Hot Flash Cafe

Surrender

2010-10-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

I should have known, when I almost pulled the plug on my marriage, that something else was really the problem. Yes…there is a plug that definitely needs to be pulled. But it is not my marriage that is going to get the royal flush.

After a perfectly ghastly spring and summer, I have come to the realization that I cannot do this anymore. Partially because it is, in the famous words of someone very close to me, "not what I signed up for."

I was not supposed to be doing this by myself after four years. We had anticipated that the husband's job would be going away within a year…eighteen months at the outside. And that we would then be doing this together. At least that is what I understood was the plan. Fifty-one months later, I am still wearing every hat, juggling every plate, using fingers and toes I don't have to try to hold this thing together.

I am not a person I know anymore. I am not a person I LIKE anymore. I'm not a person ANYONE likes anymore, for that matter. Which, I'm afraid, is part of the reason the husband has retracted his interest in becoming a full and equally functioning partner. Kind of a "chicken/egg" situation, actually. I can't seem to make it clear to him that the reason I am what I am right now is that I am totally overwhelmed, and if he DID come on as we had planned, things would most likely change. For the better. Be that as it may, he's not buying it. And, in the end, I've discovered I am not equal—was never equal—to the task of running this business by myself.

Truth be told, I don't know what task I am equal to anymore.

It seemed I was better off—at least, I wasn't making a public ass of myself—when I was angst-filled, semi-employed, bored and at loose ends, with only my keyboard and the anonymous ether to vent on..or at…or whatever. THAT life—and that oddly comforting little community into which I fell, quite by accident—is gone as well. I won't have that to fall back into. Probably a good thing…I don't know.

But I think…I think what I'd really like to do when all this is over is just go crawl under a rock. And stay there. For some unspecified amount of time. Until I feel human again. If that ever happens.

Now begins the task of disassembling all that I thought I had built in the past four years.

Which shouldn't be too hard, since it has mostly fallen down around my head already.

I'm not sure I'm ready for another crash and burn. But life isn't always about what one is ready for, is it?

Grumble

2010-10-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

I don't have the statistics here in front of me, but I know (from personal experience) that a huge portion of our living-wage manufacturing jobs have been re-distributed—out of the country. The United States now has what they call a "consumer economy." An economy which can only remain robust when people buy stuff. Not a traditional or even viable economic philosophy, by any means. In fact, it's entirely probable that the concept of a consumer economy was only recognized when it became obvious that was what we have descended into.

Economies are supposed to be based upon making stuff, not buying stuff. We should be making or producing something that we can trade—either for money, goods, or services—on the world market. But here in America, the Fat Cats who are supposed to be concerned with keeping the economy vital, have outsourced all our jobs. And they have charged US with keeping the American economy sound (and keeping THEM rich), by continuing to buy all the stuff they now have made in India or China or Central America, for a fraction of what it would cost them to pay US to make it here. So, they get the money, and we get…what? The incredible honor of serving them in restaurants, hotels, country clubs and casinos…because those are the only jobs left to be had?

Oh, yes…the Service Industry is growing by leaps and bounds. Basically because the poor schlubs whose jobs have gone away get to be employed waiting on the asshats who sold those jobs to the lowest bidders overseas.

Now, I am a card-carrying member of the Service Industry, and I have been for most of my adult life. Since before the entire national economy hung on our every move . For the most part, it was an enjoyable challenge, trying to guess what would be the Next Big Thing, and getting it out there with a smile and a flourish. It was satisfying to make someone happy, gratifying to brighten someone's day. And they would smile, and say, "Thank you!" And everyone would go home and sleep well at night.

Then, four years ago, in the midst of this shift from a real economy to one based on speculation, greed and all kinds of negative abstract concepts, I bought a restaurant. And, boy, have I learned a few things about what it means to own a service business in 21^st-century America. Let me just say it has not done anyone any favors to strap the fate of the nation to our aching backs.

The buzz these days from just about everyone you talk to is that we have forgotten how to give good service in this country. Let me stand up in defense of my industry, for a moment. I have to believe that a large part of the problem is that not everyone is suited to a service job. Many of the folks who have been flung into our industry because there's nowhere else to go do not have what it takes to BE good…well, servants. They're doing the job because it's what there is to do, not because they enjoy it or find it satisfying. And that is a terrible problem for our industry. For all that we are the most over-worked, under-paid segment of the working population, there is a tremendous amount of skill, knowledge, and talent required to do what we do WELL. Someone who was perfectly happy to man an assembly line or work alone in a cubicle in front of a computer screen all day, probably won't be very happy, or very good at, chatting up customers while steaming a milk for a latte to 140 degrees.

And speaking of that 140 degree latte, let me also say that, from MY side of the counter, the general American public no longer knows how to GET good service. To encourage, accept and reward it, rather than to demand it as some kind of entitlement.

When some woman I have never seen before walks up to my counter and barely interrupts her cel phone conversation to churlishly demand a half-caf vente macchiato (which is a Starbuck's drink, by the way…and, um, we are not Starbuck's…) at exactly 140 degrees or she WILL bring it back (and I am led to wonder whether she carries a stem thermometer in her purse…), and sighs and rolls her eyes when we try to establish what she would like to order from OUR menu, raps her acrylic nails on the counter and continues her slightly over-loud phone conversation while we make her drink, takes the drink from our hopeful yet fearful hands, tastes it, makes a face, says, "Tsk…it's fine!" and stalks away, pointedly ignoring the tip jar next to the register…

That's when I know I'm not in Kansas anymore, Toto. And even those of us who used to enjoy serving and satisfying the public, who used to get a charge out of the grateful smile of a contented customer…look at each other and say, "Why, exactly, DO we do this?"

More and more, we are becoming a nation of the "haves" and the "have-nots." And despite the fact that the have-nots outnumber the haves many times over, our culture, our media, encourage us all to look, act, and aspire to BE the haves. Not being rich is not good enough. It is not noble or admirable or even tolerable to be…modest. To be "comfortable." To be barely making ends meet. Because we all have to act like we have money. We all have to have the newest gadgets, the trendiest clothes, the latest adornments. And we all have to demand to be treated like Mr. and Mrs. Got-rocks by any person charged with the unfortunate task of waiting upon us in any place of business. As a result, the Service Industry—that place where more and more folks find themselves toiling—is becoming a less and less attractive place to work. At our sides are people who don't want to be here and aren't any good at it, and from across the counter, a heretofore unprecedented degree of rudeness and aggressiveness is exploding in our faces.

So maybe THAT'S why good customer service seems to be a thing of the past. Ya think?

Surviving

2010-09-12T21:06:00.000-07:00

September again. Already. I swear, I'm still trying to figure out what happened to last Christmas.

This summer has flown by. And it's just as well, because I think it has been one of the most miserable summers on record. Weather-wise, our summer didn't start here until well into July. But the weather has been the least of my problems. Except the part where the ONE heat wave we had all season had to come on the ONE weekend when it would do the most damage—the weekend of our big Scandinavian event down south. Probably cost us a couple thousand dollars in sales. Typical of this particular summer, I guess. If it was bad, it was going to happen, and at the worst possible time.

When California Chef took his leave in the middle of May, he seems to have snagged a thread that caused the whole fabric of the café to unravel. We started to shed crew members like my cats shed their winter coats. Systems deteriorated, equipment broke down or had to be replaced, my marriage nearly ended… It was kind of like the Universe was going to show me every bad consequence that could possibly befall us as a result of last summer's bid to "take us to the next level." This will teach you to be "too tired" to properly appreciate random factors operating in your favor. Because those same random factors turned on us like a snake; and if I thought I was tired last winter, I've learned a whole new definition of the word in the past three and a half months.

We lost California Chef; my long-time morning counter girl; Chef's erstwhile but completely unworthy replacement—Ms. California Chef; the woman I had hired to be front of the house manager to replace the Good and Faithful "D" (who is still with us on a limited basis, and still good and faithful); Ms.Pastry Chef; and a parade—I can't count how many… Six? Nine?—of possible replacement crew members, none of whom lasted more than two weeks. Some as little as a day. And, actually, there are reasons why the exit of each and every one of these players is a good thing. But it would have been ever so much nicer had they not all have crapped out at the same time.

Oh…and two of my three remaining long-ish term employees (they have been with us since 2008) are pregnant.

Talk about snake-bit. I've never seen anything like it.

But I don't want to whine about this anymore. Because I'm too tired. And because I'm officially on vacation. As of about 2:00 this afternoon. Until noon on Friday.

I've been stretching my neck out toward this particular carrot since I made the reservations three weeks ago. And now, by golly, I'm chomping on it as if it were my last meal.

And not a moment too soon.

Losses, Foundations and Lessons

2010-07-02T18:53:00.001-07:00

I've been having a rough time of it, the past six weeks, raking myself over the coals for my inability to retain employees. Good, bad, or indifferent, they all seem to have decided they don't want to work for ME.

But of course, in this small town, it's an ongoing drama. I can't help but hear accounts—sometimes told With Great Relish—of the exploits of my former employees. The juvenile delinquent is going to nursing school now. Cook In Training #2 bombed out of her medical assistant training, went to work at McDonald's for awhile, drama-ed herself out of that job…I pretty much could have called it all at the time she left us, though I had hoped so much more for her.

Former counter girl is still plugging away with my competitor up the road, but the story is she is no happier there than she was here. Gotta think her problems go deeper than that she just couldn't get along with California Chef.

And, speaking of California Chef, I got the latest news on him yesterday. (This is one of those stories passed on to me With Great Relish…)

Seems Chef is no longer employed at Pizza Restaurant cum brew pub cum comedy club etc. etc. His problems began on Father's day, evidently. ( How apt, since he left us just after Mother's Day. So that gives him, what…five weeks of uneventful association with his new employer?)

The story starts with California Chef choosing to serve Cornish game hens for a Father's Day special, which he proceeds to undercook and then refuses to re-cook. Necessitating that disenchanted restaurant owner throw away fifty unservable Cornish game hens. Thereby not particularly endearing Chef to boss.

Shortly thereafter, Chef is running a dinner service, with one other cook and a dish washer assisting. Early in the service, a plate is sent back to the kitchen (not clear to me whether the customer sent it back or the server refused to take it out.) Chef throws one of his "Wait-staff-is-the-source-of-all-bad-things" hissy fits and makes a big issue out of the remaking of this particular plate. (He threw one or two of those during his tenure at the Hot Flash Café. And they are not pretty.)

This one, however, seems to be the straw that broke some camel's back—whether his or the wait staff's, I don't know. Whatever the reason, Chef chooses to embark upon a course of action calculated to have the greatest possible negative effect on those he believes have wronged him. He plugs along for a little while, by and by telling his assistant cook and the dish washer that, since it's not busy, they can go home and he'll take care of the kitchen by himself. He then proceeds to let the dining room fill up with guests before he walks out , leaving the restaurant with no one at all manning the kitchen.

Wow. The boy knows how to make a point.

So now I wonder.

Should I really be beating myself up over the fact that employees are deserting the Hot Flash Cafe like rats from a sinking ship? Or should I be patting myself on the back that I managed to hold together a rag-tag band of misfits and turn them into at least a semi-functional, mildly effective team, for as long as I did? After all, I held Chef in check for almost a year, and he did give proper notice when he decided to leave. Cook #2 worked for me for almost 2 years, which is by far the longest period in her young life that she has ever stuck with anything.

I think I don't give myself enough credit. When everything started to fall apart, I began to believe we had merely been lucky that we'd enjoyed that stretch of time—nearly two years!—where we had amassed a group of a half-dozen long-term employees. Now, though, I think it was more than just luck. It took plenty of skill: choosing battles, soothing egos, playing up strengths, maneuvering around weaknesses, walking the fine line between managing people and letting the inmates run the prison.

I like to think I haven't lost the knack…but there is a certain amount of bringing the right people together before we can make it happen again. And I think that's getting harder, especially in the tiny, shallow labor pool of this small town. Once you shoot through the available talent (such as it is), it takes a while for the pool to refill. We experienced the "empty labor pool" phenomenon right after we bought the restaurant. Maybe we'll just have to go through that same cycle, over and over, every x-number of years.

Won't that be fun?

But perhaps the problem was, to a certain extent, my own fault. I rocked the boat. I made the mistake of trying to change things too much. Perhaps I would still have most of the people I've lost in the past year if I had never tried to haul my quirky little business to the "next level." If I had never entertained those fantasies of what the presence of California Chef could do for us. My staff was perfectly content with the level we were on. I knew that…and it drove me crazy. But in the end, maybe they were right. As it turned out, the "next level" chewed us up and spit us out. Because here we are, perched squarely back on that same old level, feeling lucky to be here at all…and with almost no staff left to tell the tale. Sigh!

So maybe I've learned something.

And maybe The Universe will be kind enough to send me two or three good people upon whom I can test my newfound knowledge. The knowledge that change is not always necessary. Or good. Or even possible.

I get it.

Ten Minutes on Why Staffing is a Nightmare

2010-05-25T08:12:00.001-07:00

I have ten minutes and only ten minutes to write this today. You will see WHY I only have ten minutes after you read it:

Here is a timeline which suggests the challenges of staffing a small business:

February 1: Applicant walks in the door. She is breathing and has a pulse and I am desperate, so I hire her. She has a smattering of restaurant experience and is currently working two very part-time jobs (one involves a thirty-mile round-trip commute for what amounts to about nine or ten hours per week. At least I can offer this girl more hours and a shorter commute.)

March 1: Girl is working out okay. Not exactly a fireball, but she shows up and wears the uniform. Does everything I tell her to do, but doesn’t exhibit any kind of self-directedness. Kind of frustrating.

Mid-March: Chef comes down with pneumonia, and this girl steps into the role of lifesaver. When I need someone who can come in early, stay late and take on additional shifts, she steps right up. I’m starting to change my mind about her. But, oh…wait. She is starting classes soon. Needs Monday and Wednesday afternoons off…

April 1: Girl lets slip that she is getting married at the end of the week. Apparently, her intended is joining the army, and they want to hurry up and tie the know before he leaves. Very WWII…but sweet. Oh, by the way…this girl is 18 years old. Husband is 20.

Mid-April: Girl comes to me and says that over the summer she wants all the hours I can give her. She is totally free and just wants to work, work, work.

Mid-May: Girl comes to me and confesses that she is pregnant, “But it won’t affect her work at all.” I nod my head and say, “Oh, yeah. Sure”. Regardless of how the pregnancy affects her, I now know that she will be leaving our employ before the end of the year. Not going to be the person upon whom to start building a new stable of long-term employees, I guess…

End of May: Girl complains to other staff members that she is getting tired of the restaurant always being under-staffed. Why does she have to work so many hours (she is working five 6-hour shifts a week)? We have all these people coming in and leaving off resumes (unqualified high school students who are looking for a way to make money for about six weeks and then will go back to their studies and extra-curricular activities in September, never to be heard from again….) She would be happy working four days a week… Because now that husband is safely in the military, and they are safely married, the Army is paying her rent and a food stipend. So she really doesn’t have to work anymore.

Oh, and by the way… Young husband is now pressuring her to join him in Georgia when he is finished with his first phase of basic training. This will take place sometime around mid-August. Mind you, SHE hasn’t broken any of this news to me, but in a workplace as small as ours, you tell one person something and everyone (except ME, generally, but this time is the exception) finds out eventually.

So this is the way of things. Since January, I have lost three long-term employees and my chef. I have had one new hire work one shift and never come back. Last week, my new hire ("Wisconsin Woman") worked five days and quit. My husband interviewed a girl on Friday (referred by going-to-Georgia-girl) who started out saying she could only work four days a week, but oh, sometimes not even that, and, oh, by the way, I’ll need a week off in June, and a week off in July. In other words, “I don’t really WANT a job. I don’t actually have time for one…” This is WHY we have all these resumes coming in and we are chronically short-staffed. I have no idea how these people live, anymore, without an income. Maybe the army is paying all their rent.

I am frustrated, tired (that’s news?) and desperately afraid that, in a few weeks, I’ll be running that restaurant all by myself.

And in Washington, they’re STILL screaming, “There are no jobs… “

Found Him...

2010-05-21T10:31:00.001-07:00

Last night, I chose to rub salt in a wound that had not healed over as much as I had thought.

I had heard on the grapevine (from my manicurist—the resource library for all of the county's juiciest gossip) that one of the major restaurant players in The Next Town Up The Road had recently lost its chef. Using what deductive powers haven't yet been compromised by my chronic state of overwork and undersleep, I put two and two together and guessed that this was where California Chef had landed. So, last night, husband and I made a little "market research" field trip up the road to see what was shaking.

And yes, there was my ex-chef, toiling away in the open kitchen of the pizza restaurant-cum brew pub-cum comedy club-cum whatever else will put butts in the seats, which has also been struggling to add "dinner house" to its list of various personae. And while I am the first to admit that, in our-pint-sized demographic, success is built upon how many market niches an eatery can successfully fill, Pizza Pub Up The Road has enjoyed about as much success in the dinner house category as has the Hot Flash Café.

There are reasons for this; reasons that became more abundantly clear to me during the ten months I personally struggled to morph the Hot Flash Café into something that would optimize California Chef's talents. The truth of the matter is, there is an extremely limited market, out here in the exurbs, for what California Chef does best. He can make beautiful, tasty, trendy food. And that, unfortunately, is not what our customers are looking for in a local restaurant. They want clean, friendly, edible homey stuff. If a restaurant can kind of nudge them toward the 21^st century without their knowing it, they're good with that. But they are definitely not looking for nouvelle cuisine out here. If they want trendy, they make a day or night of it and go into "The City." Or they go west to one of the more upscale communities on the beach.

When California Chef took his leave of us, it didn't take me long to realize that he had to leave…that we were never going to be able to make proper use of what he had to offer. I thought, "Okay. Failed experiment. Chalk this one up to experience and move on." But as cantankerous and hard to get along with as the kid had proven to be, I had made a sizeable emotional investment in him. I really believed he had talent and a bright future, even if it wasn't with my restaurant. As much as, in the end, his leaving was obviously best for everyone, it was not painless for me to see him go.

If only he HAD gone on to somewhere that his talents could be nurtured and properly utilized. But, no—he's at a stupid, small-town restaurant of ambiguous identity that is really just a bigger, more ambitious version of the Hot Flash Café. Churning out humdrum food that is NOT his, to keep the unimaginative patrons happy, while straining to attract a market that does not exist with specials like "Halibut Picatta."

My greatest regret with California Chef was that I worked elbow to elbow with him for ten months, and couldn't teach him a damned thing. I knew I had little to offer in the way of teaching him how to cook, but I had hoped I could impart some wisdom about how to run a kitchen, how to assemble and relate to a staff, even what kinds of food might appeal to our demographic. Seeing him last night, ramming his head against the same brick wall he'd encountered (erected?) at the Hot Flash Café, it really brought home to me how utterly deaf and blind he was to anything I had tried to impress upon him during our short and obviously fruitless association.

Within comfortable commuting distance to the city of Portland and its exciting up-and-coming culinary scene, California Chef chooses to go…sideways. Or even backwards.

It was a blow my bruised heart was less ready to absorb than I thought…

Time to Hunker Down and Re-Group

2010-05-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

So he's gone.

After ten months of struggling to meet California Chef's needs, and trying to get him to meet ours, he decides to up and peddle his services to one of my competitors in the next town up the road.

I assume he believes he'll be taking his "following" of devoted customers with him.

I don't think he realizes how small, possibly even non-existent, that following is.

Now that I can let myself think about what really has been going on at my restaurant for the past ten months, I'm feeling…relieved, chastened and somewhat smarter.

Relieved that the source of so much discord is finally out the door. Hiring a chef/kitchen manager was supposed to make my life easier, but California Chef didn't make life easy for anyone. Quite the opposite, really. He browbeat the front of the house staff, patronized his kitchen crew, and fought me at every turn. He burnt his bridges with my entire existing staff and was working on alienating the people we had brought on to replace them. It wasn't that his awesome skill level set the bar too high for our old staff (or the new staff, for that matter.) He was just cranky, moody, and often outright rude to the other employees, and basically set a standard of perfection for them that he was not willing to uphold himself.

And I let him get away with way too much for way too long, just because he was so damn talented.

Oh, yes, he's an outstanding cook. But he was not a Kitchen Manager. In any sense of the word. He didn't want to manage the people or the menu or the physical plant. He just wanted to cook. And he wanted to cook what he wanted to cook. Not necessarily what I wanted him to cook, or what was going to work with our concept or our customer base. For ten months, I struggled to point him in a direction that was going to work for him and for us. Every day, every day with him was a challenge.

Soon enough, it became obvious that he just hated everything about the restaurant. He hated the other staff members, he hated me, he hated our menu and the things he had to do every day. As time went on, he viewed our operation and our methods with more and more contempt, which he didn't go out of his way to try to hide. He just made everybody—including himself—miserable.

