking the cover off the back of a machine, you know the type of cover, they usually have a little warning on them that says “Warning; Shock hazard”. If you get one of those open and you see two little black turd shaped things attached to the motor be careful. Don’t take one off and touch the two little aluminum points on the end of it. They store 10,000 volts for a one-time jolt that will leave permanent scaring.

Note; In situations of electrical malfunction start at the power source and work your way upstream.

To be continued…

So you want to open a restaurant?

Plumbing. A broken pipe is an emergency that can be mopped up but a slow leak can be catastrophic. It’s the drain lines that cause heartbreak and despair. They clog most often during a rush, or they slowly drip. Seemingly too small to fix but over time they cause unimaginable damage.  Sink drains, refrigerator drains, toilets, grease traps, cesspools, septic tanks, one of these will get you eventually. One barely visible dripping pipe can cause the deconstruction of an entire business.

One day I walked past the ovens in my kitchen and did a double take. Something was wrong. I stood back and sure enough the ovens looked rather lopsided against the back wall. They are kind of heavy, about 800 pounds or so. I dragged in a floor jack, lifted them on the low side and put in some steel shim plates to make them appear more level. A year later they had sunk again. They were sinking through the floor toward the earth as gravity would have it.  Dripping water did this. Five years of a little over spray from a dishwasher. Drips saturating their way through the layer of recent 1990′s flooring to the layer from the 60′s, then through the original floor planks from the early 1900′s and down the original posts to finally soak into the soil the building stood on. I knew for some time something would have to be done but as the business runs seven days a week the first thing I did was ignore it until it got really bad. We finally had to close and dis-assemble the entire kitchen, demolish the floor, replace it with a new floor, re-assemble the entire business and re-open… in seven days. It was like butchering a living, breathing animal, taking apart the bones, muscles and major organs and then reassembling them and hoping the animal performs as well or better than it ever did before.

Hint; Keep elbow length gloves handy and fix every leak.

To be continued…

Do you want to open a restaurant?

Food is messy. A few lines down on the job description of any food service professional (Chef, cook, grillardin, patissier, baker, etc,) is an item that is often overlooked; Create mountains of dirty pots and spills the size of the Deep Water Horizon oil disaster. Let’s use a story about eggs as an example. Why? Because most of us have probably fumbled one and seen it drop in agonizingly slow motion knowing that it was going to hit with a splat on the kitchen floor.

There once was a young man much like this writer only about 30 years younger. At the time the only thing he was sure of was that surfing was extremely important and if you worked in restaurants you could eat for free. He was employed in an Omelette house. coincidentally the same Omelette house his future wife worked in. But let’s stick to the egg story. With a tranquil and blissful demeanor caused by being submerged in seawater for hours along the California coast our cook would show up for work in the afternoon and put on an apron. Part of his job was to pre-crack the eggs for the next days business. Let’s get past the fact that someone is cracking raw eggs 18 hours before they will be cooked. This was 1975 and the institution in mind is long since bankrupt. Our food service professional obediently set up five cases of eggs on the floor next to him, each case containing 30 dozen of the little cackle-berries. He began cracking them and lining them up on trays in plastic cups. Each time a tray was full he would carefully pick it up and set it in a stack of egg-cup-trays on the floor of the walk-in refrigerator.  He enjoyed the challenge of balancing the thin plastic tray on one hand while opening the heavy walk-in door with the other. Of course he fumbled a few eggs as he worked. Who wouldn’t while handling 1800 individual smooth, delicate objects. He kept a rag or two at his feet and nudged it with his dirty shoe over the broken shells and slime to try and contain spreading goo. Inevitably the floor became slippery. He found crossing the slick floor with a egg laden tray in one hand even more challenging. By and by he managed to get the entire five cases of pre-cracked eggs safely stacked on the floor of the walk-in. The stack was about waist high, a little taller than normal because the following morning was the busiest day of the year, mothers day. As he exited the cooler and let the door close he was proud of his job and considering his next task. Unfortunately as he lifted his leg out of the way of the spring loaded cooler door the toe of his left foot clipped one cup at the bottom of the stack of egg-cup-trays. Like a slow motion movie in which a parking garage is leveled by dynamite the tower of eggs began to fall. Quickly calculating that the liquid volume of eggs exceeded the capacity of the refrigerator floor he slammed the door shut. There was a brief moment where he felt obligated to begin a large scale clean-up operation, but it passed. He looked around the kitchen wondering if there was a witness then casually moved on to the next order of business, pre-cooking fifty pounds of slimy bacon.

