Starting, Owning and Marketing A Restaurant Blog|Starting and Owning a Restaurant - Construction, Planning, Marketing, Opening and Managing a New Restaurant

Should I see a doctor? Maybe a head doctor? No, it has to be an addiction or sickness. I got it, I’ll see both!

The job I am considering has a few multi-tasking responsibilities such as

• Washing dishes
• Cleaning dirty floors
• Construction
• Accounting
• Data processing
• Scrubbing bathrooms
• Training
• Creating delicious food
• Emptying garbage
• Working with unreasonable customers
• Marketing
• Investing $300,000 for the above privileges!

That’s right, I am considering another restaurant. Do I need it? No. Have I said I wasn’t going to do this again? Yes. Why am I doing this? Let’s go back to the beginning of the page…. Should I see a …..

Why people open restaurants today is beyond my comprehension as a rational, normal human being. Right in the middle of a recession, food costs rising faster than they have in the last 30 years and gas prices over $4.00 a gallon.

The story begins a year ago. A customer of one of my restaurants asks me to do a favor and talk to a restaurant owner about four miles away. The owner is desperate. His operation is failing. My customer asks if I could I see if there was anything I would recommend to salvage the dying Italian deli. Maybe I would want to buy the business or at least the equipment. I told the customer, I wasn’t opening any more restaurants and I had just sold one that I have had for ten years to have more fishing time.

As a favor, I agreed. A visit and review of poorly kept financial statements told the quick story. The owner had waited too long and focused on the wrong things. My honest opinion was that he had too much debt and too little time to salvage anything. A year ago, maybe I could have helped him survive, but it was too late. Sad, but brutally truthful advice.

A few weeks later the owner closed his restaurant with a string of creditors, including a very patient landlord who was due about six months rent.

About two months later I made the mistake of asking my customer how his restaurant owner friend had resolved his situation. The customer said he had closed, but had some equipment for sale. I recalled a relatively new walk-in refrigerator/freezer and told the guest to have the owner contact me if it was available. The owner called a couple of days later and offered the walk-in to me for less than half its value. Since I was aware of the circumstances, a quick check on this “bargain” determined the landlord had a lien on it. That lead to contacting the landlord which precipitated a year’s worth of communication that landed me in this mind boggling idiocy of a fourth restaurant.

So as you see, Day One is really not day one at all. If there ever was a “Day One”, it was when I got in this highly addictive business too many years ago!