So it's not as if the idea of terminating our association had not started to dawn on the horizon of my consciousness. He just beat me to the punch. When he gave his "notice" on Tuesday (too cowardly to come to ME about it, he cornered the husband out on the sidewalk at the end of his shift) it only took me about fifteen minutes to go from shock, anger and disbelief to a feeling of tremendous relief. Though it was going to be inconvenient and challenging, this was exactly what needed to happen, and I knew it. And I felt like a 200 lb. (distinctly chef-shaped) weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

Now that I feel like I have my restaurant back, any hole he's left behind will be healed quickly enough. I'll have to rethink the dinner menu I have been struggling to build around his whims and was just about to unveil. And I have a catering commitment in July that was heavily contingent upon the presence of someone with extensive catering experience, which I do not possess, so he definitely left me in the lurch on that one. But we will work it out one way or another.

The Universe, for its part, seems to be looking out for me, as it has done since I took on this challenge four years ago. Back in March, I was fortunate enough to hire a young lady who is a classically trained chef (went to one of the most prestigious culinary schools in the country, in fact) and happens to live on a houseboat about ten minutes from the café. She was not hired, as I'm afraid California Chef was convinced, as his replacement, and I am not going to ask her to take on that role. But I do anticipate that Chef Hope (yes, that is REALLY her name) can help me complete my dinner menu, and possibly coach me and my other cooks in some skills to carry it off.

And then there is Wisconsin Woman. Two days before Chef jumped ship, I hired a woman who had owned a couple of espresso/sandwich shops of her own (one of which was in Wisconsin, hence her Hot Flash Café nickname.) Her first day was Wednesday—the day I was going to attempt to work open to close after being up literally the entire night wrestling with the questions Chef's abrupt exit screamed to be answered. Wisconsin Woman proved to be miraculously competent, and should be a more than adequate schedule replacement for at least some of the late cantankerous Chef's day shift hours. So, thank the Universe, I am not left tearing my hair out trying to figure out who is going to help me open the doors every day.

So, an era of what I thought would be change and advancement for the Hot Flash Café has come to an end. And yes, I have regrets. I regret that I sacrificed a handful of what used to be my key people for what amounted to a failed experiment. But, truthfully, those people obviously did not have much of a commitment to me, the café or their jobs (who does anymore?) So I guess I didn't lose anybody who was irreplaceable. I have to adopt the attitude that "I was looking for staff when I hired you…" and just keep looking. Forever and ever amen, from the looks of things… :(

And of course, I have to learn the lessons that this experience has to impart. One of the primary things I have learned is that you have to dance with the one who brung ya. The Hot Flash Café IS a hodgepodge of concepts that has uniquely fitted it for success in our little market. Our ambiguous identity—some people see us as a coffee shop, some as an ice cream shop, some as a great little place to grab a fast business lunch, and some people even realize we serve dinner—has kept the doors open for five years. Ten months of trying to re-invent the café into the dinner house California Chef envisioned it to be has proven that we are what we are, and we just need to be the best one of those (whatever it is) around.

A humbled, somewhat frustrated but definitely smarter owner is now ready to reclaim her kitchen and go forward, on a path of much less resistance. I am so ready to fall back in love with the Hot Flash Café…

Crap

2010-05-12T00:09:00.000-07:00

About those "random factors..."

The ones that are definitely no longer acting in our favor:

Chef quit today.

Wish I'd made it more of a point to enjoy the good luck a little more.

Because it's crunch time again.

And I am sooooooo tired.

Goodbye Again

2010-04-05T11:47:00.001-07:00

I knew it would be difficult; I knew there would be casualties. And I paid lip service (or pen service?) to all that a couple of months ago.

Unfortunately, that doesn't make it any easier to deal with when it happens.

Another of my long-term employees gave her notice on Saturday. I was kind of blindsided by the whole thing; especially since, not three weeks ago, she had sent me an impassioned email about how much she loved working at the café and how she felt like it was home and that she just wanted to work, so I needed to give her x-number of hours every week. So I was a little unprepared for the "I love working here, give me more hours, I quit" progression of events.

I suppose I should not have been surprised. When an employee is stressing out about the job enough to fire off unsolicited emails, you have to guess something is up. It's safe to assume they are not getting what they want, and, in all probability, what they want is not within my power to give. I'll remember that for next time, I guess.

Still, I can't help but wish there was an open line of communication between myself and my employees, so they would not be afraid to let me know when something is bothering them. I try not to act like the Wicked Witch of the West; I try to be understanding, try to be fair; I try to encourage and praise good performance as well as point out failure. Unfortunately, I've learned a few things about human nature. First of all, "fairness" is in the mind of the beholder. If I go out of my way to accommodate YOU, I'm being "fair." If I do that for another employee, it's "favoritism." Secondly, human beings are, apparently, deaf to compliments and hyper-sensitive to the sound of anything even slightly smacking of criticism. So there's almost no point in even bothering to praise. They don't hear it.

If I worked at it, I think I could set myself up to be considered a "friend" to all these young people. But I'm afraid that would involve abandoning any effort to improve or critique anyone's performance. And I'd have to take on the role of "Scheduling Fairy," accommodating their every request ("I need more hours, I can't work THOSE hours, I can't work with so-and-so, I need to take two weeks off starting tomorrow") with a placid smile on my face and a consoling pat on the back.

Sorry. I need to be in charge, need to be able to tell them what to do. Need to tell them when they screw up. Need to try to get them to adhere to my standards, which aren't impossibly high, by any means. So I cannot
be their friend. Because then I would have no control at all. I have little enough as it is.

They say "It's lonely at the top." I couldn't agree more. The thing of which I am on top may not be huge or glamorous, or even particularly high. But it does consume most of my life force. So I keenly feel the isolation of spending seventy hours a week working elbow-to-elbow with people who are not—who cannot be—my friends. And because they are not my friends, it's inappropriate for me to feel sad and betrayed when they exercise their freedom and choose to move on.

Inappropriate. Yes. But there it is. To not acknowledge that I DO feel sad and betrayed would be like trying to ignore the elephant clinging to my back. But I cannot let that elephant flatten me. I have to peel it off, put it on the ground, pat it on the head and keep walking.

So, good luck to my dear departing employee. I hope you find what makes you happy at your new job.

Where Have All The Workers Gone?

2010-03-31T11:06:00.001-07:00

Ah, I remember the "Good Old Days." The days prior to July 1^st, 2006, when I was semi-self-employed, and had a life outside the four walls of the Hot Flash Café. Those bygone days where I had time for political zeal and media addiction, so diametrically opposite of my life today. Now, I actively ignore the political scene and any and all "news"—unless there's a nuclear attack or some such disaster. It is all just so much noise, and I have all I can handle within my circumscribed little struggling neophyte-entrepreneur world.

Of course, some stuff filters down to me, anyway; right past the fingers in my ears and "La-la-la" chanting from my lips. Current events that should or do effect my daily existence—the health care fiasco, the tanking of the economy, rising joblessness—wave their arms and point at themselves no matter how much I'd like to ignore them.

It's odd, though, how the things that should be negatively affecting the Hot Flash Cafe are not, so much…and the things that should be cutting us a bit of a break are…not so much, either. We've come out of the tanking economy smelling like a rose, at least for now. Though I'm not naïve enough to declare us forever unscathed by the evil economic goings on, I have to say I'm happy enough, and grateful enough, that we are where we are.

But then, there's Unemployment. This whole issue has me utterly flummoxed. Traditionally, high unemployment has been a good thing for businesses like mine, down here in the bottom layers of the economic strata. Even though the pay and the benefits routinely suck in the hospitality industry, when there are no other jobs to be had, we generally get our pick of the litter when it comes to job applicants. In past incarnations of economic hard times, I have assembled some of my best crews out of stacks of applications submitted by over-qualified people who were happy to get any job, and held on to it for dear life once they got one.

Since the first of this year, I have lost two cooks, most of the services of Good and Faithful "D," and had California Chef out sick for two weeks. I've suffered through my worst staffing nightmare ever, when I had to call the husband away from his REAL job so that I could open the doors of the restaurant. Sales have been up and I have been exhausted and desperate for help. What happened to those stacks of over-qualified applicants that the "employers' job market" is supposed to be sending me?

Round One: Place Ad on Craig's list. Decent response, about twelve acceptable applications. Invite twelve applicants for interviews. Eight applicants accept interview. Five show up. Hire one inexperienced Culinary School Student. He works six weeks then quits when his wife lands a better job. Call back another young inexperienced applicant, hire her as a dishwasher. Two days ago, she asked me if it was okay if she used us as a reference for the new job to which she has applied.

Round Two: Upon discovering that relief Breakfast Cook will not be returning after her hand surgery, place an ad for breakfast cook on Craig's list. Five responses, all from obviously unqualified folks responding to ads just to perform the required "job search" to keep their unemployment benefits. No interviews scheduled.

Round Three: Post another ad on Craig's list, this time avoiding any mention of "breakfast cook" (evidently the young folks out there who DO want to work as restaurant cooks are not interested in getting out of bed before noon…) Seven or eight decent responses. Schedule five interviews. Two show up, one after chasing him around and playing "Let's Make a Deal" with the interview time for two weeks. Hire both these folks. One—Ms. California Chef—is a nice girl with loads of credentials who has been with us for one week and I desperately hope I can hang on to. Monty Hall, however, works three days, then calls in the middle of the lunch rush and quits.

In between ads, I interview and hire two "walk-in" applicants. One has turned out to be a godsend and truly helped bail my butt out of the "California Chef Pneumonia" episode. The other quit after one shift (I should have known better than to give her a uniform shirt on her first day…evidently, that is the kiss of death. I'll never see it or her again.)

Final Score: Since January 1, I have hired seven, retained two beyond their sixty day probation, and am clinging to a third for dear life. So what has happened to the "High Unemployment" windfall I'm supposed to be enjoying?

Talk about the Good Old Days! Fifteen or twenty years ago, people still nurtured an element of pride about working to earn a living and not accepting "charity," or entitlements, unless the wolf was literally pounding down their door. They were willing to accept good, honest (if unglamorous) work, without benefits or a long list of perks, if that was what there was. But in today's market, it's all about weighing how hard you might have to work to earn an honest dollar against how much you can get for sitting on your dead ass. What is the motivation for someone who is getting, say, three hundred dollars a week on Unemployment to give that up and work for me for four hundred dollars a week? My personal work ethic and sense of pride would point me toward the work. But younger workers who have grown up with the realities of today's job market just don't look at life the same way I do. It's every man for himself, put out as little effort as you can for the highest possible compensation. And some jobs—like (ew…) food service work—don't even appear on their radar screens. (And you wonder why there are so many illegals working at restaurants? But that's a rant for a different day…)

I find my experience of the system sometimes at odds with my politics. Yes, I believe that the government should be responsible for helping those in need. I believe in programs that many in today's political arena are labeling "socialist" or "entitlements." People who lost their jobs due to the economic breakdown caused by the Administration from Hell should be given a hand. They need a roof over their heads and food on the table. But something is wrong with the system when there are small businesses like mine dying for help, yet everyone—from economic analysts to the guy next door who lost his job at the mill but keeps getting his unemployment benefits extended—looks right over our heads and cries, "Woe is us, there are no jobs!"

Oh, yes. There are jobs. They are just jobs that nobody wants. So those of us small business owners who didn't get killed by the tanking economy just might, in the end, work ourselves to an early grave. Pleasant thought, no?

A Long Rant (Worth Reading If You Think You Want to Own a Restaurant)

2010-03-28T13:23:00.001-07:00

Despite "random factors operating in our favor" for the past five months, I am daily smacked upside the head by the peculiar challenges of operating a small independent restaurant just a few miles in the wrong direction from the Big City.

The Hot Flash Cafe has been "fired" as a customer by a bread company, a wine distributor, and, most recently, the guys that came out once a month to clean our grease trap. Each time, it's been the culmination of a months-long struggle to obtain some kind of reasonable level of customer service from the company in question. And each time, in the end, it was made abundantly clear to us that our measly little off-the-beaten-track account was not worth the bother/expense/effort to maintain it. So we were invited to go scratch.

The ongoing saga of my relationship with our grocery purveyors has basically ended in a standoff. We deal with the "Big Two:" Sysco and FSA (Food Services of America.) I inherited an account with FSA when we bought the cafe in 2006. Much of the menu had been built around products exclusive to FSA, and since this particular aspect of our new enterprise was not broken (yet), I did not attempt to fix it. I was given to understand, at the time, that part of FSA's mission was to be "small, local business-friendly." And indeed, they seemed to be—at first.

As time went on, that friendliness disintegrated. They began to outright refuse to split cases of some products, and jacked up the price of "onlies" on the ones they would split. For example, if I wanted black olives, I was going to have to purchase a case of them (that would be SIX #10 cans, probably at least a two month's supply at my rate of consumption.) Not only is it not "cost effective" for ME to purchase that much product in advance, but in my little café, storage space is at a premium. I have nowhere to KEEP 6 huge cans of olives for two months. On the items that they would condescend to continue splitting cases, I would now have to pay almost double the price per can. Can you say, "No way in hell?"

After about eighteen months of this chipping away of adequate service, I was assigned a new sales rep that I disliked on sight, and who turned out to actually be a slimy, dishonest jerk. So I started shopping for other options, and turned to Sysco.

The least of my expectations of Sysco was that, being a much larger company than FSA, they would have the buying power to blow FSA's pricing out of the water. I reasoned that if I had to suffer with a slightly lower level of individual customer attention, I could live with that. I was actually rubbing my hands together at the prospect of some really rosy food-cost numbers coming out of my disenchantment with FSA.

I learned quickly that my assumptions were utterly erroneous. When the Sysco rep called on me, I handed him my FSA invoices and said, "Show me your pricing on these or comparable items." He flatly refused to indulge me, saying, "You know, I've spent hours doing this for prospective accounts only to have them decide not to purchase from me. So I really just don't do that anymore." SAY WHAT? I don't know why I didn't run screaming from the relationship then and there.

When I finally did cajole the guy into showing me his pricing on at least a small list of items I used every day, it became obvious that Sysco would be no bargain. They undersold FSA on some things, way over-priced them on others. And then there was the challenge of trying to find comparables in the Sysco inventory of all those things upon which my menu was based. Some of my most popular items—like certain salad dressings—were exclusive to my old purveyor and could not be had from Sysco at any price.

Some of the items I had been purchasing from FSA had been "confined" by Sysco (which means that some large account had stipulated that an item be sold to them exclusively), so while Sysco carried the item, it was unavailable to me. There was a concept I had never come across before. It's not enough that my location severely limits my choices of who I can purchase from. Now I find that, while the companies that do deliver out here are the largest in the region, there is a long list of items they carry that I CANNOT BUY.

One begins to wonder why the deck is so obviously stacked against small operators like myself; and where the folks who live in small towns—without large enough population bases to attract the large chains with whom the purveyors prefer to do business—are supposed to eat.

But—back to my own personal saga of huge purveyor vs huge purveyor. As it turned out, dealing with Sysco was simply "same crap, different day" as compared to FSA. But because I was righteously put out with FSA, I bit the bullet and jumped to Sysco. I struggled for over a year to match some of the items I had purchased from the other guys. Some things I never did find, so I had to change my menu to reflect the items that were available to me now. The Sysco rep turned out to be no bargain, either. I'm constantly having to drag information out of him that he is either unprepared or unwilling to provide. And yet he can't understand why I won't do more business with him.

After a year of constant hassling with Sysco, I finally realized I was never going to get the kind of service I expected/desired from them, so I called back FSA. I had my new sales rep (turns out my indictment of the old sales rep was instrumental in his eventual dismissal) prep a price list for me, and I contented myself with the fact that at least I would be able to go back to receiving some of the "exclusive" grocery items I never could replace with Sysco products.

About the same time, the economy tanked. Both Sysco and FSA, losing accounts by the fistfuls, sent the sales reps out into the field charged to aggressively acquire any and all business left out there. Suddenly, it seemed as if both the Big Two not only remembered who I was, but they were actively interested in acquiring my account. Sales reps and supervisors and managers and the company dog all went out of their way to contact me personally and assure me they would do anything to get our business.

I took them at their word…for about five minutes. Until it became obvious that "anything" did not include discontinuing their policies of refusing to split cases or applying usury up-charges for condescending to do so. Nor would they loosen up the large chains' hold on the best selection of items. And they would continue to scoff at becoming competitive (price-wise) with the "cash and carry" chains where I do most of my purchasing. (And yet they would act confused as to why I would choose to go and purchase an item, rather than have it delivered for three or four times the cost…?!)

So, yeah…I've had it with them. I have tried to be an empathetic consumer. After all, I run a business, too, and I appreciate it when my customers don't ask me to jump through hoops that lose me money. So my own personal policy has been to make every attempt to meet my purveyors halfway. Unfortunately, this resulted in me doing all the giving in and them doing all the taking advantage. Not a reciprocal arrangement at all…after all, who was I—this dinky little small-town café—to expect them to take a hit to their profit margin just to make it easier for me to do business with them?

Ultimately, I've decided to structure my purchasing to fit MY needs. If it's all about business models and profit margins and every man for himself, then I can play that game, too. I've distilled the list of products I can afford to purchase from the delivery companies to about a third of the total items we use. I order from BOTH Sysco and FSA, so I can have access to the products I always preferred from FSA, and to some of the newer products I began purchasing when I switched to Sysco. Now, I take advantage of having a CHOICE between two grocery houses; I can order any given item from whichever place offers me the best quality or price, and not be forced to settle for an "acceptable substitute."

Nobody is happy with this arrangement, least of all the grocery companies. It galls them that I can, and will, order the minimum it takes to get them to make a delivery. And I generally order only the items with the lowest margin. So they aren't making a whole lot of money on me. And because of the (inequitable) way their compensation is structured, my sales reps probably aren't making any money at all on my account. Too bad. It seems to me that what they're getting (nothing) is adequate compensation for the effort they are putting into making me a satisfied customer (none.)

Ah, yes, it has been quite an education—this owning a restaurant in a small town. Sometimes I'm glad that I really had no idea what I was doing when I went into it. Because it has turned out to be nothing even approaching anything I could have imagined.

And yet…we survive.

Credit Where Credit is Due

2010-03-17T08:04:00.001-07:00

With California Chef out sick (still, the poor boy!), I've re-donned the mantle of chief cook (& bottle washer) at the Hot Flash Café. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and everything in between have all been up to me.

And I have to say, though I am a much more accomplished cook than I was even a year ago, I'm still a reluctant jill-of-all-trades. I don't WANT to be my cook. The stuff I can do is not where I want this restaurant to be. That's why I hired a chef. California Chef has taught me a lot, and I'm more than willing to learn (the day I think I know everything there is to know is the day I turn up my toes and breathe my last…) Unfortunately, I've not been able to take too much advantage of the opportunity to attach myself to his elbow and absorb all he can teach me. Rather, I've tried to turn the kitchen over to him, take off the apron and do the things an owner needs to do.

I have tried to prod California Chef to work on new menu items. With limited success, I might add. He's been on board since August, and we still basically have in place the same breakfast, lunch and dinner menus we've always had. Though this is disappointing, because we are not really reaching for that "next level" he was hired to take us to, we have not been wasting his time. We've been busy making changes to the preparation of our existing menu, doing a lot more making from scratch. We have made our "same old" food sing a whole new tune.

Even though we aren't where I had wanted us to be, menu-wise, I've been singing California Chef's praises to anyone who will listen. It's been partly advertising campaign, partly giving credit where credit is due. The kid is bright and talented, and I'm happy to have him on board. But up 'til these past few weeks, I hadn't realized how much I'd actually come to depend on him. And how much of a creative back-seat I had taken to him. I had basically forgotten how much of our existing menu was fruit of my own heart.

So when a guest came up to the counter the other night and asked whether our menu had been assembled by our new chef, I sheepishly said, "Well, we've been trying to come up with a new menu ever since last summer, but we keep getting sidetracked…" And the man said, "Oh. Well, whatever you do, don't get rid of that Italiano sandwich (the first of my personal concoctions to make it to the regular menu.) That one's a real winner."

Imagine that.

Maybe I really do have some talent after all.

I smiled all the way down to my toes.

(He's) Sick and (I'm) Tired

2010-03-11T15:06:00.000-08:00

I'm still trying to figure out what people don't get about the health care crisis in America. I heard somewhere that, since "most people" have their health insurance paid for by their employers, the general population just doesn't connect with the cost. Huh?

I've worked for a living since I was eighteen. That would be thirty-three years—up until we bought the restaurant in 2006. Three decades of mostly full-time employment. Mostly in food service. And out of that whole time, I got employer-paid health insurance maybe six or seven years. That's right, folks—the restaurant industry has always sucked at providing health insurance for its employees. (And there's a reason for that—restaurants function on notoriously tight margins. The dining-out public would not pay what a meal would cost if the operators had to absorb the cost of health insurance for the employees. Especially now. Imagine a Big Mac costing ten bucks…that's what it would be, if Ronny Mac's was going to buy health insurance for all their workers. Honestly, if the Hot Flash Cafe were forced to provide a health plan for our employees, we would have to close our doors. The money just isn't there. But that's a rant for a different day…) To get back to my point: I know I'm not the only member of the voting public who has had to worry about health insurance--and sometimes go without--for most of my working life. So, believe me when I say there are legions out there who get that we're in a world of hurt here when it comes to health care and insurance costs.