So you want to open a restaurant?

Spoilage. In most public arenas an independent restaurateur is considered a creative purveyor of artistic food presentations and service. In a more pragmatic perspective, say that of a banker, a restaurateur participates in the business of manufacturing. As a food manufacturer one starts with raw materials, literally, combines them and manipulates until the become a new product. The product is then sold for a value added price. One unique thing about the restaurant business as a part of the manufacturing industry is the instability of the raw material. A manufacturer of furniture has few problems keeping his wood stock stable, a tool factory watches it’s steel resource decay in terms of centuries.

The inventory in your restaurant, quite often hundreds of different items, begin to deteriorate the minute they are received at the back door. Dairy products or produce last only a few days. A restaurant has storage issues like no other. Fresh food has to be stored between zero and 39 degrees. Packaged food needs a dry, dark and cool environment. Even then it is in a constant state of degradation. Refrigerator compressors seem to die when you need them most, like on the hottest summer days. If you’re lucky enough not to have to sweat out the loss of a walk-in full of lobster and shellfish you will still have to pare down and throw away significant portions of your inventory before your final product can be served. For example most of your fresh vegetables will have to be peeled and trimmed and that lobster will have to have half it’s weight, the body and shell, taken off before you can sell the tail. Your inventory, instead of just being put on a shelf will be subject to refrigeration, rotation, over supply, under supply, spoilage and preparation waste problems. Let’s say you bought a case of zucchini or spinach because it’s half price if bought in bulk. You buy it and as you use some up in your quiches and souffle’s you watch the remainder get slimy or wilt. You’re commitment to quality is tested daily. At which point is the inventory item not fresh? At which point is it too slimy or wilted? Will customers know why you are suddenly selling lots of zucchini bread? How long can a finished product, for instance a nice trimmed New York Steak or a delicate Berry tart, stay at it’s point of optimum attractiveness, flavor and temperature? From the moment it is finished and ready to serve it begins to degrade. If you can’t get it served just after it is finished your customer will be experiencing your product in a diminished state. Business is fickle. Customers arrive late, they tell long stories that can’t be interrupted, they go to the bathroom just at the wrong time. Let’s face it, one way or another most of the products you “manufacture” will be past their optimum state once finally consumed. Heck if you’re honest you should just open a factory seconds outlet or a second hand store! Instead of being served or picked up on time the food you serve will most likely be cooling down or warming up. It will be wilting or losing color or aging.  Prepare for this, no other manufacturing or retail business has that kind of temporary product.

 

 

So you want to open a restaurant?

The customer that can’t be satisfied. You will be able to satisfy some of the customers some of the time. It is as certain that a few of your customers will be left unsatisfied. You will work to get your employees to work on time, you will polish the glass, arrange your products and test the temperature of your soup. You will make sure your floor is spotless and the tables are squarely set with chairs lined up in front of them yet on some mornings the first customer through the door will be someone who’s self identity is wrapped around the sentiment that nothing they could buy or experience in you establishment is good enough for them.

It may be a genetic thing, like red hair or left handedness, a set of people who are determined to always want what they can’t get.  “Do any of these pastries come without sugar? Which of these don’t have eggs, butter or wheat flour? There will be people who walk into a bakery, a business founded on dairy products and variations of the wheat grain and ask for dairy free, lactose free, gluten free pastry. When you cheerfully point out the platter of selections without any of those offensive ingredients one day there will be that customer that says, “Don’t you have any of those gluten free muffins with…. anchovies?

Hint; Just say ” No problem, we can have that for you tomorrow if you pre-pay today.”

So you want to open a restaurant?

Early pattern baldness, even if you’re a woman.