Still, through the magic of payroll deductions, many folks have no idea exactly how much of their paychecks are eaten up by health insurance costs. People never see that money, so they don't miss it. They probably even blame their shrinking take-home pay on taxes. Blame it on the government--that's the easier target. And certainly nobody on the insurance companies' side of the health care debate is inclined to point out that error.

My husband has $144 per week, per week, taken out of his check to cover health insurance for himself and for me. No family coverage, no kids dragging us to urgent care once a month. Just him and me. That's almost 9% of his earnings going out of his check—before he ever sees it. Oh, and by the way—that $144 is the highest number on the list of deductions from his check. Federal Income Tax is only $131. So his insurance deduction is higher than his tax rate. We joke sometimes—though it's not funny, really—that thirty years ago, he was earning less than a quarter of what he makes now, but he had better insurance (Blue Cross/Blue Shield) and it was free.

But, honestly…even if you haven't noticed the meteoric rise in the cost of health care, how can you fail to see the precipitous decline in the quality of health care? Let's say, through some miracle, you DO get in to a hospital or clinic. The chances that you are actually going to see a DOCTOR are almost negligible. There are nurse practitioners, and physician's assistants and licensed this-and-thats… but where are the doctors?

California Chef (my kitchen manager and right-hand man) has been sick for two weeks. He first called in last Tuesday to tell me he was too sick to come to work. He came back on Thursday, worked three hours and had to go home. I knew by the look and sound of him that he was really sick. My diagnosis was pneumonia—I had my own little encounter with that nasty bug ten years ago. He looked exactly how I remember feeling during that miserable bout. I told him to go home and get himself to a doctor.

Well, he took my advice…went to a clinic. Don't know if the person he saw actually WAS a doctor, but that person told him he had an intestinal virus and "mild bronchitis." Sent him home with a pat on the head and no meds. Five days later, chef is trying to come back to work, because the medical professionals have, after all, told him that he was on the mend… And by god, by the end of his shift last night, the poor kid can't breathe and he looks like crap. So he calls me on the phone at 7:30 this morning and says he was running a fever again last night, so he's going back to the clinic before he comes to work. He thinks he might be a little late for his shift…will that be okay? Two hours later I call him to find out what's up, and he says they have just told him he has double pneumonia, they are giving him some whopping antibiotics, and he shouldn't come back to work for at least five days. Well, DUH!!! If I could get my hands on that first dipshit who told him he had "mild bronchitis," I'd show that idiot some shortness of breath…with my hands around his throat.

Ten years ago, all A DOCTOR had to do was listen to my chest to figure out I had pneumonia. It wasn't tough…it just took someone with the education and the training to interpret what she was hearing through the stethoscope. I really want to know what kind of under-qualified bedpan-pusher couldn't even recognize pneumonia when they heard it in California Chef's lungs. And are the un- and under-insured the most likely beneficiaries of such excellent, highly skilled practitioners? Or are we all paying more and more for less and less?

So when "they" tell me that the general voting public of this country doesn't understand that there is something very broken about health care in the United States of America, I can't help but believe that "they" are full of crap. I'll wager there is not a soul out there who has had anything to do with medical treatment—or the lack thereof—in the past ten years, who doesn't know that we're in deep, deep trouble. I hope we don't have to wait until the system is so fouled up that nobody can get decent treatment, not for any price (though I'm afraid we may already be there) before something shakes loose and REAL reform comes to pass.

On second thought, who needs reform? I'd settle for things going back to where they were thirty years ago…

Alone Again...Naturally

2010-03-03T21:24:00.000-08:00

Three years and nine months. That’s how long it took.

Before my crew deteriorated to such a serious state of meltdown that I had to call my husband and beg him to leave work (the work that pays our bills, which is more than can be said for the Hot Flash Café) and come to the restaurant and bail my ass out of trouble. Because no one…NO ONE else would work.

Out of a crew of ten, there was only one other hearty soul ready and/or willing to run that restaurant with me today.

Even in the bad old days—those days when the people I bought with the restaurant and those I hired in ill-advised desperation nearly drove me to distraction with their dramas, no-shows, hospital emergencies and hangovers—I was never faced with the prospect of opening the restaurant too understaffed to function. Today, I had a crew of me…and a cashier who has worked for me for less than two months. And a party of 15 scheduled for lunch.

Was it just the perfect storm? Chef sick, morning counter girl in Hawaii, relief cook out indefinitely with surgery that didn’t take. Everyone else with appointments and classes and anything at all that wasn’t work. A one-in-a-million convergence of unlikely forces pulling everyone away from the restaurant at once.

Maybe.

But really. In almost four years, one would think that I could have at the very least accomplished assembling a staff of which I was not the main and too often the only functional component.

Tonight I just feel like a colossal failure.

V-Day 2010 Retrospective

2010-02-18T09:49:00.000-08:00

The “Big V” (Valentine’s Day) is behind us now. I have to say it was about 90% successful. California Chef produced a wonderful menu, so at least this year I’m not worried whether the quality of the food was where it needed to be (in the past, I was the chef, and usually in waaay over my head…) The restaurant was full for about an hour and a half; service didn’t exactly go without a hitch (a certain husband who shall remain nameless screwed things up by running food out to the wrong tables… Once we sent him back to the kitchen to help the dishwasher, things in the front of the house improved immeasurably.)

Even though I didn’t have to create and produce the entire menu this year, I am still exhausted. Maybe not as completely exhausted as I was last year…I don’t know. Exhaustion seems to be like labor…you know it sucks when you’re in the middle of it, but when you’re out of it, you forget how bad it really was. I’m too tired to analyze to what degree I’m exhausted.

I wear every hat there is to wear when it comes to one of these special events. There is no delegating this stuff…I am it. I still had to procure all the supplies, create and publish all the marketing materials, decorate the restaurant, puzzle out the whole “reservations” thing, etc, etc., etc. And wouldn’t it be nice if, after weeks of running around behind the scenes to assure the night is a success, I could just BE the owner on the Big Night? You know, greeting folks at the door, going around to the tables and schmoozing, that kind of thing? But no…on the evening of February 14th, I WAS the appetizer/soup/salad station. No rest for the…entrepreneur.

I’m only whining because I’m so tired. We did good—our highest sales Valentine’s Day ever. Our highest sales DAY of any kind ever (under our ownership.) And thus, our highest sales WEEK ever. I absolutely know that, in the midst of the economic malaise that continues to beset our fair nation, I have nothing—nada, rien, zip, zilch, zero—about which to complain. The Universe has been very kind to us for the past several months. I just wish I wasn’t so tired that I can’t properly appreciate that…

Change of Plan

2010-01-26T07:29:00.000-08:00

In the wake of some news of which I have been getting wind in the past week, it has come to my attention that I need to plan an exit strategy for the café. Seems like a strange thing to be thinking about right now, while we’re enjoying being one of three less eating establishments in our immediate vicinity. But, even in these rough economic times, people just can’t seem to be able to leave well enough alone.

Early on in this economic debacle, our little town was able to score some major “Stimulus Money,” to fund a couple of projects that have been on the town’s wish list for decades. One of the projects involves the railroad tracks which neatly divide our town east from west. All the railroad crossings currently are in the center or north end of town, which has created quite an access problem for neighborhoods and institutions southeast of the tracks. The stimulus money is going to create a crossing at the south end of town, improving access to existing neighborhoods and businesses. And opening up a huge area for new development.

So of course there is a shopping center planned for the site. And of course someone is going to put a nice, big, shiny new restaurant in the center. The rumor mill is already churning, attesting to everything from a huge pizza parlor to an Olive Garden. I’m reasonably certain that Olive Garden would not be stupid enough to try to open a location out here in the sticks. But it’s a sure bet that someone is going to upset our delicate economic balance and inflict another eating establishment on us.

And that, my friends, will pretty much spell the end for the Hot Flash Café.

I am not certain of the timing of this new construction, yet. It could be next year, two years…five years. All I know is, every time a new place opens anywhere in the county, those of us who have been toiling in the trenches for years suffer big time. Seven months after we bought the café, the grand opening of a restaurant five miles up the highway nearly put us out of business. Three years and two or three ownership changes later, that place up the road closed down—in fact, it’s one of the three that went out of business recently.

And, yeah, we’re still here. We outlasted it. But that’s the point. That’s ALL we are. Still here.

Three and a half years ago, instead of being able to take the helm of our new enterprise and move forward, no matter how slowly, we had to first endure being dragged backward—almost to oblivion—by a situation over which we had no control at all. New at the game and not willing to cry “uncle” quite that quickly, we put our backs into it and dragged the thing forward again. It’s felt like a great victory to get just slightly beyond where we started out. I really feel like we’ve accomplished something.

But I can NOT go through that again.

I cannot commit to staying in this game if we’re constantly going to be dragged backward by idiots who have no idea what they’re doing, upsetting the delicate economic balance of regional eating establishments, cocking up our sales for thirty-six months, and then going belly-up themselves. I am not attracted to a business plan of simply outlasting a barrage of ill-conceived competition.

There just is not a large enough customer base out here to support more than “X” number of restaurants. Even if they DO build houses along with the commercial developments, there’s no guarantee that houses will equal potential new customers. There are houses around town built during the last economic “boom” that are still standing empty. And since our area is being touted as a bedroom community for Portland, there’s no guarantee that folks moving out here will not merely choose to take their custom to the Big City. It’s not that far away.

But a new restaurant down the street guarantees instant competition for my existing customer base. And I am not willing to share anymore.

So I’ve formulated a tentative plan. The trick is to stay on top of the information. To know when the competition is going to open. And make the move before that happens.

Keep the restaurant going and growing. Make all the improvements and innovations I would make if I was going through with my original plan—which was to hold on to the café until we retired (another twelve years), pay off all debt associated with it so that we own it free and clear, and then sell it. The proceeds would be a decent retirement nest-egg.

Now, my plan is to pay off as much debt as we can, and put the place up for sale as soon as they start construction on the shiny new restaurant up the road. List it for exactly as much as we owe on our house. Come out of the whole deal as close to debt free as we possibly can. And…go on from there.

It sounds good. Very practical, very cut–and-dried.

But it breaks my heart…

Into The New Year And Beyond

2010-01-24T21:55:00.000-08:00

Having three less eating establishments with which to compete over the past three months has been a gift for which I feel peevishly grateful. Grateful because I cannot possibly justify NOT appreciating any gift the Universe chooses to bestow upon me. Peevish because our enhanced sales are not attributable to anything I personally have done. And because I so wish we were getting an even BIGGER spike from the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

With another place scheduled to open in a few weeks (the guy’s an idiot, but that won’t change the fact that his potential entrepreneurial faux pas will negatively impact our sales for at least a few months) I wish we had banked a few thousand dollars more than we have. Unfortunately, circumstances have conspired to cause us to spend the windfall almost as quickly as the till drawer closed upon it.

Our enhanced sales set us teetering on the fulcrum between being seriously under-staffed and adequately- or even over-staffed. Attrition, both foreseen and out of the blue, called me to embark upon a major hiring project. The Good and Faithful “D” is slated to leave us in a very few months; plus Flaky Cook up and gave her notice—completely out of the blue—a week into the new year. And for the past three months, we’ve been doing high season business with low season staffing. Obviously we need more help. Right?

As predictable as the dawn, no sooner had I made the decision to put an ad out there and add two or three bodies to the staff, than the bottom dropped out of sales. We now have two new staff members, and potentially two more on top of that, which current sales cannot support, and who are having a hard time learning the ropes because there is a serious shortage of customers upon which they can practice. The Double-Whammy Bullshit Peter Principle of Staffing a Small Business. Happens every time.

Big changes are in store for the Hot Flash Café. Flaky Cook’s exit is, like it or not, a major turning point for us. She represents, basically, the Bad Old Days. The times when I couldn’t beg, borrow or steal decent employees. The times when she, and a string of others like her—with all their drama and personal disasters and time off for illness, career changes, insanity—were the best I could do. I had no choice but to bend over backward for high-maintenance employees, because I needed them. I didn’t have the skills to run the place by myself, and the labor pool was about as deep as a cookie sheet.

But things have changed. The state of the economy gives me many more options when it comes to hiring. My requirements no longer consist of, “Does the applicant have a pulse?” Not only that, but I have changed. I’ve learned my business. It took me three years, but I am now confident that if every one of my kitchen staff deserted me tomorrow, I could open that restaurant and git ‘er done—by myself, if need be. I no longer live in fear of being forced to be my own staff.

I’m every bit the breakfast cook—at least for MY restaurant—that Flaky Cook is. I’ve known, in fact, since she took her sick leave last winter that the restaurant could function quite nicely without her. So when her chronic case of chef-envy finally got the best of her and she tearfully grumbled her resignation, I knew I needed to let her go. I suspect that there are others who will follow her soon enough. But I can’t worry about that. We will go on—to bigger and better things—without those albatrosses around our necks.

For me, change is always scary. I’ve always been one to cling to the past, to hang on to and glorify the “good old days.” To compare today to yesterday, and find today wanting. It seems like I’ve spent my whole life walking backwards…making forward progress, but almost against my will. Always looking back with too much fondness. Not looking ahead at all.

But you can’t run a business like that. Business is about planning for the future, looking ahead, striving for the next dollar, the next improvement, the next innovation.

So…here we go.

Look Out--The Home-made Stuff Will Kill You

2010-01-11T20:01:00.000-08:00

I got a call from the County Health Department today. The Health Inspector. Following up on a complaint that had been called in against us. (Let me just say for the record that we received a 100% on our last health inspection, so it’s not like there’s a whole array of glaring violations for folks to choose from around here… )

This particular complainant was concerned about our home-made baked goods, which we display under glass far away from nasty hands or sneezes. And we handle only with tissue pick-ups or tongs when serving to any guest. But how we handle the product was not the issue. The insidious means by which we are poisoning the community is—

CREAM CHEESE ICING.

We make our own cream cheese icing. We use butter, powdered sugar, cream cheese, vanilla, and a little dash of half and half to make it spreadable. What are we thinking?

Cream cheese, being a dairy product, can be categorized as a high-risk food. Which should not, by state health law, be kept for more than four hours in the “danger zone” of temperature range—that is, warmer than 41 degrees or cooler than 165 degrees. So the fact that we keep our lovely pumpkin bars, cinnamon rolls and gingerbread in our un-refrigerated pastry case is, evidently, a BIG no-no.

No matter that we have been serving these things under these conditions for three years, and no one has ever gotten sick off our cream cheese icing. Nor, because of the high sugar content of the icing, are they likely to. And it’s not like they sit in there for days. We put them out fresh each morning, and generally run out before the end of the day.

So now, we have to keep our lovely baked goods in the refrigerator, since we do not have a refrigerated display case. Sales of these wholesome made-from-scratch goodies will now dry up and blow away. Eventually we’ll probably have to stop making them altogether.

And do you know what the sad thing is?

If we used some kind of crappy, factory-made institutional white “mystery icing,” full of chemicals and preservatives and who knows what not all…

We would not be having any issue at all with the local Health Department.

Doesn’t that just make you want to scream?

Cross posted at "Women On..."

The Year in Review

2010-01-03T22:01:00.000-08:00

And so we say goodbye to the “double-naught” decade of the 21st century. Politically, environmentally and economically, it has been a decade which we will probably be happy to put behind us. But this is not a political, environmental or economic blog. This is the story of the Hot Flash Café, for which this has been the only decade—or 1/3 of a decade, to be more precise.

Which is not to say that the political, environmental and economic high jinks of the past year bore no influence upon the fate of the Hot Flash Café. Oregon was hit hard by the bursting of the bubble…in fact, it kind of blew up in our face. The industries that didn’t go bust and close their doors, cut back to the bare bones. Jobs disappeared and discretionary income dried up; and those of us in the service industry held on by our heels, teeth and fingernails while we watched our balance sheets fill up with red numbers.

For my part, I plotted my strategy early on in the crisis. I would put my head down, point my feet in a forward direction and

Just. Keep. Going.

As long as the doors stayed open and the bills got paid, I could not worry about the numbers. THE Numbers. The “Percent Increase Over Last Year” numbers by which I have measured our success since July 1, 2006. The numbers that had finally, finally started to fall into place in 2008. Until last December, anyway.

December 2008 was dismal—but it was hard to say whether it was the economy or the hideous weather (feet of snow!) that did us in. January 2009 almost convinced us that we might dodge the economic bullet. But the bottom fell out in February. And though we held on for single-digit decreases through October, we knew we were not going to get through the year unscathed.

Still, every week seemed to bring news about the performance of our industry in general, and our local competitors in particular, that led us to believe that perhaps we were faring better than the average little local restaurant. Or even the average giant chain establishment. A competitor up the highway tried everything but giving away food for free to put butts in the seats. We heard that another hadn’t paid their rent in three months. One local restaurant closed, re-opened under new management, and then closed again less than six weeks later.

Industry-wide, I read of famous fine-dining establishments shutting their doors when the demand for over-the-top gourmet meals disappeared. Employees of a Portland-based multi-unit franchise of a national chain arrived at work one morning to find their workplaces closed forever with no warning.

It was a mine field out there; if you let it, the bad news could intimidate to the point of paralysis.
But in the end, our concept, our “good food at low prices” appeal kept us solvent. Solvent enough to stretch out our necks and make some changes that might prove to make us—or break us. Changes that could set us up for a promising future. Or set us back on our heels, shaking our heads and wondering what hit us.

And though they haven’t taken us to the poor house, the jury is still out on many of those changes...

So, here are “THE Numbers:”

2009 % increase (decrease)
JANUARY 3.64
FEBRUARY (12.43)
MARCH (3.19)
APRIL 1.62
MAY (2.80)
JUNE (1.01)
JULY 1.58
AUGUST (1.61)
SEPTEMBER 6.19
OCTOBER (0.68)
NOVEMBER 13.64
DECEMBER 33.81

You might note the impressive turn-around of the last two months. For which I wish that I, and the aforementioned “changes,” could take credit. In reality, to quote a favorite fictional character of mine, “Random factors seem to have operated in our favor.”

We were lucky. Three of our local competitors closed their doors during the last three months of 2009.

There’s something to be said for being the last man standing…

Season of Thanks (But No Thanks...)

2009-11-14T19:50:00.000-08:00

I never had any problems with Friday the Thirteenth. I didn’t even realize there was going to be one this month until about Wednesday. But even after I figured it out, it didn’t bother me overmuch. Thursday the Twelfth has always been my bugaboo. And I figured having my day off cancelled by (everyone else’s) illness had satisfied the bad-luck requirement for this go-round. I went to bed Thursday night thinking that Friday would probably be gravy after that. Just goes to show how wrong you can be.

Friday was every bit the day from hell. First thing in the morning, the café was overrun by a group of people who started arriving about 8:30 and eventually set up a presentation for a pyramid marketing scheme… in my dining room. Without calling for a reservation, or even coming up to the counter when they arrived to ask if it would be okay for them to do so. They just walked in and took over the place. So I had this noisy, not particularly well-mannered crowd of anywhere from twelve to thirty “local business people” swarming all over the restaurant for 2 ½ hours. They spent thirty dollars.

I asked them to leave at 11 am, explaining that we would be getting busy for lunch and we would need the table space (for real customers who wanted to buy a meal, but I didn't say that.) Without actually saying the words, I did make it very clear that they were not welcome to walk in and take over my restaurant unannounced whenever they felt like it. They, in turn, made it very clear--loudly and not very politely (surprise)--that they would not be back. Fine. Good riddance to your sorry “It’s-all-about-me” asses and your gargantuan sense of entitlement.

The stress of that ridiculous confrontation nearly sent me over the edge. After a lunch that started out slow and finally got busy (I strongly suspect that the presence of the crowd spilling around and out the doors of my restaurant served as a deterrent for our regular lunch patrons) I was SO ready to get out of there. Had to. Needed to be somewhere, by myself, just to get my head reassembled. California Chef had emailed me the night before and said he was feeling much better and wanted to return to work on Friday. I literally counted the minutes to 2:00, when Chef would arrive and I could run out the door, get in my van and burst into tears.

One fifty-five rolls around, no Chef. Two o’clock, still no Chef. I start to get a really bad feeling. Squeeze myself into my “cloffice” to check my email. Come to find that chef has emailed (somewhere around 9:30 that morning) that he has decided against returning to work today, if it’s okay with me. Of course it’s okay with me, if you’re still sick…but the way to communicate that on the morning of is NOT by email. Like I have time to run to the computer every five minutes when half the kitchen staff is out sick. I’m sure he was thinking that, like any normal 21st century techno-junkie, I am always connected to the internet and my email via cel phone (the phone I recharge about once every three weeks and do not carry on my person as a matter of principle.) Yet another of those generational brain-farts that make it so easy for me to manage my staff…

And so, I end up working thirteen straight hours. Finally get to sit down and take my one meal break of the day around hour twelve. And we were busy. Which is the one saving grace of the whole thing, because I think it would have been the ultimate bitch to work that hard and grind through that much emotional stress without at least the reward of decent numbers on the till.

I hate days like that. I haven’t had one in a long time; in fact, I truly think that, after three years, I shouldn’t have them at all. SHOULD NOT have those days when I feel like I’m carrying the whole thing uphill tied to my back with a shoelace. I do not want to have those days when I email to my spouse and business partner: I have had it. I want to sell this place and move to St. Thomas.

Truthfully, it did cross my mind that it might be time to cry “Uncle.” And not because of my staffing problems, or having to work thirteen hour days, or feeling like I’m dragging the cafe up a mountain by the hair. It’s because of the people. The “customers.”

Yes, I’m a serious introvert. And getting out there among the people is the most challenging part of this thing for me. Twenty years ago, when I pushed myself to do that as a manager working for somebody else, I always felt rewarded for the effort. I always came away with the sense that the people really could be the fun part of the job at times. But not anymore.

Times have SO changed. The tenor of this century is rudeness, false entitlement, get whatever you can get. It’s perfectly okay to say or do anything. If you get away with it, fine. It’s up to the other guy to call you on it, if the other guy can screw up the courage to do so. Because he knows you’re not going to back down without a row. People just do…whatever, and dare the world to tell them they can’t. Courtesy? Consideration for others? Even the slightest notion that there’s someone else in the world besides you? Not a chance. And it just isn’t fun, fulfilling, or even vaguely appealing to run a service business when one has to deal with that over and over, every day.

Maybe I am a hopelessly outdated old relic. But I am consistently flabbergasted by the things people will say and do these days. If I give it up, if I hand over my keys and hang the “for sale” sign in the window, that will be the thing that drove me to it.

So, this season is supposed to be about thanks. What am I thankful for, here?

Maybe that I came this close, but I’m not going to quit. Not today.

Enter The "Y" Chromosome...

2009-11-01T12:48:00.000-08:00

I grew up in Estrogen Central. Our family of seven consisted of six females…and my dad.

Still, when it came time to choose a career, I ended up in the world of the commercial kitchen—dominated by sharp knives, gigantic appliances, acres of stainless steel, and MEN. (Come to think of it, what career field was NOT male-dominated back in the seventies?)

Working with men is really pretty simple. They are selfish and competitive. They try to dominate all aspects of a project; their idea of teamwork is to hog every opportunity to shine and let someone else have the ball only when they drop it; “delegation” is the handing off of unglamorous scutwork to lesser minions. Men tend to establish a clear pecking order in a kitchen, dishing out verbal and even physical abuse to new-comers. If you prove you can “take it”—for an unspecified period of time—then you earn the right to be treated like a human being.

But I could be a hard guy. I gave as good as I got. I busted my butt, worked hard and didn’t challenge anybody (much) so I got respect. After awhile, I had myself convinced that I worked much better with men than with women. Women were wimpy, over-emotional, passive/aggressive pains in the ass. Since there were not too many girls there in the back of the house rubbing elbows with me, what did I know? It served me, for many years, to make believe I was just one of the guys.

Eventually, after more years stuck in middle management than any man would have had to endure, I finally attained hefe status. And I found that managing men gradually lost its appeal. I was the boss. I didn’t have to prove anything to anybody (at least not to anyone with whom I shared a prep table.) The “hazing” mentality so prevalent in the industry was loathsome, and I was not going to tolerate it in my kitchen. I knew management-sanctioned abuse was no way to attract and retain quality employees. And, let’s face it—five foot three inch dynamo that I was, I nevertheless found that getting any male to do my bidding was more trouble than it was worth. So I discovered, wonder of wonders, that I preferred managing my own kind.

Women, in addition to being passive/aggressive pains in the ass, are much more collaborative and team-oriented than men. Women are motivated by being needed; they want to feel helpful and necessary. And, oddly enough, I’ve found that women are much more adept than men at multi-tasking. Perhaps it’s because men are always at least partly engaged in plotting how much farther up the ladder successful completion of a given assignment is going to take them. It takes away from their ability to focus on multiple tasks.

And, of course, one cannot discount the fact that women don’t usually find it impossible to take orders from another woman. So, over time, I’ve become somewhat of a master at managing the Estrogen-Powered Workplace. Not that this skill has become simple or formulaic…but at least it’s a matter of dealing with the Devil I Know.

Enter my newest hire—California Chef.

Even the selection process that brought him on board was a painstaking exercise in looking beyond stereotypes and prejudices built upon thirty-plus years in this business. The final decision was between California Chef and a female candidate with plenty of experience and ties to the community. The choice became clear when California Chef brought ideas and research to the final interview, and Local Chef brought…herself. I could not see myself opting for the lesser candidate based on what amounted to reverse discrimination. Still, I had to physically put aside my trepidation about introducing a male into our female-infested kitchen—especially in a supervisory capacity. California Chef got the job.

Would that I could say that all my worry was for naught. But we know better than that, don’t we? It has indeed been a challenge to optimize my male chef’s effectiveness, surrounded as he is by our rag-tag crew of ladies—including myself—with less-than-gourmet-dinner-house experience. He is frustrated that we don’t know anything, which makes us feel more than slightly disrespected. It’s not that we “don’t know anything;” we may not have some of his skills and experience, but that doesn’t mean we don’t respect his expertise and aren’t willing to acquire those skills. But we want to feel respected in the process. It’s been a difficult and particularly thread-like tightrope for us all to walk.

California Chef is talented, he’s smart, his work ethic is a throwback to my own generation, or even my parents’. And he is really a genuinely nice person. Yet he’s having the devil’s own time figuring out how to communicate with and motivate his staff. I can’t teach him how to cook, but I sure as hell have a store of knowledge about management and the maintenance of inter-personal relationships involved that he would do well to acquire if he aspires to an effective career as head of his own kitchen. If only I can figure out how to make him understand this.

He seems to think that he has but to come up with recipes and methods, write them down or show someone once how they are done, and that should be that. There’s no room for error or mistakes or personalities. If someone fails it’s because she is lazy or stupid or insubordinate. It’s not incumbent upon him to evaluate each member of his staff as an individual, identify her strengths and weaknesses, and learn how to play to her strong side. He should be able to say “Jump!” and their only input should be to ask, “How high?”

So. Typically. Male.

Yet I don’t think he completely believes this nonsense himself. It’s just that he’s been indoctrinated into this way of thinking. Poisoned, if you will, by the environments in which he has, up ‘til now, developed his talent. Male-dominated kitchens, all, where testosterone dictated the pecking order and “my way or the highway” was a legitimate management technique. He’s young…this is all he knows. But he seems to think it’s all there is.

My job is to open his mind to other possibilities, alternate methods. The methods that are going to work on a kitchen full of women. The things he needs to know and I need to teach him if our association is going to go anywhere besides up in spectacular flames. What a learning and growth experience this could be—for both of us—if we can make it happen.

Please?

Partnership

2009-10-26T23:31:00.001-07:00

Conversation at the end of a long, frustrating day on which I spent 11 hours at the restaurant chasing my tail and accomplishing almost nothing:

Husband: Hey…go to “intuit dot com.”

Me: Why?

Husband: So we can get a website.

Me: We have a website.

H: No, we have a “Facebook” page.

M: No. We HAVE a WEBSITE.

H: Since when?

M: (Rolling my eyes so hard that the centrifugal force nearly sends my eyeballs shooting out the top of my skull) …..For awhile.

H: “J” says she can’t find us online!

M: Google Old Town Café Scappoose.

H: …........oh.

We have, in fact, had a website since July. After two weeks chained to my laptop(s) manipulating code, uploading pictures, and posting menus, maps, directions…

While at the same time hiring and orientating a new chef and a new pastry chef; juggling the schedule to accommodate employee traumas; struggling to keep our dining room habitable with no air conditioning in 105 degree heat; planning menu, marketing and dining room arrangements for an upcoming charity event; and coordinating purchasing and production for our $20,000 food concession gig in August. Oh, and maybe I walked on water and cleansed a leper or two.

Is my business partner/love of my life suffering from some kind of early-onset dementia? Hardly. He can quote the most obscure football, basketball and baseball statistics about teams and players—college and pro—that I (and most of the rest of the world) have never heard of. His memory is pure 21st century HD…when it comes to the things he cares about.

I wrote once, awhile back, that my husband is one of those easy-going types who has mastered the art of “tuning out the noise…” He just doesn’t hear what he doesn’t feel the need to hear.

About fifteen years ago, when my life started to turn to shit and he was all I could grab to keep myself from falling irretrievably into my own head, I became…noise.

And, evidently, the fact that we supposedly own a business together has not served to change my status in that regard.

Discontented Rumblings

2009-10-05T08:41:00.000-07:00

An amorphous sense of discontent has plagued me lately. An inkling that time is going by much too quickly, and I’m not using it well. A suspicion that no one in my world is happy with me, including me. Small personal goals seem as far outside my reach as lofty universal ones. I can no more keep my bathroom clean than I can achieve world peace. There is not one aspect of my life that I can say is where I think it could be or know it should be.

It’s been more than a year since I emerged from the over-stressed sleep-deprived fog I inhabited for the first two years of running the restaurant. And yet, I feel I’ve accomplished nothing in the past fifteen months. True, I’ve spent most of that recovered energy just keeping the business viable through tough economic times. But I really don’t like the feeling that I’m throwing all my weight into this thing just to keep it from going backward. When do we get to go forward? Ever?

And then there’s Old Age. I don’t feel it creeping up on me. I feel like I’m running full speed away from it, but it’s matching me step for step. And its legs are longer than mine…

When I first began to entertain the notion of buying a business, every "how to" book I read exhorted one to write up a set of goals. Where do you want to be in six months? In a year? In five years? I never took that advice. Something told me that I was stepping off into such alien territory that I couldn’t possibly have a clue where I was going or how long it was going to take me to get there. I guess I looked at my business venture as a "Walkabout." It was all about the journey, not the destination.

As it turns out, that attitude has probably been my salvation, as well as my cross. I’m pretty sure that I haven’t even gone in the same direction I thought I was going when I started out, and it’s a safe bet that I have not achieved anything I would have recognized as "goals" at the outset. "Assemble a crew of workers who will actually show up when they’re scheduled" and "chase down food purveyors who believe Scappoose is forty miles outside of Outer Mongolia" would not have struck me as tasks difficult enough to qualify as goals…and yet, accomplishing just these simple things has been like a quest for the Grail. So if I had said, "I want to have increased sales by 20% and banked 50k in profits after three years," I would be living with failure that was beyond dismal, at this point. If I had not chucked it all months ago, based on my inability to accomplish…anything.

Recently, in the midst of an argument with my grocery rep, he said to me, "You want to be a $1,000,000.00 restaurant, don’t you?" I didn’t have to think very long…I said, "No, Kirk, I just want to make a living. If I wanted to make a million dollars, I sure as hell wouldn’t be running a restaurant in a little bitty town like this."

"I just want to make a living." But I’m not doing that yet. Haven’t taken one dollar out of the damned thing. But the doors are still open, and it’s paying its own bills. Still, I wonder whether I haven’t set my sights too low. Maybe if I had said I wanted to make a million, I would at least be drawing a salary by now. But would that have been enough to motivate me to keep going? Hard to say; but I suspect that if I thought I was going to (or needed to) make any money off this thing in the first five years, I would have been bummed or broke enough to get out by now.

But when people ask me how it’s going, I’m getting a little tired of saying, "Well, we’re not losing money!" as if that was the best I can hope for. At some point, it has to do more than pay for itself.

Doesn’t it?

Left Behind

2009-09-26T21:50:00.001-07:00

Back in June, I made some moves that I believed were risky, brave, and eminently forward-looking. I hired myself a chef/kitchen manager, and a pastry chef. With the idea of taking the café to the “next level.” Knowing full well that some of the precious long-term employees I had clung to would not be going to that next level with us. You stop, you think, you swallow your trepidation and you take that big forward step. You know there will be consequences.

Now that I think about it, the fallout was already falling when I made those momentous hiring decisions. It was, in fact, one of the things that pushed me to make the moves I did. One by one, the backbones of my crew were themselves making decisions. To move on. To kiss us goodbye and leave us behind. In truth, I decided to take us to the next level because it was that or…I don’t know what. Run the restaurant by myself, I guess.

In May, the Good and Faithful “D” informed me that she would be going back to school in the fall. And of course, it couldn’t be a normal school, where you could take classes AND work, and get your degree or certificate in, maybe two or three years. No…it had to be one of those “career” schools with the intensive programs that eat up the students’ every waking hour, transforms them and releases them fully accredited and thoroughly exhausted into their chosen field of endeavor after a mere 6 to 8 months.

Time and time again, my “girls” remind me that I am their boss. I am not their friend, or their mentor, or even someone whose feelings matter, or whose opinion they value. I have so utterly failed to make that connection with the girls who work for me. And it feels like shit. What do you say to someone upon whom you have depended heavily—probably much more heavily than was wise—when they up and decide to move on? “Bye, see ya…have a nice life?”

And, yet, I could do that, if it looked like the parting was going to be a smooth and amicable one. But that would not be “D.” Her personality is such that, when she decides to move on, she completely emotionally disassociates from whatever she is moving on from. She's no Audrey Hepburn, but her personality is every bit "Holly Go-lightly." She wants to project the impression that there are no bonds, no chains, no attachments…everyone (meaning SHE) is free to walk away from any relationship at any time, no hard feelings, no regrets. The more serious the entanglement, the more aloof she becomes at the dissolution of it. Untouchable. Unreachable. Gone.

The end result of this is…though she will not actually start school for another two weeks, and she plans to continue to work part-time during the first ten-week term, “D” is already gone. The amazing young woman whose trust I thought I had won, and whose loyalty I believed I had inspired, at least in some small way, has disappeared. In her place is a disrespectful petulant malcontent with a serious case of “short-timer’s disease.” And it just…hurts. Deep in my heart, it hurts.

It will be a sad chapter in the history of the Old Town Café, and in my personal history, if the time comes—as it appears that it will—when I am relieved that “D” has finally walked out the door, never to return. She has been my right hand, my go-to…the Good and Faithful “D.” It will be hard…SO hard…to watch that relationship end in such a sad and ignominious way. But it honestly looks as if I have no choice. I have been pitched out of a taxi into an alley, in the rain.

Unfortunately, I don't anticipate "D" suffering a change of heart and coming back for me...

Full Moon...

2009-09-04T22:12:00.000-07:00

Counter girl calls me to the phone. Customer complaint.

"We ate at your restaurant last night, and my receipt shows two charges of $1.00 each on 'Dept. 1…' What is that for?"

"Yes…you ordered two bacon cheeseburgers. We ring those up as the burger plus $1 for the rest of the stuff on it…"

"But you can't do that… That's terrible…!"

"No, you don't understand. The burgers you ordered were the special. They were $7.95—stated clearly on the special board. The way we ring those up is to ring up the plain burger at $6.95 and then ring up the dollar for the bacon and the cheese. You weren't overcharged. It comes out to $7.95.That's just the way we ring it up."

"Well, that's just a TERRIBLE way to do business. We WON'T be back! GOOD BYE!" *Click.*

Whatever….

An Open Letter...

2009-09-04T00:17:00.000-07:00

I WAS going to post the whole letter...but there was too much of a personal nature in it to post it in a public space. But these last two paragraphs sum up how I feel about my ladies, whom, I suspect, will all soon follow the recipient of this letter off the edge of the Hot Flash Cafe plane...

Things will definitely be changing around here. It’s exciting and frightening at the same time; and we appreciate every step that every one of you ladies is willing to take to help us get to…wherever we’re going. Please know that I’m grateful to you and the rest of our long-time crew for helping us get this far. You all have seen me at my dead worst, and yet continued to choose to come back to work the next day. For that, I am eternally grateful.

I know you’ve given a great deal of thought to your decision to leave. I respect that and can only offer you my gratitude and best wishes to take on to your next job. Of course, I’m confident we can work through the rest of your time here without tension between us. And of course I will provide a good reference for you.

Whether you are with us here at the cafe or not, I will always want you to succeed.

Baggage

2009-08-24T11:54:00.000-07:00

Seventeen years ago, I was in the heyday of my management stint with “Little Bakery on the Mall”—the position I’ve historically referred to as “My Dream Job.” I had a top notch crew of ladies working for me, whom I thought I appropriately appreciated. Knowing what I know now, I realize I took them way too much for granted.

As a manager working for someone else, back in the olden days, I had two guiding philosophies. First off, I had once been told that MY job was to “train myself out of a job,” and I took that advice and ran with it. Secondly—and this is really a corollary of the first—I was determined that the bakery could and would run exactly the same whether I was physically present or not. I had zero tolerance for the theory that playtime began as soon as the boss left the building.

I was never afraid to pile as much responsibility on any employee as she was willing to take on. And training was a priority—every one of those ladies knew exactly what to do and how I wanted it done…and they did it. Whether I was there or not. Our cash control was the stuff of legend (other managers in the company joked that I had a “slush fund” from which I drew money to make up for cash shortages.) The bakery was immaculate. Our business grew. We won prizes. I made good money. It was my first taste of real success in any job (I was 37 years old and had been working since I was 18…) And I thought I had it all figured out. Foolishly, I thought that somehow I was at least marginally responsible for the triumphs of our little store.

Nearly twenty years later, I own my own restaurant…and I find that the zen I had achieved with my past crew looks more like the impossible dream than a bullet point in my resume. Cash control sucks, the place is only adequately clean, business is static, and we aren’t winning any prizes. And I don’t take home a dime. It’s become painfully obvious that the success of “Little Bakery on the Mall” was more about the unique attributes of the ladies I had working for me, than anything I knew or did.

I continue to be vexed with staffing problems. Certainly, it was a challenge to keep the restaurant functioning while I learned the ropes, weeded out the awful staff I’d bought with the place, and attempted to train new people to do what I was still learning. THAT was a nightmare that took fully two years to abate. One would think that, by now, we would have turned some kind of corner, put past nightmares behind us, and started moving forward with a vengeance. Ummm…not so much.

Instead, I’ve acquired a core of four or five ladies who emerged as the cream of the crop. I don’t mean to disrespect them and their contribution to my survival and the continuing operation of the café (on a higher level than it had enjoyed previously.) But I knew early on that I’d had to drastically change my standards in order to have any staff. I hired (and re-hired) people I would never have given a second look in the past. I’ve steadfastly focused on the positive points of all of these ladies, while down-playing or even blatantly ignoring their negatives. I have had to choose my battles, and very probably chose not to do battle on several fields upon which I should have drawn a line. There was no other way to keep the doors open, never mind making appreciable forward progress.

Once upon a time, I was able to fine tune an employee’s performance to a “t,” without micro-managing and without making that person feel like I wanted her to be a clone of myself. Through a series of gentle nudges, kind of like a sheepdog, I could get the result I wanted without taking away a person’s feeling of autonomy. But no more. Things are different now. I’ve come to resist the urge to tell people what to do. New employees want to be hired on, get a general idea of the position, and then build their duties around their (sometimes erroneous) perception of what the job entails. Any kind of fine tuning or urging to a higher level of performance is met with a level of negativity with which I have chosen not to do battle. If my choice was between a peaceful workplace staffed with mediocre employees, and a cesspool of resentment, pouting, tattle-taling and finger-pointing, I selected the former, strictly for my own sanity.

As a result, I’m saddled with a group of employees who are steadfast and even smug in their bad habits. I have closing staff who truly believe that Job One is to lock the doors and race out of there as if the place were on fire…to that end, they begin “pre-close” in the middle of dinner service, sometimes even earlier. I have cooks who prep enough to cover their own butts, but don’t invest much energy into considering what the next shift will be walking into. A restaurant full of customers, rather than presenting an opportunity for the staff to give it all they’ve got and really shine, is more an excuse to take short-cuts and walk out the door leaving work undone “because it was busy.” Worst of all, I have a stable of workers who loathe being told what to do, but will not step up and take any kind of initiative to improve or advance their job performance. They achieve a comfort level and they stay there. Period.

For my part, I know I have not exactly been a paragon of hospitality management. I’ve been frustrated, overwhelmed, exhausted and menopausal—not a good cocktail for bringing out the nobler aspects of any woman’s personality. Leading by example has always been my strategy…but if this staff had always followed my lead, we all would have gone straight to hell. So I can hardly blame them for choosing their own paths to what they’ve considered success in the job.

But now, we truly ARE at a crossroads. I’ve taken steps (that I didn’t realize I was taking at the time) to transform our little café from “okay” to “special.” I realize my staff—the girls upon whom I have depended heavily for many months—lean way more toward “okay” than “special.” There is not one of the old employees who has not made it clear to me that her priorities lie elsewhere. Their attitudes and level of commitment have been and would continue to be adequate to keeping the restaurant going along okay. But they will not make it “special.” And on some level, I believe they understand that.

Which is not to say that the transition is going to be painless.

There is more to say about this…I’ll post again later.

Score One For The Old Ladies

2009-08-03T12:23:00.001-07:00

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced at my restaurant has been staffing. It has taken three years, but we seem to have cobbled together a crew that mostly does the job and works well together. There are unique challenges associated with working at the Old Town Café—not the least of which is that any member of my crew has to be able to work elbow to elbow with me. Even after my most recent acquisitions of a chef/kitchen manager and a baker, I invest more hours than anyone else associated with the café into just…filling positions. Any and all positions. I am the ultimate cross-trained employee, and I find that I have to make use of my own services—STILL—more than I like.