Prepare for days on end of missing your club or your work-out if you had one. If you didn’t previously exercise then just prepare to age fast. For the first few years you will not feel comfortable leaving your establishment for even a short period of time. The first few times you try to leave for an hour or two the energy it takes to put out the fires that start while you’re gone will convince you that it is more prudent to just stay at work for the first three years. If you survive those first three years you may go to the doctor at some point afterward for a complaint such as general overall pain. Your doctor will look at you and with a straight face she will look into your blood shot thirty year old eyes and tell you your blood sugar is way up as well as your cholesterol and blood pressure. That’s when you let loose and explain to her that you couldn’t leave your restaurant for three years straight. She will sympathize and as you let it all out and tell her about your sore back, your constipation, your aching teeth, the pressure behind your eyeballs, the fungus rotting in all your finger nails from squeezing lemons, your carpal tunnel syndrome, your cut and swollen fingers, the tension in your neck and shoulders that’s causing numbness in your hands, your premature graying and thinning hair, your sore liver from drinking after work and your tight stomach from running on too much coffee all day she starts writing you prescriptions and three months later you can add battling an addiction to prescription drugs to your list of problems. Because the restaurant won’t go away!

Hint; Get a good medical plan. Get life insurance to cover your family in case you have a heart attack. As owner you probably won’t be covered by Workers Compensation or temporary disability insurance so stay healthy and don’t disable yourself by catching your arm in a mixer or cutting off any fingers on the meat slicer.

So you want to open a restaurant?

She’ll probably leave you.

How fathomless is your love? You say wood chairs she says plastic. You say the menu needs Green Goddess dressing she says vinaigrette. You say it needs more salt she says it needs less. Simple disagreements that all pile up to “Honey I wish you would to come to bed.” and she says “Honey, not tonight “.

Does your wife or husband like your idea? Have they promised to stand behind you every step of the way? Are they encouraging you to do this? Make sure they are with you, committed to the point that they will quit their real job, ignore the children and mortgage the house. Other wise when things get bad and they will, your spouse will certainly choose to make you sleep on the couch.

But on the bright side when you are both too tired for the bedroom you can at least eat out at your own place for free, if you can agree on which table to sit at.

So you want to open a Restaurant?

Sleeplessness. Just because you close the restaurant late at night doesn’t mean your day is over. Employees will call you in the middle of the night and tell you crazy lies like “I can’t make it to work tomorrow. I was at a bus stop in Honolulu on my way to see my mother who is in the hospital. Suddenly a truck careened into the bus stop, I lunged to push an old woman out of the way of the truck. I saved her but was hit myself and now I’m in the hospital too. It was terrible.” (true story) Customers will call you at all hours to tell you what you should do. Just as you are drifting off to sleep the phone will ring. You don’t want to miss the call because is could be someone calling in sick. Or not. It just might be a customer suggesting you make that kind of crust that has cheese inside it just like Pizza Hut’s. Try to respond politely before hanging up.

Sleep will be something you get when you can. You will find yourself napping in places you never used to consider relaxing. Falling asleep in the dentist’s chair for example, while the dentist is drilling your teeth. You will fall asleep in places where no one can bother you. You may learn to love sitting on Airplanes. They make you turn off your phone, offer you drinks and give you a big chair to sleep in for hours and hours…

Query; If the phone rings and you don’t answer it did anyone call?

So you want to open a restaurant?

Anxiety. If you open a restaurant expect at some point a good dose of anxiety, that feeling of dread and impending doom. It could be a sign that you are doing something unusual and new or it could be a sign that you are doing something very wrong and fiscally dangerous. It is a warning from the brain to proceed slowly and thoughtfully. In regard to stepping into the unknown of owning a business anxiety attacks only happen during that intense phase just before opening. Once you are open and there is no hope of turning back, trust me, you will be too busy to have an anxiety attack. Compared to skydiving or tow-in surfing the duration of your anxiety can be rather long. Once you start withdrawing money and preparing to open a wide range of variables will cause delays.

You may find yourself doing strange things like sleeping in the bathtub or drinking tequila for breakfast. But let’s save that for the paragraph on the high probability of self medication among restaurateurs.