Conversely, it has been more of a challenge than I have wanted to acknowledge for me to work so closely with…children. I can’t decide whether being childless myself has made it easier or harder for me to work with these young people less than half my age. On the one hand, I don’t have as much problem seeing them as adults as I might have if I’d raised a brood of my own—that were now approximately the same age as the people I depend upon to keep my restaurant functioning. It might be a little tougher for me to heap adult responsibilities upon these young shoulders if I was seeing them through a mother’s eyes…

On the other hand, I wonder if I don’t expect too much from them. They are, after all, still kids…I was one, once, too…back when dinosaurs walked the earth. I dimly remember having friends, going to parties, having a social life…and all the angst that went with it. I showed up to work drunk—ONCE. (I was nineteen…in fact, it was my nineteenth birthday.) I might have called in sick one or two times when I wasn’t really sick. I goofed off just often enough to prove I was a bona-fide, card-carrying KID. So I try to give my staff some leeway in that regard…

Still, it was more my habit to drag myself to work no matter how sick I was, even at the tender age of nineteen or twenty. The job needed ME, I needed the money, and work was a priority. That was handed down to me by my parents. These children who work for me now…they are a completely different breed of animal, and I have a really hard time identifying and accepting their priorities. Social life IS their number one—they engage in it and tend to it 24-7-365. Technology gives them the capacity to be in uninterrupted communication with their friends. Work, school, adult responsibilities—seem to be mostly unpleasant interruptions of their social connections.

I find it impossible to relate to that…and so, I feel uncomfortably distant from these children who work for me. And it’s hard, really. Damned hard to work so closely every day with a group of people with whom you share…nothing.

All this became a lot clearer to me this past Saturday. We were BUSY at the café, and understaffed, because half the socially-hyperactive twenty-somethings who make up my crew had requested the weekend off. My kitchen staff consisted of myself and “C.” C is the one employee I have that is of my generation—she is a couple of years younger than me. She had been the cook at the Senior Center until their budget was cut and they had to let her go…she came to me looking for part-time work to hold her over until she could retire in a few more years. So I was a little anxious about how we two “old ladies” in the kitchen might handle things if it got busy. But I had no choice, we WERE what was available.

Of course, we got slammed. We did 30% more business than the previous Saturday, with 25% less staff. Surprise. Never let it be said that customers can’t smell blood in the water…

Our twenty-something counter girls ran their butts off all day, started whining about getting their breaks around noon… One of them even wanted to go home sick, but there was no one else to call to work for her, so she stayed. The front-of-the-house staff was looking pretty ragged by the end of the day.

In the kitchen, the “old ladies”…ROCKED. Neither of us left that kitchen to do more than pee in seven hours. We kept up with the orders. We prepped as we went. We attacked the mess about an hour before close and were able to clean up and get out of there on time.

And we laughed. We enjoyed ourselves. We joked and commiserated; the two ancient, creaky, half-blind, hot-flashing cooks…got it done.

At one point, I leaned over and said, “You know, C, I think I know why I enjoy working with you so much. You’re MY AGE…! I SO enjoy being back here with somebody who GETS ME…”

She looked at me, almost with tears in her eyes, and said, “Well, thank you…!”

At the end of the day, I kicked her butt out of there because she’d worked seven hours without a break (and without even mentioning a break.) I could finish up the last of the cleaning by myself. C took off her apron, signed out and disappeared through the kitchen door.

A second later, she poked her head back into the kitchen, looked at me and said, “Thank you for letting me help you today. It was fun.”

And then it was my turn to blink back the tears…

The Next Level

2009-07-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

A little over a week ago, I wrote, almost as an aside, that I had gone and hired me a real live dyed-in-the-wool chef. A foodie. Someone who knows how to cook and loves doing it.

And then, yesterday, I realized quite out of the blue that we had reached the third anniversary of our purchase of the restaurant.

So, there it is. Three years into the thing, and I’m finally going to make this restaurant MINE. By getting out of the kitchen, handing the sauté pan to someone who really KNOWS how to operate it, and using his skills to advance my vision.

No more pushing someone else’s dream up the mountain. I’ve proven I can do that. That in itself is a tremendous accomplishment…there have been oh-so-many times in the past thirty-six months when I’ve nearly conceded that, indeed, I could not. Do. It.

The time has come to bleed and sweat and ache, and laugh and celebrate and high-five, not just for something I “can do,” but for something I can love and be proud of. This young man, this twenty-five-year-old in the early years of what I’m sure will be a fine career, is going to help me get there. If we’re lucky, we can have a long, mutually beneficial association. If we’re lucky.

Tonight, sitting in the restaurant, on a beastly hot evening when I was pretty convinced that people would rather walk over burning coals than sit in our poorly air-conditioned dining room and consume pasta, I watched group after group come in, sit down, enjoy a meal. I lent a hand here and there, answered the phone, opened a bottle of wine, seated some folks, schmoozed a little…

And then I went home and left the clean up to the people I pay to do that.

For the first time in three years…

the FIRST TIME

in three years

I felt like I OWNED a restaurant.

And it felt

FU**ING AMAZING.

Another of Life's Little Metaphors

2009-03-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

I was standing at my anti-cross-contamination work station—the top of the chest freezer in the corner of the kitchen—far away from any clean dishes or other food. Up to my elbows in chicken, egg, flour and bread crumbs. Suddenly, every light, fan and motor surrounding me went off, on, off, on again…and then a final plunge into silence and darkness. Except for the hiss of the burger sizzling on the grill. And an ominous sound like a Flash Gordon ray gun coming through the wall to my left.

Shocked exclamations from the dining room hovered at the edge of my consciousness while I held my salmonella laden hands in the air, waiting for the lights to quit their foolishness and go back on so I could finish up and get the dinner special in the oven. Then the louder sound of Dee's voice from the hall near the back door cut through my expectant confusion.

"Oooooohhhh my God! Lisa, I think we're done for today…."

"What?"

"I think we're done. Come here and look…"

"Why? What's that noise?"

With my germy, eggy, crumby hands held up in surrender, I navigated, squinting, out into the brightness of the dining room with its walls of full-height windows. Dee stood at the back door with a look of fascinated horror on her face. A few hundred yards down the block, at the neighborhood high-voltage transfer station, a giant ball of pink-yellow power-flash danced and pulsated and threw sparks ten feet in the air, emitting that loud ray-gun sound I'd heard coming through the wall.

"Whoa!"

Well. Yes, indeed…it did look like we were done for the day.

Tuesday. Senior Night. Ten percent of our week's business expected to begin toddling through the doors in less than two hours. Negated by the ill-timed flash-bang of some terrorist squirrel.

It's amazing how slowly one's mind seems to grasp such emergent situations. Those protracted moments of fumbling at the controls… The panic button starts to flash and glow fluorescent orange. You struggle to ignore it and sort out the saner possibilities. What eventually triumphed were the orders in the kitchen which had been paid for, and needed to be completed and sent out. And I had to wash the salmonella off my hands, move my chicken out of the way and go do that. All in the half light of the bright dining room filtering into my windowless kitchen.

As I returned to stumble around in the gloom, bits of conversation filtered back to me from the gathering crowd at the back door. Gasps and oohs and aahhs and "Did anyone call 9-1-1?" Speculation about how long it would take to fix. After five minutes that seemed like an hour, the fries came up and the orders went out. Dee and I looked around at the dark kitchen, then went outside one more time to check out the continuing fireworks display down the road.

I started sifting through a mental check list. Without power, we had no soda and no espresso machine. We had some drip coffee left, but no ability to make more once that ran out. We could make food…the grill, fryer and ovens were still functioning and cold sandwiches wouldn't be a problem. But one had to assume the fire extinguishing system would be out, along with the ventilation. How dangerous would it be to continue to cook with gas under those conditions? Plus, not knowing how long the power would be out, we could not afford to keep opening and closing cooler doors. Once the contents rose to a certain temperature, the health department would require that we throw everything out, and I couldn't chance that just to try and save one night's sales. And dishes would be a nightmare…in the dark, with no dishwasher.

Dee and I looked at each other. "Well, we have to close, I guess."

That decision made, you would think that I could have just rolled up my sleeves, dug in and made it happen. But the stack of corollary decisions that now confronted me in my poweless kitchen just seemed overwhelming. What should I do with this chicken if I'm not going to cook it? How am I going to cool down this soup and this marinara so I don't destroy what cold air remains in the fridge? Should I change out all the pans in the sandwich table, or just take the utensils out, slam the lid and lock the cold air in? We have to call the night crew and tell them not to come in. Should I let the husband do the provision shopping he normally does on Tuesday, or tell him to bag it because we don't need more stuff we might not be able to keep cold? And what about this mountain of dirty dishes…and no dishwasher?

And behind all those issues that needed immediate attention, the dread of worse possibilities that would require more drastic planning ballooned like an aneurism. I so wanted to panic, but I knew there were too many tasks before me right now to waste energy on dire predictions. So I rolled up my sleeves, cleaned away my chicken mess, puzzled out where to put everything, had Dee call the rest of the night crew, and addressed myself to the heap of dishes that would now have to be washed by hand. In the dark.

Piece by piece, from the largest prep kettles to the stacks of silverware, every item went meticulously through the cycle. Scrub in hot soapy water, going over each piece like a blind person, feeling every surface. Rinse under hot water in the center sink. Load it into the sanitize water, soak, then pull it out and set in the drainboard. Start a new sink full while that batch air dries. A boring and tedious task under normal circumstances, raised to a new level of excruciating by the adverse conditions. Wash, rinse, sanitize, dry. Wash, rinse, sanitize, dry.

The dish tank became my center. My homepage. Some new problem would enter my mind, I'd wander away, bark some orders at Dee or at my husband over the phone, look around helplessly, almost allowing the panic to overwhelm me…and turn back to the dishes. Wash. Rinse. Sanitize. Dry.

At one point, Dee came back into the kitchen with the newsflash that the first responders over at the power station had moaned that this would take days to fix. Days. My soapy hands stopped scrubbing, I rocked back on my heels. "Oh my god, Dee… Do you know what a disaster that would be?" Tonelessly, without feeling. I couldn't let myself feel it. I would have started screaming and never stopped. I paused for a long minute. Wrestled that panic, threw it to the mat. Then I bent over the sink once again. Wash. Rinse. Sanitize. Dry.

For two hours, I soldiered on. Washed dishes. Scrubbed counters. Washed dishes. Scrubbed the grill. Washed dishes. Thought ahead, but not too far: We have power at home. Plug in the freezers in the garage. Get ready to load out the food. Wash dishes. Now they say they'll have the power back on some time tonight, but they don't know when. Wash dishes. The mountain became a hill. Then a pile. Then a few scattered pieces. And then, just the silverware.

As I set the last basket of silverware into the sanitize water, in a perfect anti-climactic fillip…

The lights came back on.

Too late to save my dinner service.

But my inventory and my sanity and the night's sleep I would have lost fretting about it, all out of danger now. Relief far outweighed anger or disappointment at the afternoon's turn of events. We locked up and headed home to enjoy the unexpected treat of a night off.

There's a moral here, I realized. A bit of wisdom for all of us facing the panic and looming darkeness of our faltering American economy:

Just…carry on.

Keep on doing dishes in the dark. The lights will come back on sooner than you think.

Signs of the Times

2009-03-18T22:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, one of my employees whispered to me that she’d “heard on the grapevine” that one of our competitors has not paid their rent in four months.

News like that is such a mixed bag. Your first impulse is to pump your hand in the air and hiss, “Yessss!” One less piece into which to cut the shrinking pie of “dining out” dollars! This is never bad news. But just as you ball that fist and are about to thrust it over your head, the thought hits you: “What if…?”

What if that was me? My restaurant? My rent?

And in these times, it all too very well could be. “There but for the grace of…um, the Universe…”

So you unclench your fist, clap your hand to your side, and instead gulp down the cold lump of fear that has suddenly risen in your throat.

The Hot Flash Café is okay, for now. Sales suck, and the only way to get people in the door is to practically give the food away. But the steel trap I sprang on my controllables—labor and food cost—seems to have staunched the hemorrhaging from the bank account. Luckily for us, the combination of a timely business model (low labor, low food-cost, low price) and a sympathetic landlord (who used to own the business and is sentimentally invested in its success) have us well positioned to weather the economic storm. If it doesn’t last too long.

But you have to wonder…will I be one of the lucky ones left standing when the economic fallout quits falling out? It sure doesn’t feel good, after the hellish toil of the last thirty-three months, to be thinking in terms of being lucky to keep the doors open, rather than about the growth and the returns we’d hoped to be anticipating by now.

It’s a good thing we have not yet gotten to the place where we need the income from the cafe to survive. But husband’s job isn’t looking too good these days (just this morning, he had to break the news to his staff that they were being cut to four days a week…) So it’s hard to say how long we’ll continue to enjoy that entrepreneurial limbo. We’d hoped to have five years to develop our concept (to figure out what the hell we are doing and get it to where we can actually make money doing whatever that is) before we needed to depend on it for an income.

Looks like we may not have that much time. And this is NOT the climate in which you want to arrive at that conclusion.

But what is there to do except get up in the morning, ignore the news and unlock the doors…chanting the mantra that “Today could be the day it all turns around…” It helps to continue to go through the motions. And don’t let yourself stop looking for the good times that must be just around the corner.

We Are Not Your Babysitter

2009-02-23T14:07:00.000-08:00

Here is my personal message to bored, stay-at-home moms desperate for coffee and adult interaction: If you want to enjoy food, drink and conversation while someone else watches your children, I suggest you either hire a babysitter or meet your peeps for coffee and Egg McMuffies at Ronnie Mac’s. Let the tots boogie off to the Playland while you catch up with the girls.

DO NOT bring them to my restaurant and let them run all over the place, bother the other guests, play with the curtains, dump the salt and pepper shakers, run their radio-controlled toys down the aisle, or lock themselves in the bathroom for twenty minutes and play with the water.

What is the problem with thirty-something suburban mommy-types these days? Where do they get the idea that the staff and other patrons at any restaurant will be happy to provide day care while the mommies enjoy their coffee and chat?

The Hot Flash Café does not discourage folks from bringing their well-behaved offspring in for a meal. We have a kids’ menu…we have a little corral of high chairs. And we serve ice cream (12 varieties—cones, dishes, milkshakes, sundaes) for god’s sake. But we DO expect parents to be familiar with their own kids’ attention spans and ability to stay at their table while the adults eat and visit. We don’t provide coloring books or activities to keep kids busy. We don’t have a book corner or a play area where bored children can hang out while their parents visit. In our 1000 square foot dining room, we don’t have room for those things. We DO expect adults to take responsibility for controlling and entertaining their own little tax exemptions.

Last Friday morning, a young woman—probably about 30-ish, came in to the café with her two children. Her son was probably about two. Largely non-verbal, but definitely able to get around on his own two feet. Fast as lightning.

The minute they walked in the door, the little boy started pulling on the lighted garland I had festooned on the front of the counter. Just before he yanked it to the floor, Little Yuppie Mom admonished him wryly, “How about if we don’t tear the place down? Heh-heh…” Whereupon he made a beeline for the nearest unoccupied table and immediately grabbed a glass candlestick. I gently relieved him of that object as Mom stood at the front counter, attention focused on her choices of coffees and pastries. Kid joined mom again for a hot second, and she shoveled a cookie into his hand (ooohhh….more sugar! That should prove helpful… )

The child, clutching his prize, moved on to the door. Thinking it was too heavy for him to actually open, I nevertheless deduced he was capable of opening the door partway and getting his fingers caught in it. I was half out of my chair to rescue him from that fate, when pop! he was outside and heading down the sidewalk. The street is about ten feet outside our door. I could hardly watch…

Unruffled, Little Yuppie Mom slipped out the door and returned with kid and cookie slung over her shoulder, her lips curved upward in a passive smile.

I, on the other hand, would have popped a Xanax if I was in to that kind of thing. Actually, I wanted to call the police and report a case of blatant child endangerment.

Please, people...

WATCH YOUR KIDS!!!!

A Hot Flashback With a Disappointing Update

2009-02-22T16:39:00.000-08:00

Sunday, July 27, 2008: Today's Special: Life Lessons

Although July has been a blessedly restful month for me at the café, it has not been without its dramas. The “I want hours, no I don’t” scenario has continued to play out with several of my longer tenured employees.

Cook in Training No. 1 continues to be [a problem.] Back in June, after graduating from her high school completion class, she left me a long, impassioned note about how she was now available to work any hours, wanted to work forty hours and, in fact, needed the hours/money in order to pay her bills. And then she requested a week’s vacation.

After her return about four weeks ago, I took her at her word and started giving her as many hours as I could send her way. ...Cook No. 1 got between 30 and 40 hours on the next three schedules. Essentially, she got exactly what she asked for, within my ability to grant it.

By the end of the first week of her new schedule, Cook No. 1 was already draggin’ her wagon. All we heard when she showed up for work was how tired she was, and she was the first one to raise her hand if the need arose to send someone home early. Odd behavior for someone who needed the money so badly, but I figured perhaps it would take a few weeks for her to get used to working so many hours.

Long story short, after three weeks of working what passes for full-time these days, young Cook had apparently had her fill. She went home sick two days in a row the fourth week. But found time to research and register for some school program for which she will begin classes August 11. And left me a note about how she was sorry, but she needed to go back to school and would only be available to work Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays after school started. Was I surprised? Not really. Was I disappointed? Not really. I knew in my heart that young Cook did not want what she was asking me for.

In another life, I would have been proud to fill the role of mentor in her life. She’s a smart, talented girl, and if she was inclined, she could have become an important part of our team. Working at the café could have been a valuable learning experience for her, instead of a constant tug-of-war between her issues and her desire to rise above them. It’s been obvious for some time that the issues were winning...

And (here's the update...) They did.

It took seven more months of tug-of-war, but in the end, her demons dragged her right out the door.

Little Cook No. 1 and I pow-wowed on the sidewalk behind the café last Friday afternoon. Or, more accurately, I stood in nearly speechless disbelief while this twenty-year-old basically tore me a new one. And then she stalked off into the sunset presumably never to be heard from again.

My great transgression, this time, was to cut her back to three shifts, totaling eleven hours, on next week’s schedule. How dare I? “Eleven hours? Eleven hours, Lisa! I can’t live on that! How am I supposed to live on that?” Followed by a twenty-minute diatribe which assigned me the blame for every evil short of the 9/11 terrorist attacks…

She has worked her ass off for me for two years (Her tenure at the café has been a two-year maneuver through the minefield of her personal dramas, up to and including a pregnancy and miscarriage in December of 2007, through which we unconditionally supported her, held her position for her and welcomed her back when she was able to return.)

She needs money. She can’t pay her bills. How dare I cut everyone’s hours just to save a buck??? (The economy sucks, sales are in the crapper, and I have eight people depending upon me to provide them with some kind of living. If I don’t ‘save a buck,’ the doors close and nobody pays their bills. I have not taken one dime out of this place in two and a half years. And, let’s see…you’re so desperate for money? Can I have Valentine’s Day off? You can’t pay your bills? Can I have the Thanksgiving Weekend off? You can work a full schedule and go to school? I can’t work tonight…I just got home from school, and I was so upset I threw up twice…so I just need to stay home and rest.)

I treat her like crap. I mentally abuse her. (Just a few days ago, a customer called to complain that Little Cook No. 1 had gone out of her way to make a nasty remark to her. I repeatedly told the customer that I was sure she must have misinterpreted…that Cook No. 1 would never do such a thing. I stood behind my Little Cook 100%. And, as it turned out—there had been an incident, and the customer had not misinterpreted. Did I fire Cook No. 1? Did I suspend her? Did I scream and yell and call her names? No I did not (more fool, I.) Very quietly, with tears in my eyes, I told her I was disappointed beyond words, there was no punishment, and it had better NEVER happen again.)

So, out there on the sidewalk Friday afternoon, indignant tears streaming down her face, she pronounced that she COULD NOT DEAL WITH MY “SHIT” ANYMORE…

…and she quit.

I guess it will be that much easier for her to make ends meet without that $150…

Hot Flashback...Doing the Bank Thing

2009-02-18T17:16:00.000-08:00

Friday, May 19, 2006

And Now, We Wait....

I feel like I have just run a marathon. Today was THE day. The day to quit the hedging and second-guessing and put my money where my mouth is. Or, try to get someone to put money into my mouth. Or something.

This morning at 3 AM, I was stacking and patting down the last of the documents I had collected, copied, polished and printed for my presentation to the bank. To get the money. To buy the business. I had assembled, as best I could, snapshots of my life—old and new—that I hoped would tell the story of a competent, experienced restaurant manager on the threshold of realizing her lifelong dream of buying a place of her very own. It felt like walking down the runway in the bathing suit competition at a beauty pageant. Half-naked, exposed, wishing real life could be air-brushed…

I dragged myself out of bed at 8:30, attended to my chores, and rushed upstairs to get ready. It was so bizarre…superstition ruled my toilette. I hunted down my "lucky" shirt and built my dress-for-success outfit around it. I thought about lucky earrings, and realized I had one small pair left from the days of my late lamented dream job. They’re tarnished, bent and sticky with old hair-spray residue. But they had to be part of the ensemble. I even found, under my vanity, an old bottle of the cologne I used to wear back in those days. After a cursory test-sniff to determine whether it had gone off from age, I splashed that on as well. Liberally. Like holy water.

In the end, after all that trouble, I never even got to see the Loan Officer. She was busy with another client, so I just dropped off that folder full of my life’s blood at the front counter. She never saw my casual-yet-conservative power outfit, never glimpsed the sticky little onyx hearts that dangled from my ears, never got a whiff of Victoria’s Secret’s "Her Majesty’s Rose." It didn’t matter. All that mumbo jumbo had comforted me. It made me feel as if I had wrapped myself in a robe of positive ions. Old positive ions, but positive ions, nonetheless.

Arriving back home, I had a moment of panic that the ineffective-looking receptionist might not realize how hugely momentous was the information that I had entrusted into his hands. How direly it needed to be relayed to the all-powerful Loan Officer. I walked around the house,making coffee, scrounging up breakfast; but it was no good. I couldn’t get shed of that electric knife in my gut until I made the phone call. Called the Loan Officer, made sure she knew the packet—my life—was in her hands now. Casually, she laughed. "Oh, I haven’t seen it yet. They must have put it in my box." In your box? I wanted to scream. Go get it, woman! Have you no ken of how vital this is to the continued existence of the universe? But, no, that wouldn’t do. So I merely stuttered, "Well, I just wanted to make sure you knew I had dropped it off…"

I hung up the phone, and felt like all the air had just gone out of me. Like someone pulling the plug out of one of those big multi-colored punch balls we used to play with as kids. You’d pull out the cork, it would make that loud, flabby flatulence noise and go limp. And everybody would giggle.

Yep, all the spunk has just farted right out of me. Right now, I’m going to sit with my feet up and stare at…well, maybe nothing. Even television doesn’t sound appealing right now. I don’t want to think or worry or even move. For about an hour or so. And then I’ll blow some life back into myself, get up and go on to the next thing.

Carrying around that little knot of apprehension in my stomach.

Which is not likely to become untied until about 4:30 Monday afternoon. When I get to hear what fate the mighty Loan Officer has assigned my dream.

Posted by Lisa :-] at 12:36 PM

Debrief on Valentine's Day 2009

2009-02-18T11:54:00.000-08:00

I’m basking in the glow of my first day off since V-Day (Valentine’s Day.)

This year was so different from VD 2008. Last year, Valentine’s Day was the first time we came up with a set menu dinner event for a holiday, and we had no idea what to expect. And we got slammed. It was a good kind of slammed; there were some miscues and some high points. I like to think we learned a lot. It was a great success.

Until a couple of months ago, there was no reason to expect we couldn’t reprise that success, maybe even improve upon it, given what we know now that we didn’t know then. We have a whole lot more experience dealing with a dining room full of people than we did a year ago. Easter, Mothers’ Day, and several over-the-top successful Senior Nights have given us the opportunity to develop some systems for handling high volume. Funny thing, that…you have to actually experience the high volume before you can develop your systems. Makes for a bit of falling on your face, and comping a lot of food and drink, during the process of figuring it out. But we are figuring it out.

Unfortunately, the economic climate (and recent sales numbers) forced my expectations way down for this year. I just couldn’t get as hyped up over it as I did last year…which is just as well, because last year I poured out nearly every ounce of creativity I had in me for that one event. When it was over, I literally felt like I had been squeezed dry. There was not a drop of energy or moxie left in me on the morning of February 15th. And it took me weeks to recover.

This year, I came up with this:

Considering all the things I have to do BY MYSELF—plan the menu, procure the provisions, figure out the procedures for cooking things we basically never cook any other time, plan and design marketing materials, decorate the restaurant (that’s actually my favorite part), schedule the help, plan the prep schedule, and a million other things I can’t think of off the top of my head—I made a commitment this year to not “re-invent the wheel.” I aimed for menu items I knew we could do, rather than picking out complicated recipes just because they looked good or trendy. I tried to feature things that I would like to be known for, slightly spiffed up versions of things on our regular menu—like pasta (fettuccini Alfredo with crab sauce and grilled salmon.) In the end some things sucked (we are officially out of the business of creating appetizers…!) and some things were more successful than I could have hoped (the damned expensive steaks seemed to be quite a hit…even though they were a bitch to cook on the flat-top, and I had to stick toothpicks in them to hold the bacon on.)

Last year, we didn’t take reservations, because—and I actually told customers this—we didn’t know how. You can’t just take enough reservations to fill up the dining room at opening, and then…well, what? I’m sure there is a system, but since neither I nor anybody who works for me has that kind of fine dining experience, we were clueless. So we thought it best to just go with “first come, first served.”

And we learned something. If you don’t take reservations, EVERYONE is going to show up as soon as you open the doors. Dinner service started at 5:00 pm, and by 5:15, every table in the house was full. Which was a nightmare for the wait staff and the kitchen…and made for some pretty scary serving times. Luckily, the patrons were very understanding, nobody walked out because they hadn’t gotten waited on, and a good time seemed to be had by all.

So, this year, we decided that taking reservations would, if nothing else, help us avoid that “Oh my god, the dining room just filled up in ten minutes” rush. And it worked pretty well. In fact, the flow of orders into the kitchen was so gradual and so orderly that I was a little bummed. It seemed like business was going to be WAY down compared to last year. But, by golly, we got people their food, and we were able to pamper them a little more instead of running around like chickens with our heads cut off. I think the diners, though there were fewer of them, had a much nicer experience than they did last year.

In the end, we only missed last year’s number by 5%--just about $100 on a $2000 day. I can’t whine too much. I think the economy had a lot to do with it. And I think, honestly, that the way we handled the reservations hurt us a little. Since we didn’t know what we were doing, we decided that taking reservations at the rate of 4 every half-hour would assure us of having tables available when we needed them (we only have twenty tables in the restaurant…) We were afraid that we would still be dealing with the huge number of walk-ins that we saw last year. As it turns out, we probably could have done six or even eight reservations every half hour. Evidently, the simple fact that we were taking reservations discouraged the walk-in business. When people called with late reservation requests, we told them we were booked, but that we were being very conservative with our reservations, so they should go ahead and come in anyway. But they didn’t, not in any great numbers. We’ll know better for next time.

So Valentine’s Dinner was not the uproarious success this year that it was in 2008. But, as with everything, we’ll learn the lessons and keep going. It warmed my heart that I was called out of the kitchen by one couple who wanted to thank me personally for such a wonderful dinner. And one of the girls came back and told me that a guest had asked if the cook was professionally trained…(well, no, I don’t have a Le Cordon Bleu certificate, but I’ve been doing this for 35 years…is that considered “professional training?”)

And Sunday morning, I heard a story from one of our regular guests who had gone to one of our competitors for Valentine’s Dinner. It seems the service was so terrible that the guests had sat for an hour and had not even gotten their salads. So they left.

I’m not one to rejoice in anyone’s misfortune, not even my competition’s. What this story does is make me realize, in spite of what I felt the shortcomings of OUR dinner service were, at least we have the fundamentals covered. Okay…so I wouldn’t be able to get too much mileage on an advertising campaign that went something like, “You won’t have to wait an hour for your salad…” But it makes me feel like at least we’re doing the basics a little more right than the other guys.

Two years ago, I would not have had that assurance. So we are getting somewhere.

Allergic to Eating Out

2009-02-11T09:01:00.000-08:00

Here is a scary little story: A woman came in one afternoon to buy her kid some ice cream. I was in the kitchen doing afternoon clean-up, so I was only peripherally aware of the conversation at the front counter. When my counter girl came back into the kitchen and started scrubbing the ice cream scoop, I asked her what was going on. She said the woman had told her that her son was allergic to nuts; counter girl assured her that none of our ice creams had nuts in them, but just “to be safe” she would take the scoop back into the kitchen and give it a thorough washing.

I almost hit the ceiling. “Ack!” I croaked. “What are you talking about? What do you mean none of our ice creams have nuts? What about chocolate peanut butter and coffee almond fudge? Holy &*%$... You go right out there and tell that woman that we are not prepared to cater to children with severe food allergies, and I am sorry, but we’ll have to refuse to serve her child any ice cream.” Counter girl, thoroughly cowed, went out to the counter and did what she was told. And the woman was pissed. I may have saved her kid’s life, or at least saved her a trip to the Emergency Room, but she was royally p.o.’ed that we would not serve her kid ice cream.

Come on, people. Severe food allergies are nothing to fool around with. You DO NOT want to put your life in the hands of an uneducated restaurant owner who may be ignorant of the dangers of anaphylactic shock, and you especially do not want to put that responsibility in the hands of an overworked, underpaid wait-person. I have neither the time nor the expertise to take the kind of precautions necessary to make my product safe for someone for whom one molecule of peanut will induce a life-threatening reaction. As far as I’m concerned, if someone could DIE if they eat something they’re not supposed to, they need to prepare their own food in a completely controlled environment. It is neither safe nor sane for a person with dire food allergies to expect a restaurant to take that kind of responsibility. I wouldn’t touch that potential liability with a ten-foot pole.

After the Ice Cream Episode, I had to create a simple, all-encompassing policy to deal with the increasing number of “I’m allergic to…” claims that come up on any given day. And that policy is to refuse service to anyone claiming to have a food allergy. If you come into my establishment and claim to be allergic to something, it is not my job, nor is it my wait-person’s job, to commence the twenty question routine. I am not going to waste time trying to ascertain HOW allergic you are to something. Like, “Will you die if you eat this, or will you just break out in hives, or does it give you indigestion?” The safest thing—both for me and for you—is to assume your life is in danger if any trace of this substance touches your lips, and refuse to serve you.

It seems to be all the rage, these days, to claim to be allergic to something. Onions. Bell peppers. Turkey. Wheat. (Wheat is a big one, currently. If you are tired, lack energy, suffer mysterious aches and pains, have digestive troubles—wheat is your culprit. Never mind that bread has been a staple of most human diets practically since we learned to walk upright. Suddenly, wheat is the devil. Sigh! )

If you choose to omit something from your diet, that is your prerogative. Maybe you are lactose intolerant, or maybe you get dire indigestion from onions or bell peppers. Maybe you just don’t like garlic. Perhaps you have decided not to eat wheat or beef or eggs. That is fine. Let us know, and we will do our best to accommodate you.

But, be warned, the minute the word “allergic” comes out of your mouth, you most likely won’t be getting more than a glass of water at my restaurant.

Getting It

2009-02-08T21:57:00.000-08:00

From July 1, 2006, until about three or four months ago, I was so stressed out, so overmatched, so sleep-deprived and chronically exhausted that I hardly knew my own name. Even so, though 90% of the reasoning behind buying the café was that I needed to get a life, I kept thinking that once I got used to this whole restaurant owner business, once I hit my stride, I’d get my life back. Oh, yeah… I’d get a handle on this—after all, hadn’t I been doing this stuff for most of my adult life?—and then my world would settle down into something I recognized as life.

Who was I kidding?

In the past few weeks, I’ve had…call it an epiphany. A light bulb over the head. An “Oh, DUH!” moment.

THIS IS MY LIFE!

I DO…

…sling bacon and eggs, flip burgers and fry fries, toss salads and bake pasta.

...holler, sweet-talk, cajole, cuss, philosophize, teach, mentor, reward, stroke, juggle, drive and occasionally crash a crew of eight to eleven variously committed employees.

…scrub garbage cans, shovel sidewalks, un-clog toilets, scrape grease and sanitize linens.

…research new products and menu items, watch costs, plan promotions and design ads.

…plan parties, hang decorations, plot menu plans and table arrangements, cook for forty when 24 show up.

…eat whatever I can shove in my mouth, whenever I can squeeze it in.

…fall into bed exhausted and awaken feeling like I never slept.

…haunt auctions, used equipment stores, Restaurant Depot and Cash & Carry looking for bargains that will keep me in business.

I DO NOT…

…spend hours researching, writing and re-writing pithy political blog posts.

…read a good book.

…fall asleep tired and awaken well-rested.

…email friends and family. For that matter, what friends? And what family?

…eat healthy meals at regular times—like “breakfast,” “lunch” or “dinner”.

…dig in the dirt (otherwise known has “gardening”) or replenish my bird feeders.

…take my dog on long walks through the neighborhoods and the fields.

…watch my diet, religiously consult the bathroom scale, and climb on the treadmill three days a week.

...shop the sales at Macy's or Nordstrom for bargains to keep my middle-aged body looking trendy and hip.

My life has become a whole new reality. One that doesn’t bear a great deal of resemblance to my world BCE (Before Commencing Entrepreneurship.)

And I’m just starting to GET IT.

DUH.

Background Flashback Info

2009-02-06T21:36:00.000-08:00

Yes...we are more than two years into our mid-life crisis...I mean, our entrepreneurial experiment. There is some history that needs airing. History that can be told with words from another blog...

Here are some. And, from time to time, like acid flashbacks (why is there no font called "psychedelic"...?) I will bring back more. (Cue Jimi Hendrix and that funny fade-out video stuff..)

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Looking Behind to See Ahead

Eleven years ago, the world I knew came to an end. In 1995, I might have been gearing up for my fortieth birthday, and all the changes, real or imaginary, that would take place in my life when I exited my thirties—the last decade during which I could be credibly called a "young" anything. Looking back, I sincerely wish that were all I had to worry about. Because my fortieth birthday in July of that year faded into the background of upheaval and grief that was the final desperate illness and death of my big sister. And my misguided notion that I needed to sink every ounce of strength I possessed into comforting and binding the wounds of her bereft family.

Another thing that got buried under that load of sorrow was the demise of my "dream job." After spending fifteen years bouncing around like a pinball on the game board of my chosen profession, in 1986 I fell, quite by accident, into the best job situation I had ever encountered. Possibly the best anyone could hope for. In the next eight years, I accomplished more than I ever thought I could, grew more and in more directions than I had ever thought possible, mentored and guided and taught, spoke my mind and worked my butt off. But I was good at what I did, I was successful at what I did, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I was fulfilling some kind of real purpose. I never realized how much employment success affected every aspect of life. I was happy at work, happy at home, outgoing and magnanimous and on top of the world.

Then the roof caved in. As it often does in the restaurant industry. Times change, fads fade, concepts come and go. When the corporation I worked for started to fall apart, the first guys to take the hit were we managers who had carried it to the top by the sweat of our brows and had been able, for a couple of years, to enjoy the fruits of our labors. All at once, we became an overpaid liability and were targeted for "redundancy," as the Brits so aptly put it. But it was not a quick and merciful severance. It was a traumatic, year-long pummeling process that felt like being beaten to death with a tack hammer. By the end of 1994, I was unemployed, exhausted, and emotionally trashed. And for a little extra added excitement, I was scheduled for major surgery.

I was still recovering from my own health disaster when my sister began her abrupt slide toward death in the early days of 1995. It could be argued that my sister’s illness "saved" me from going down into the pit of depression my own pack of troubles had been pushing me toward. I needed to rouse myself, stiffen my spine and "be there" for her and her family. That mission, that determination to be strong for someone else, actually kept me going for several years. I put my own trauma on the back burner, stepped up for the people who "needed me," and never looked back.

But my relationship to the working world never recovered. Still wounded and shell-shocked from the demise of my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I could never quite muster the confidence or the courage to get back on the horse and just…ride. I’d scramble up, but I’d jump off at the first sign of a rocky road. I changed horses so many times over the next several years that it got to the point where they would lock up the stables when they saw me coming. Eventually, the other half of my life began to fall apart, the part where I was supposed to be this rock of support for my sister’s husband and kids. Then, in 1999, my dad passed away, and my remaining sisters and I went through the tortures of the damned trying to deal with that loss.

As my relationship to my family took a nosedive, I realized that in the course of less than five years, I had lost virtually everything I believed I’d gained during that halcyon time when I felt like Queen of the World. I thought I had "arrived," but the place I’d arrived to had crumbled and faded before my very eyes. I was living the darker reality of the old cliché, "Life is a journey, not a destination." I tried to run away from my troubles with my family by running full-tilt back into the world of work. It was then that I found that I had no "world of work" to return to. I was pushing fifty, my resume was crap, and the doors of opportunity in the restaurant world, that I had always slipped through in the past, were only open to younger, happier people who weren’t afraid of their own shadows. Restaurant work is not for the faint of heart.

I tried office work for awhile, attracted by the nine-to-fiveness of it all, but found I absolutely hated it—from the enforced physical stagnation, to the back-stabbing, credit-grabbing, passive aggressive nature of office politics. The more I tried to put my restaurant past behind me, the more it rose up before me as the luminous icon of the only thing I had ever put my hand to that made me happy.

So in 2002 I started my own business. Something I probably should have done a decade or two earlier. But the time was never right, the money was never available. Once again, death changed my life. This time, it was the deaths of my husband’s parents…which provided us with the few extra dollars that made it possible to scrape together my concession business. Scared to death, but with no other real options open, I sallied forth into the world of the small business owner. It’s been a frustrating, enlightening, back-breaking four years. I’ve been able to pick up and dust off some of the scraps of myself that I had thought were irretrievably lost. It’s been a proving ground for me…showing me that I still can do this and I’m still damned good at it.

But the seasonal nature of the business has been at once a godsend and a handicap. Where it’s allowed me to creep forward at the snail’s pace that seems to be all that I can handle, it has also allowed me to be picky and half-assed about the challenges I want to take on. I can back away when I become intimidated by what the next move forward might mean, hit the brakes when I get frightened of putting my heart into yet another doomed effort. I love my little business, but I’ve come to realize that my complete healing lies in the direction of something much larger, much more engaging, and much more challenging.

And there it is, creeping up over the horizon like a late-autumn sunrise. A real restaurant. A roof over my head, a floor under my feet, a full-sized three-compartment sink in the kitchen. A place to go every day, to scheme, to strive, to formulate and refine. Every day. It’s been years since I’ve allowed myself to want anything this much. I want it so bad it hurts. But it’s a good pain…a pain of promise. Not unlike labor pains, I would imagine. This may be the closest I’ll ever come to the privilege of that pain. The pain of wrestling something new and vital into the world.

A snarky whisper in the back of my head mocks me about this. It taunts that what I am actually doing is preparing to lay out what amounts to three years of my dream job’s wages to…buy myself a job. That over the years, I have so trashed myself that I am not fit to be employed by anyone else. That little voice had me going there, for a minute. But I managed to put a sack over its head and conk it with a sledge hammer. Now I’m on my way to drown it in the creek. Because no stinking negative little demon is going to rob me of this opportunity, or tarnish the promise and anticipation. And I refuse to entertain fears that I’m too old, or too rusty, or too timid, or too anything to make this happen. This is my time, for the first time in a long time. And I am going to rise.

Too Young to Retire, Too Old to Get a Job

2009-02-04T22:10:00.001-08:00

How (why?) does a semi-retired former restaurant/bakery/specialty foods manufacturing manager stow away her vacuum cleaner and her work gloves, rise up from her recliner, tear her eyes from her home remodeling and gardening magazines...then pile upon her head the stack of hats it takes to run a business and sally forth into the excrement-spewing oscillator that is the world of the entreprenuer? Without a raincoat?

Retirement is for sissies...

...and the rich.

This is my story, my song, my journey, my lament, my high-five.

You're welcome to sit and watch the circus for awhile...

Teach the Children...What?

2007-03-24T22:58:00.000-07:00

Here I am, back in the position of managing young people. This time, the age gap between myself and the people I am supervising (mentoring? guiding?) is easily 1.5 decades greater than the last time I was called upon to fill this role.

Fifteen years ago, I was nearly old enough to be the mother of my youngest employees. At 36, I could (biologically) have had a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old of my own. I was superficially cognizant of that fact, but it didn’t really register. I felt like an overgrown eighteen-year-old myself sometimes, back in those days. I was able to establish a sort of mentor relationship with my girls; the fact that I was almost twenty years their senior never seemed to be much of an issue—to me, anyway.

Fast forward to 2007. Other than my 38-year-old cook (who has a thirteen-year-old daughter of her own), my oldest employees cannot even claim a quarter of a century on the planet. So I am WAY old enough to be their parent. It’s an interesting dynamic. Having never had children of my own, I don’t see these girls as "children." I’m sure I have an entirely different attitude toward them than their (younger than me) parents have. Most of the time, I don’t give it too much thought. But then there are times when I wonder…exactly what DO these children think of me?

For one thing, I don’t think they realize I am older than their parents, most of the time. Not being a parent myself, I don’t act like a parent. Which is not to say that I don’t sometimes come off as a complete old fart. I’m sure that when I’m back in the kitchen grooving to my "tunes" on the radio (I found the greatest radio station out of Portland—they play all sixties and seventies music. The music of my childhood…!) my employees are thinking of me exactly what I would have thought of my mother hopping around to "Big Band" stuff when I was a kid. Come to think of it, my mother never did that. Was there (is there?) a certain dignity to being a parent that I completely lack? Or some rule in the Mom Handbook that says you should never let your kids see that Once Upon A Time you might possibly have been just like them?

The other day, I found myself expressing my spiritual ambiguity to one of my girls. She’s college-grad age, so I don’t feel guilty of poisoning a young mind with things of which her parents would heartily disapprove (I’ve met her parents and I’m sure they WOULD disapprove…but she’s old enough to make these kinds of decisions for herself.) But this is a small town, and this girl was brought up in a strictly religious family. So I wonder, really, how my lack of reticence about my beliefs colored her opinion of me. I try to think back to myself at that age…what would have shocked me? What would I have considered TMI from someone old enough to be my mother?

Then again, times were WAY different when I was a young twenty-something. Much as we would like to have thought we were so hip and so liberal and so enlightened… Let’s face it: I was an almost-affluent child of the lily-white suburbs. What today’s kids don’t give a second thought would have shocked my socks off. Here at my own little café we’ve had an openly gay cook, girls working on their second or third out-of-wedlock baby, tattoos, pierced everythings, the dark specter of methamphetamine in several employees lives… And this, as I said, is a small town. So imagining what might have shocked me at that age is totally irrelevant.

And even if I did suspect that I should keep a tighter rein on what I betray of myself to my employees, I doubt that I could actually DO that. I am who I am--almost completely without pretense or guile. It just doesn’t occur to me to be secretive about who I am or what I believe. Which, I concede, is not always a good thing. It’s certainly not "managerial" or "owner-ial" behavior. I suppose I should give great consideration to the persona I intend to create for myself, and project that and only that image. I’m sorry. I have about as much chance of doing that as I do of crawling back into my mothers womb and calling for a "do-over" of my entire life.

So god knows what kind of reputation I am creating for myself in this little town. If only to give myself one less thing to obsess about, I will choose to believe there is nothing about me that my employees won’t be better off for the knowing…

A Holiday Story--Conclusion

2006-11-27T22:30:00.000-08:00

I got a temporary reprieve from the bullshit onslaught on Saturday. Oh, wait…maybe not. When I arrived at work Saturday morning, I noted the absence of new cook, late of Monday morning hospital visit, but returned to work Friday, "good as new." "Where’s P?" I asked. "She had an issue…" I am told. About an hour into her shift Saturday morning, she clutched her side, turned white, and said she had to leave. Why was I not surprised? In fact, I was downright blasé about the whole thing. Business was slow, and I would have had to send someone home anyway. I figured her illness had done me a favor, in a backhanded sort of way…

Saturday was, fortunately enough, the day my family headed home…fortified by yet another meal at the café. (Hey…I own a restaurant. Why not take advantage of it?) The weather was clear, if a tad cold. With a gleam in my eye, I talked one of my crew into finishing my shift (I was supposed to close the kitchen) and dragged the husband home to help me hang our outside Christmas lights. Considering the way the weekend had been going, the thought crossed my mind that this was probably a risky move. Yet, unbelievably, we got those lights hung without either of us falling off a ladder or electrocuting ourselves. We suffered nothing worse than a few half-frozen fingers and toes. And the lights, though not as elaborate as in years past, are at least up. Honestly, I wasn’t sure we would get even that much of our personal holiday stuff done this year.

Sunday…was the icing on the cake. I was scheduled to work open to close. Minus new cook, whose ongoing medical issues have taken her out of the picture for at least the next week, I was now the only cook. Not a good situation on a Sunday morning if it should get busy. On top of this, my eight o’clock counter person arrived complaining that she was so sick that she didn’t know if she would make it through her shift. Sigh! I sent her home. Down two people now. So I prevailed upon the husband to come in and lend a hand. He can’t cook, but he can help out front, freeing my counter person to help out in the kitchen. Counter person who was begging me to let her leave early so that she could attend her family’s Thanksgiving celebration. Same counter person who had dropped the ball on Friday morning. And yet, I stand on my head to allow her to get out of there early. I am such a sweet, thoughtful boss. Or a horrible sap.

Exhausted, disheartened and a little shell-shocked, I struggle through the day on Sunday. And if something could go wrong, it did. The grill mysteriously extinguished itself…twice. My biscuits inexplicably cooked up raw in the middle. And husband and I have a major falling out over, of all things, banana bread. I get home Sunday night, husband and I are not speaking to each other, I am tripping over the fallout left behind by the invasion of my kin. Husband retreats to the family room to watch his "previously recorded" football game and I literally throw myself on my bedroom floor and sob. Actually, not so much sobs as wordless cries of frustration and fatigue. And then I scrape myself up, regroup, and apply myself to making some sense out of the mess. Nothing like an endless "to do" list to cut short even the most self-indulgent pity party.

And what about today? Are things better? Do I have an adequate number of employees left to allow me to open the doors? Do I have enough business to keep my employees from leaning against the counters with their thumbs up their…you-know-whats?

Well, all I can say is--it’s snowing…

A Holiday Story--Part 2

2006-11-26T22:27:00.000-08:00

The day itself—Thanksgiving Day—was the one thing about the week that wasn’t a disaster. Assorted family arrived in good order, though they had to drive through some pretty soupy weather. Husband took over the cooking tasks; I gladly relinquished that responsibility. It was the most I could do to set up a wine bar and munchies in strategic places around the dining room. We had a tv to keep the men happy, a video game to keep the kids happy, and plenty of wine to keep us sisters happy.

Dinner was a delight. And holding that private family celebration at the restaurant seemed to seal the deal. A new, strong sense of ownership washed over me. At last it has become real: For better or for worse, this is MY restaurant. It felt amazing. For about twenty-four hours.

Determined to catch a breather from my 24/7 focus on the café, I scheduled myself to have Friday off. Judging from last year’s numbers, it was NOT going to be a busy day, so I figured I could trust my crew to hold the place together for a day while I indulged in our annual Day-After-Thanksgiving trip to what is billed as "The World’s Largest Christmas Bazaar" in North Portland. Every year, we spend five or six hours trundling Mom around in her wheelchair, oohing and aahing over the various sparklies and doo-dads, and spending more money than we should on things we don’t really need. A good time is had by all.

So, Friday morning, I get up at about 8:30 (unforgivably letting my houseful of guests fend for themselves until I am damned good and ready to roll out of bed.) I pour myself some coffee, watch a few minutes of tv… By 9:30, everyone is awake and hungry, and of course I have no food in the house, being as how I had not had time to actually shop for this event. I decide I will call in an order to the café and go pick it up…voila—a good free breakfast that I do not have to cook. Kind of a no-brainer, no?

I whip out the phone and call the restaurant. After two and a half rings, I get sent to voice mail. Ah, someone must be taking a phone order. I’ll call back.

Ten minutes elapse, I dial again…same result. Wait another five minutes. No change. I’m a little irritated now. I am still in my pajamas, so I ask the husband if he will please drive over to the café and see if someone has left the phone off the hook (or is having a long personal conversation on the business line…)

Five minutes later, the phone rings. It is the husband. "I just let myself into the restaurant. The place is dark and there’s no one here." It is 10:00 am. We are supposed to open at 8:00. "You have got to be kidding me!!!!!"

Seems my best, most trustworthy employee didn’t actually read the schedule…she simply assumed she was supposed to work at 2:00 pm, which is when she usually (but by no means always) is scheduled to work on Fridays. And she is the one with the key.

A heart attack, an ulcer, and a nervous breakdown later, the restaurant is open, customers are being served, and my family and I are sitting down to the meal that we had planned to bring home and enjoy in a leisurely manner seated around the fire in my family room. Except we are all at the restaurant…and I am exhausted. I am, however, now able to leave the place in the hastily reassembled hands of my not-so-capable crew and resume my previously planned holiday activities with my family. We will go to that Christmas Bazaar. And we will have fun, goddammit...

A Holiday Story

2006-11-25T22:24:00.000-08:00

This past seven days have been the very definition of the week from hell. Sales are plummeting, and I am clueless (apparently) how to stop the skid. We tried a holiday open house last Saturday, which we advertised lightly with signs and posters at the café, and an ad in the local paper. NOBODY came. In fact, even our few remaining regulars stayed aggressively away from our doomed little effort. Not only did we not experience even the slightest spike in sales for the day…sales actually dipped. I had wines that nobody tasted, hot cider that nobody quaffed, and Cookie Lee jewelry that nobody looked at. The poor Cookie Lee rep came all the way from Beaverton for the event. And, of course, I was so sorry for her that I dropped nearly two hundred bucks on jewelry…

I was mortified. All I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and pull the top in after me.

Then came Monday. A beautiful day. I had scheduled my new cook to open the kitchen, freeing my morning for, oh…let’s see…a walk on the dike with the dog. Luckily, I decided to jump into the shower before the walk. I’m getting dressed, the phone rings. It’s my opening counter girl. New cook has called in with some story about being in the hospital (does this sound at all familiar???) and can I come in to work now? Poor neglected dog gets rammed again and Mom rushes into work. New cook’s condition degenerates from burst ovarian cyst to bloody urine to passed kidney stone in the space of 36 hours.

My entire family is due up from Eugene for Thanksgiving. I have already decided to have the meal at the restaurant, thereby saving me the trouble of cleaning and destroying my kitchen several times over before the end of the holiday. However, since I am now pulling double shifts on Monday and Tuesday, and working open ‘til almost close on Wednesday, I’m trying to figure out exactly when I’m supposed to prepare sleeping accommodations for imminent family invasion. I talk husband into closing the restaurant for me, rush home after only twelve hours of work and attempt to speed-clean the guest bedrooms.

I am lucky…I managed a fairly thorough cleaning about a week and a half ago, and since we don’t actually live in the house anymore, it is a relatively simple matter to kick it back into shape. But I’m so tired that it takes me three times as long as it should; and I decide to have a couple of glasses of wine on an empty stomach and end up getting waaaay loopy. When I finally give up and try to go to bed, I am so tipsy I cannot lie down without setting off major room spins. So, though I have to be at work at 7:30 the next day, I am up until after 2 am, waiting for the effects of the alcohol to dissipate to the point where I can lay my head on my pillow.

Thanksgiving dawns blustery, cold and rainy…but I manage to get my vacuuming done, and set things to rights in the house before going out to the restaurant to begin preparations for the meal…

Comings and Goings

2006-11-11T22:20:00.000-08:00

I lost TWO cooks in less than a week. One disappeared mid-shift last Wednesday night, and another just stopped showing up, as of last Sunday. I still haven’t heard from kid #2. I have to assume he decided he couldn’t handle two jobs… I should have known better than to hire him, but he seemed SO eager during the interview. I had a feeling right away that he wasn’t going to work out. Still…I didn’t expect things to transpire in exactly this way.

I don’t know why, but I’m not panicked about the whole thing. The lousy weather has severely curtailed our business, and I know in my heart that I am fully capable of being the only cook, should it come to that. And it has been a good thing for me to finally take control of my kitchen; if only to give over that control when I finally hire someone capable and trustworthy. Maybe the one I hired today will turn out to be that. Or maybe not. In the end, all I can do is keep trying to move forward and trust that in due time the Universe will provide what I need.

At least this person I hired today is only thirteen years my junior. Presently, my oldest employees are in their early twenties. And I have to admit, working with all these young people makes me feel older than dirt. Being childless, Husband and I do not have that connection to the younger generation that other folks our age have. I remember my own mom and dad going through a sort of "second youth" in the seventies, when we kids were all crazy teenagers. We were their link to the pop culture of the time, and they chose the bits and pieces of it that they were able to embrace (For dad, it was long sideburns, "flared" pants, and leisure suits… My mother, on the other hand, discovered pantsuits, and, well…wine.)

Fifteen years ago, when I was managing my little bakery, I had a crew full of college students (and JackieJ .) I felt pretty hip...I felt like I could hold my own in a conversation with them. Then again, I was only in my mid-thirties myself. I wasn’t quite old enough to be their mother. It had been less than a decade since I had fallen off the edge of the earth, pop-culture wise. The music of the eighties seemed new to me; the girls could at least remember the songs, though they were in middle school when those tunes hit the charts.

So, today, I’m in the kitchen with my last remaining cook. We have settled on a radio station called "Charlie FM," whose motto is "We Play Everything." And so they do. Today we heard everything from Dean Martin’s "That’s Amore" to…well, whatever it is they listen to these days. Damned if I can name one current band.

Anyhow, they come up with stuff that you haven’t heard in a million years. This morning, "Our Lips Are Sealed" came on, and I said, "Wow, now here’s one you haven’t heard in forever." For some reason, I assumed my twenty-year-old cook would be familiar with this song… This song that I think of as not that old. This song that came out roughly five years before he was born. Augh! Yep. I am indeed older than dirt.

I recently got the first haircut NOT from hell that I have had in, like, the last three years. And I had a weave done, so I have this nice blonde highlight thing going on. By all rights, I should be able to take stock of my reflection and be pleased that I don’t look half bad for a broad of fifty-one. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m forced to consort with a gaggle of cute, firm, nubile, WAY young girls every day. For the first time in my life, I kid you not, I look in the mirror and see a middle-aged woman staring back at me. And I think, "Who the hell is that?"

So, will this new enterprise prove a vehicle by which I prove that I am as capable as any sprout less than half my age? Or will it show me once and for all that I am, indeed, well and finally over that fabled Hill? Time—that commodity of which I feel myself increasingly losing control—will tell.

I AM Happy... Really!

2006-11-03T22:13:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, I was drowning. I began to seriously question my abilities as a cook, a manager…a human being. Today, four months into the challenge, I have regrouped somewhat. I realize now what I hadn’t the patience to figure out back then: that I had to learn the routine first, before I could fix it. I had to put in several hundred hours of "just doing it" before I could make it mine and take it to the next level. These days, I find myself alternately awash in the old doubts, and recognizing that these tiny baby steps I take each day really are moving me forward.

This morning, I sat in an inconspicuous place in the restaurant, watching it fill up with breakfasters and lingering morning coffee drinkers. The noise level rose, a cheerful sound to me, regardless of what any of the myriad conversations might actually have been about. I couldn’t stifle my smile…couldn’t help thinking, "What a nice, comfy, welcoming place to be, here on this nasty November Oregon morning. And it’s mine." It hardly bears believing.

So, lest you all think me ungrateful for this marvelous opportunity I have been given, lest you think I am such a hopelessly negative person that not even the fulfillment of this lifelong dream could make me happy… Just know that I am grateful. And happy. And desperately tired, and a trifle overmatched. Maybe not completely loving it yet…but definitely getting there.

Changes

2006-10-28T22:05:00.000-07:00

Late this afternoon, I took Ms. Dog over to the park and threw the frisbee for her. She has been so absolutely forlorn since I started working seventy hours a week. It’s funny…all those first five years of her life when I was home almost all the time, she didn’t seem overly interested in me. Most days, she’d spend the hours dozing in her bed at the top of the stairs, and I wouldn’t see hide nor hair of her unless she had to go out. I had no reason to believe she made any particular note of my presence or absence. Now, when I do make my rare conscious appearances about the household, she sticks to me like glue. Ball or other toy in her mouth, big sad eyes beseeching.

Truth be told, her issue probably isn’t me; I imagine it has more to do with the fact that the normal fabric of her existence has been…wrinkled. Animals are creatures of habit. They have a hard time dealing with change. I can relate…

Change. In the space of four months—less than one percent of my life (and this late in my life)—everything has changed. The way I live…the clothes I wear, the food I eat, the people I know, the motivations behind my every move. Standing in the park this evening, with the light of the sinking autumn sun painting the orange and red leaves oranger and redder… it seemed like only a short time since I took my camera out about the neighborhood to celebrate the bonfire of fall, 2005. Yesterday. But an entirely different reality.

A cognitive dissonance bordering on vertigo buzzed in my head. This person who throws the frisbee for the dog in the late evening sun, smiles and sighs at the woodsmoke and the colors and the mist and the crisp air, this is me. No…this was me. Now I’m…someone else. Something else. I don’t know who I am anymore. I feel like my poor dog…like I want to glue myself to some piece of my past, with my ball in my mouth and my big sad eyes beseeching.

Anybody Got Some Bread And Cheese...?

2006-10-24T22:13:00.000-07:00

The bed is calling. A siren song increasing in pitch…until I am hardly aware of anything else. But the keyboard calls, too. A lower, softer, but more insistent call. It’s calling me to…whine.

What a day. What a week…what a last several months, in fact.

Days like today make me despair of ever finding my stride as an entrepreneur. There is a list as long as my driveway of things that need to be addressed. That have needed to be addressed ever since I walked through the doors of that café as the prospective owner four months ago. Some things that seemed ever-so-important three months ago—things like trying to keep my house in order, or making sure the dog gets exercised every day, or keeping up with the Weight Watchers program—have become such unimaginable fantasies that they have fallen right off the forty-foot list. Only to be replaced by ten or twenty items needing more urgent attention. My world is completely out of control. And for someone like me, to whom some might refer as a control freak, this is anything but okay.

When I walked through the door of the restaurant this morning, I was immediately sprayed in the face with shit that was already hitting the fan; and for the next seven hours, without so much as a potty break, I soldiered on, head bent, into the teeth of that excrement-laden gale. All my plans for a productive day, for a day where I would have the chance to address at least one of the items on the forty-foot "to-do" list, bit the big one once again. Even the healthy food I had packed into my satchel before I left the house this morning never made it to its intended target. Breakfast was a piece of cheese bread made by mistake, thrown down my gullet instead of into the trash can. Lunch was half an apple—the half that was approximately a cup more than I needed for my curry salad.

Every night, I swear that I cannot continue to run this business by the seat of my pants. So I plan a productive, serene, in-control day for the morrow. Then reality hits me square in the face when I roll out of bed the next day. And there I am, swinging around by my back-pocket seams once again.

One step forward, two steps back would feel like amazing progress. I can’t buy a step forward; every time I lift my foot, I get blown back a half a mile.

Done griping now. Time for sleep.

D-I-R-T

2006-09-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

This morning, my front counter girl poked her head into the kitchen to relay a question put to her by a customer:

"How do you spell ‘dirt?’"

Which is more pathetic? The fact that this guy--on his cel phone--had to consult my counter person for this, or that she had to then ask me?

A little scary, this proof positive that there are at least three adults loose in the world who are slightly fuzzy about a first-grade vocabulary word.

…and so, the first thing that popped into my mind was, "You mean, as in ‘dumber than…?’"

Snakebit

2006-09-25T22:04:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to take my own advice to heart. I wanted to start out the week in control, on top of things, slightly more rested than I have been (we got the hell out of Dodge yesterday…packed some bags and went down to Eugene for the day…) I was ready…really ready…for today to be something like the first day of the rest of my life.

So, I wake up at 5:45 to the beginnings of a beautiful day. I roll up to the side door of the café at 6:58. I decided last week when I made the schedule that I could save a half-hour of employee labor by opening both the kitchen and the front counter. So I make the coffee, start the bacon and sausage, set up the kitchen for breakfast, take down all the chairs from on top of the tables, and cheerfully wait for my first customers—and my 8:00 counter person—to arrive.

8:00 comes and goes…I have customers, but no counter person. 8:05….8:10…counter person is still a no-show. I am trying to wait on customers, make espressos, and cook breakfasts, and I need to dodge into my "office" to grab the phone number of this missing employee. Round about 8:15, I manage to make the phone call.

"Hello, is Counter Girl there?"

"Counter Girl is unavailable."

"Ummm….this is her work calling. She’s supposed to be here…"

"Counter Girl is in the hospital."

"Oh. And someone was going to let me know this…when?"

"I was unaware that she had to work today…"

"Okay…well, could someone please call me and let me know what’s going to be happening in the next few days….?"

Jesus H. Christ. What the fuck else could happen? This girl is one of my first batch of new hires, which as of this writing appears to be going down in spectacular flames. Here are the stunning results of my first hiring wave: one promises to call me back and I never hear from her again. One accepts the job (and a uniform shirt) but calls me before her first day of work to say she’s accepted another position. I never see her, or my shirt, again. Of the two that actually did show up to work, one is now out for God knows how long, and the other has been hijacked by one of her other part-time jobs so that she’s only available to me five hours a week. Net gain: less than zero. Time and energy invested in training completely wasted.

I know I must look like a total bitch, looking at another person’s misfortune only from the aspect of how it is about me. I mean, I like this girl, and I feel bad that she has run into this complicated web of health crises in the last two weeks. But she’s in the hospital getting the treatment she needs. On the other hand, the immediate fallout from her health crisis for me is that all that wonderful "administrative time" I lavished upon myself on this week’s schedule has gone utterly up in smoke. Today was another grueling fourteen-hour-day, which found me running the store with one other person—a girl who is now in her third week of employment with me. And then I also had the pesky former owner hanging around wanting attention. And flames shooting out of the back of the deep fryer. Thank god it wasn’t busy, or we would have been SO completely screwed. As it is, I’m just sitting here physically and emotionally strung out once again. You would think I would be getting used to it.

I don’t know. It just seems like things are determined not to come together for me here. I can NOT catch any kind of a break. Tonight as I was driving home, almost in tears from the frustration of busting my ass for yet another day and getting absolutely nowhere, for the first time, the words, "I want out…" tried to form themselves into a real seed of capitulation. I won’t let myself go there… I know things will eventually get better. But right now, it seems like I’m destined to spin my wheels for an unspecified length of time. And what I really need is to get some traction under me and make some forward progress before I get totally mired in the muck.

It’s gotten so that I can hardly look forward to going to work every day, because I don’t know what new crisis is going to hit me right between the eyes this time. Speaking of which, I had better climb in bed and try to prepare myself for the next wave…

Pausing to Refresh

2006-09-23T21:59:00.000-07:00

I decided to compose another whiney entry about the hardships of a fledgling entrepreneur. Sat down at the computer and found that my hands hurt so much, I can barely type. The arthritis is bad enough…but since I’ve tried TWICE in the past week to sever various pieces of my poor, swollen arthritic digits, they are really giving me a raft of shit. Is there such a thing as a "Hand Fixer?" I could also use some Playtex Chain-mail Gloves ("so flexible you can pick up a dime...")

What a week at the little café! Business was SOOO terrible early on, I wondered exactly why it was we were bothering to open the doors. By Friday, I had just about written off the week. Then my cook called in sick, and I ended up being THE cook for the entire day. Chained to the kitchen for fourteen hours. And of course, it was the busiest day we had all week. Honestly, I was so exhausted by the time I left there last night, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Exhaustion. It is my constant state of existence these days. And it is NOT a good thing. I know better than to let myself get into this condition. I know that I am no good to anybody or anything when I’m so tired that just remaining vertical feels like a feat worthy of a standing ovation. How can I achieve anything, make plans, take the restaurant forward, when it’s all I can do to drag myself through t a fourteen-hour day of the sweat-hog labor it takes to run the place?

I’m all for rolling up my sleeves and getting in there, shoulder to shoulder with the employees. If that were what I was doing—demonstrating my personal philosophy of not asking anyone to do something I’m not willing or able to do myself—it would be fine. But in reality, what I’m doing is trying to wear every hat in the place at once. And that is not getting me anywhere. Lesson number one is just about in the can: A successful entrepreneur must get an adequate staff, train them properly, and then turn them loose to do what they were hired to do. Okay…my first move has to be "get an adequate staff." And believe it or not, I’m actually working on that. I wrote next week’s schedule with an eye to giving me enough administrative time to accomplish that feat—interview and hire more staff.

That’s the first thing on the list…that "to do" list I have yet to actually write. I’m afraid to write it, really…afraid it will be so hugethat I will be overwhelmed. On the other hand, without a physical list, in my current state of exhaustion, I’m having all kinds of difficulty organizing my time and getting focused on what really needs to be done. I barely eek out the time to write payroll checks and pay the bills. (And, by the way, I realized I need to fire my accountant. That’s a story for a different day…)

I know, now, exactly what it means to be "too tired to sleep." Funny how I’ve always scoffed at that cliché… For the first time in my life, I’m experiencing the combination of mental, physical, and emotional overload that creates exactly that state. And it is SOOO strange. I tried to describe it in an earlier post…that feeling of running on depleted batteries. It’s as if my connection to reality is dimmed. Stuff comes at me, but it takes a tick and a half longer than normal to penetrate the fog. I’m used to thinking and reacting quickly in any given situation. I’m used to prioritizing on the fly and organizing my day in such a way as to maximize my progress toward a goal. Always on the right path, always making progress up the mountain. These days, I feel like I’m trying to scrabble up the hill on talus. One step forward, slide back two. I’m using twice as much energy as I should be just staying in the same place. What’s wrong with this picture?

What I have to figure out now is how to refresh myself without taking a month’s vacation. Or even a day off. There must be a way…

How NOT to Land A Job With An Utterly Desperate Employer

2006-09-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

I’ve owned a restaurant for 71 days. An indescribable roller-coaster ride. If you had a couple of spare hours, and I could reconstitute the trillion brain cells I’ve shorted out in the process, I’d endeavor to tell you about it. But as things begin to settle into a routine, and I regain some of my equilibrium, stories do float to the surface. Stories that my writer’s heart can’t not share, when conscious time permits…

As I knew would happen, the crew I inherited from the previous regime has begun to exit, one by one. Since returning triumphant from our record performance at the Scandinavian Festival, I have lost three employees. One of them actually gave notice. The other two…not so much. Let’s see…one left a message on the café’s voicemail at midnight, saying he wouldn’t be coming in the next day because he quit. And the most recent—a "woman" of thirty-four whom one would assume should know better—told me on Thursday that Friday would be her last day. Annoying, frustrating, and inconvenient…but not unanticipated. What can I do but roll with the punches?

What has been unanticipated, however, are the dynamics of running a small business in a small town. And the incredibly tiny labor pool available into which to tap to supplement my dwindling crew. Three weeks ago, I interviewed and "hired" four…two of whom actually reported for their first day of work. And one of those has, in the interim, acquired two more part-time jobs, making her availability to me limited and unreliable.

Which is how it came to pass that on Thursday, in the aftermath of Ms. X apprising me of her one-day notice, I sat down with the telephone and the pathetic pile of applications I had stockpiled through the auspices of two newspaper ads and a sign in the window. From a field of six acceptable applications, I managed to wangle three interviews. Since losing one of my three remaining cooks (Mr. Midnight Voicemail), I have been working seventy hours a week. (The café is only open 74 hours a week, or I’m sure that total would be higher…) On Saturdays, we close at 3; it is one of the few times I can conduct job interviews while I’m still at least partially cognizant. So, today was designated "Half-conscious Interview Day."

Interview Number One: Applicant arrives fifteen minutes early. Applicant speaks English. Applicant is dressed (relatively) conservatively. Has thought to insert an almost invisible "plug" in her pierced lip. Applicant is hired on the spot. Shake hands. See ya on Wednesday.

I report back to my two counter girls that I have hired this applicant. Joke with them that my interview questions are, "Are you breathing? Do you have a pulse?" They laugh. Not all that amusing, really. Too true to be funny…

Interview Number Two. Applicant is breathing. Has a pulse. She, too, is hired on the spot.

In the back of my mind, I am wondering if I have become an "employee whore." If I am so desperate for help that I will hire anyone. To be fair, I did draw the line at the homeless man who submitted a barely legible application. Although I’m not entirely convinced that I wouldn’t have set up an interview with him had he supplied an address or a phone number…

And then along comes Interview Number Three.

She is dressed…not all that objectionably. A strange coral—colored matching top and capris. With a rather deep décolletage, about which she is obviously not the least self-conscious. I’m willing to ignore the tendency for my focus to shift from her cleavage to the huge dark circles under her eyes to her unkempt, peroxided hair. When she opens her mouth to speak, I cringe inwardly…her voice has that sort of ignorant, quasi-southern, not quite cowboy cadence cultivated to sound optimally redneck. Acknowledging that I have a tendency to be somewhat of a dialect snob, and prompted by the urgency of my present need, I club my aging hippie soul to insensibility, and wade into the interview with what I hope is an open mind.

Unfortunately, having dealt with the sound of her voice, I now have to digest what she is actually saying. And I can’t really believe she is regaling me with stories about the messy divorce she is currently in the middle of. And that her soon-to-be-ex is sleeping with her ex-roommate. And that the reason she needs the job is that she needs to move out of "his" house and get her own apartment. She and her two kids, of whom she is about to become a single mom. Out of the corner of her mouth she wisecracks, "wouldn’t it be funny if you were also interviewing my husband’s new girlfriend for this job?"

The flags appearing before my eyes are getting redder and redder, but I am so desperate, I decide to ask her about her customer service experience. The first story that pops into her mind, to demonstrate her ability "to handle all types of customers" is about the time at the Winn Dixie when she chased a "colored man" out the front door of the store, steaks flying out of his baggy shirt and pants…but by golly, she stopped ‘im, and got that meat back. And got her tires slashed by his girlfriend for her trouble.

I look at my watch. Surely this interrogation has gone on for hours. It’s 4:10. We have been "interviewing" for an interminable ten minutes. (And I have already learned so very much about her…!) My depleted brain is chugging on its last fumes, but I am desperately looking for a way out of this conversation. She has been filling out applications for months, she tells me. She is mystified as to why she can’t find a job. I am not. Mystified.

Eventually, it occurs to me that I can tell her I’m going to be interviewing a few more people, and then making calls for second interviews in a week or so. This will keep me from having to tell her to her face that I can’t possibly hire her (which I’m convinced I could not do without somehow telegraphing what a horrifying prospect she is…) In the blurry recesses of my exhausted mind, I’m already planning how I can "lose" her application and just never bother to call her back. Not a week from now, or any other time. I’m sorry I can’t be more mature, more professional, more considerate of the applicant’s feelings. But I have only just enough presence of mind to look out for my own survival. And this girl might as well have come into the interview with "Do not hire me under any circumstances" tattooed on her forehead.

So, on the one hand, I am bummed. I really, really, really need the help. But, on the other hand, I’m gratified to learn that desperation has not blown my standards completely out of the water.

Just another day on the roller coaster…

Taking It

2006-08-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

The alarm went off at 6. A creaky arthritic arm snaked out from under the blankets to pound the snooze bar. Twice. These days, I go to bed exhausted, and wake up in the same state. Somewhere around noon, with the help of my two-ounce daily allowance of caffeinated beverage, my eyes will open all the way—for about two hours. Then I float back down into that semi-fogged world of bleary-eyed sleep deprivation I’ve inhabited since July 1.
This morning, I dragged my butt down the stairs after my shower…about fifteen minutes later than I had planned. I wanted to get to the café at 7…a half-hour earlier than I really needed to be there. So I was fifteen minutes late for being a half-hour early. And now I needed to hurry out the door if I wanted to get there in time to let the key-less cook in for the start of his shift.
The sprinklers had been turned on, and mewling livestock had been rewarded with bowls of kibbles slid under their noses. Dog had been sent out the back door to take care of business. Chores accomplished, I collected keys, purse, satchel and prepared to fly out to the car. But the kitchen window was open, just a crack…and the soft calls of the goldfinches hovering around the seed sock derailed my businesslike exit.
My birds! The drip irrigation was still dripping, and I have set up one nozzle to dribble into the bird bath, refreshing the water and (hopefully) keeping it from turning too green and scummy in the summer heat. One little yellow bird was merrily bathing under that tiny drip. Fluffing wings, wagging tail feathers, scattering tiny droplets in a joyful shower on the other birds waiting their turn. I was lost in the moment. For several seconds, I couldn’t have moved, couldn’t have dragged myself away from that vignette if the house was on fire. I consciously ignored the little voice that droned that I didn’t have time for this…that I was going to be late. And the thought crossed my mind, about taking time. Taking time to smell the roses.
For several years, I have not had to take time. The roses were there. I had the time. I smelled them.
Now, I have no time. It’s all used up. There is not a moment to spare. If I’m not rushing around putting out fires,walking tightropes, planning changes, poring over invoices and schedules, I’m cramming in a couple hours of sleep in between. And those "boring" days when I had oodles and oodles of time float just outside my grasp. As unattainable as the Grail.
And now I get it. The part about taking the time. So I took it.
I watched, enchanted, while that little bird enjoyed his ablutions. In less than a minute, he finished and flitted away. But those few stolen seconds sent me off with a smile and a calm that changed the entire fabric of my day.
Time. Take some. For the important things.

Five Minute Sound Bites

2006-08-03T21:05:00.000-07:00

August 3--I’ve discovered that under normal circumstances, caffeine (which I had all but quit five years ago) gives me a pleasant buzz, makes me chatty and friendly, and generally improves my mood and sociability. However, when I am stressed, rushed, and dangerously sleep deprived, caffeine turns me into the bitchiest harpy that ever walked. I have no patience, I throw things, I drop things, I say stupid things, and I just about burst into tears at the slightest provocation. Note to self: Quit caffeine. As soon as I can stop long enough to figure out how to do that…

After ten years away from the customer service game, I have come to realized that customers have not changed. They will come to the restaurant in large, noisy groups when we are under-staffed. They will want whatever we just ran out of, even if we haven’t sold one of (whatever) in the last five months. They will beat on the doors when they are locked, but will not venture to show their faces during normal business hours. These are parts of the Credo of the Customer that I have long been aware of. The trick is to make them think you are understaffed, unprepared, or closed…just to get them to come in.

What?????

August 4--So, in the last two days, we have burnt, spoiled, dropped, or otherwise ruined about a hundred dollars (raw cost) worth of food. That would translate into about $400 worth of sales. I have a crew of cooks who wouldn’t use a timer to save their lives. Black bacon, quiches left in the oven overnight, turkey that comes out of the oven after ten hours looking like mop strings. I’ve already decided I have to fire the whole kitchen crew. Trouble is, this is a small town, and I don’t exactly have them lining up at the door to come work for me. Apparently, the previous ownership shot through the available labor pool rather quickly. That’s another story…

I bought some flowers to put out on the sidewalk, around the doors and under the windows, to make it look as if there actually WAS an inviting eating establishment open in this place. Despite the previous owners warnings that I not change anything lest I lose the loyalty of our regular customers, I’ve found that our ranks of "regular customers" are so small that I need to do anything I can possibly do to recruit MORE regular customers. Including changing the menu, changing the staff, changing the hours—all those things that Mr. Previous Owner was certain ought to be written in stone. Stone crumbles, my friend… And "regular" customers tend to ask, "What have you done for me lately???"

Frazzled

2006-07-07T20:57:00.000-07:00

Has the past week been jam-packed full of things pulling me in a million different directions?

Saturday was my first full day as proprietor of the Hot Flash Café. It was also my husband’s 50th birthday. And so, after putting in a full day at my new (to me) café, I had to rush home and speed-clean the house for guests. Which meant running around the house and vacuuming up enough animal hair to knit a ninth pet; dealing with other more unmentionable "consequences" of shedding animals; making two extra bedrooms habitable by humans (one set of which neglected to apprise me of their intention to visit until approximately one day before said visit was to commence…aarrgh!) And then I had to shower, shave, and pick out an outfit appropriate for a fine dining establishment. All in the space of about an hour and a half. The guest of honor, meanwhile, spent the morning and half the afternoon selling food at the Farmers’ Market in Tillamook. He rumbled back into town about the same time I got home from work; for his exciting half-century milestone birthday present, he got an hour-long nap, while I ran around and did the white tornado thing.

Sunday morning, I went to work, and all my houseguests (my two sisters and their husbands) assembled at the café for a celebratory breakfast…a sort of "congratulations on the new venture" affair. I was able to join the festivities intermittently, between customers…

Monday was my oldest sister’s 25th wedding anniversary. And so this over-extended, hyped-out, sleep-deprived fledgling entrepreneur found herself shutting the doors at the café and loading herself into her car for an hour drive to a restaurant up the road on the way to Seaside, where sister and husband were celebrating said anniversary. And husband was setting up to sell food at the Fourth of July celebration in Seaside.

Between trying to apply myself to the new business venture, and pay adequate homage to Great Moments in Family History, I am just about toast.

Queen of the World

2006-07-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

For the last four days, I’ve worked harder than I have in a very long time. And yet, it hasn’t seemed like hard work at all. What a trip, what a high (for all I know about getting high…)! I can’t remember, in my whole life, being this unreservedly thrilled about anything.

Nothing I’ve known or done compares to this. To having my own place. To being "the Proprietor." The owner. El hefe. The buck-stopper.

For years now, long and painful years, I’ve felt as if the best part of my life was behind me. Like I’d had my decade of prosperity, but that was then, and this is now. That it was all going to be downhill...from that place about a dozen years ago, when the slide began. When so many of the things I knew and loved started to be stripped from me, one after another after another.

I feel like Job. Like the guy who had everything, and then lost it. Suffered the tortures of the damned, was millimeters from cursing God and dying, but held on. Held on, because maybe he didn’t know what else to do.

Because once you’ve had goodness, once you’ve had fulfillment, once you’ve had "success," there’s a kind of accidental faith that keeps you going through the dark spots. You can’t stop nursing that tiny spark of hope in the deepest reaches of your mind. You had "it" once; so you know it exists. And if you had it once, you can have it again. That’s what has kept you putting one foot in front of the other, through the dry and the dull and the desperate; even when it seemed like there was nowhere to go.

It’s frightening, to love an experience this much. But I am nothing if not an inveterate cynic; I have no illusions that this could not all evaporate in an instant. I’ve lived through the rise and the fall. There’s no reason to believe I cannot fall again.

But feeling like this for even these few days will have made it worth the risk.

I’m Queen of the World!

Where The Rubber Meets The Road

2006-06-30T20:50:00.000-07:00

So, this is it. The Big Day.

I have purposely not been focusing on what this day means, in terms of my life. In terms of my future. In terms of the awesome responsibility I will be taking on my shoulders. (Not to mention the awesome amounts of money changing hands.) The big picture is just too much for me to assimilate, and too overwhelming for me to contemplate. So mostly, I’ve been looking at this as a pile of random jigsaw puzzle pieces, each one representing one of the million responsibilities, plans, forecasts, talents, challenges, crap-shoots and sure things that, when properly assembled—over a ridiculously long period of time that is sure to try my very limited patience—will become a picture of a successful entrepreneurial venture.

Success. It’s hard to even define the word, as it applies to this situation. I’m pretty sure my hopes are not too high. At this point, I’m thinking if we don’t go broke in eighteen months we can claim success. Actually making money hasn’t even entered the picture yet.

And I’m pretty sure it’s the process that I enjoy the most, not the expected result, whatever that may be. Wednesday night, I stayed up until 2 am designing new table tents advertising our (pitiful) beer and wine list and our tiny array of dinner specials. I proudly put them out on the tables yesterday afternoon, modestly accepting the oohs and ahs of the staff. (Unfortunately, my little project seemed to act like customer repellent. Not one customer darkened the doors of the café for two hours yesterday evening. I sincerely hope that all the other little "subtle" changes I’m planning to make as soon as the ink dries on the contracts don’t have similarly negative effects. I don’t want to go in the crapper within the first three months…)

This afternoon at 4:30 pm we will sit down and do the deed…the deed which the ever-cautious bean-counter genes I inherited from my father have been agitating against since the idea of buying a business first entered my head. Luckily for me, I have been able to blow off those genes at times when I knew that listening to them would keep me from having any kind of a real go at life. So, Dad…put in a good word for us with the Universe and just…hang on. The ride’s about to begin.

Still Alive...Barely

2006-06-25T20:47:00.000-07:00

A week ago, I wondered if I would be reduced to posting snippets of whatever creative flashbulbs went off in my head in the midst of all the hubbub. At this point, I’m wondering whether my brain has enough spark left to generate even a firefly-esque flash. I passed fried a long time ago. I’m very nearly comatose.

The sheer amount of stuff we are trying to pack into every twenty-four hours has produced one interesting side effect. For the past many months, I have felt like time has been slipping through my hands like oiled rope. Lately, there is so much going on, so many things to keep track of, that time seems to be expanding–like one of those new hefty garbage bags—to hold it all in. Yesterday, I went to the hardware store on my break in order to get a key made. When I thought about that little errand today, it seemed like it happened at least a week ago.

Five more days to go until we sign the papers. I’m being stretched in a hundred directions, some of which I haven’t even had time to think about, yet. Today, I told Mr. Current Owner that I thought my head was going to explode, and he said, "Well, don’t do it in here. We don’t want to clean up the mess." Ha ha. No sympathy from that quarter.

Maybe tomorrow morning I will have enough time, and have my batteries half-charged enough, to go into some detail about what’s been going on. But now….now I just have to go to bed. A task much easier said than done, since, on top of everything else, the mercury has soared over 100° here in the Columbia Valley for the second day in a row, and sleeping is something not best accomplished in an upstairs bedroom that a bank of west-facing windows has lately transformed into a sauna. It always cools down at night around here, and we’re counting on two fans blowing full blast right on the bed to make the accommodations somewhat livable within the next couple of hours. Meanwhile I’m…typing. And falling asleep with my fingers on the keypad. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

My Two Worlds Colliding

2006-06-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

For the past week, I’ve existed with one foot in each of my two worlds. Trying to put time in at the café, so that I can be up to speed by the time we take over, and at the same time, preparing for one of our larger, and one of my favorite, events with the concession trailer. It’s been hectic, and busy, and up until yesterday, I thought, "I haven’t felt this alive in a very, very long time."

Today, though, I think I hit the wall. Things are not going well for me at the café. It’s no surprise that the crew is not welcoming me with open arms; I’m bombarded by negative vibes emanating from all concerned. And while I completely understand why they feel as they do, it is extremely hard for me to function with that dark cloud hanging over me. It was busy during lunch today (unfortunately, the first time it has been busy all week…which doesn’t bode well, does it?) And I didn’t know whether to jump in and help or stay out of the way. I felt like it didn’t matter which I did, it was going to be resented. I spent six hours there this morning, and by the time I left, I felt like I had a thousand-pound weight strapped to my back.

In contrast, yesterday I drove the trailer out to Astoria to set up the booth for the Scandinavian Midsummer Festival. It was so very nice to fall into my old routine. Café de la Rue fits me like a well-worn shoe. Whereas The Hot Flash Café feels like someone else’s custom-fitted boot. It isn’t comfortable at all. Yet.

I feel very much like Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz, flashing back and forth between the Emerald City and the farm. When I’m behind the counter of Café de la Rue, I feel like "We’re home, Toto!" Struggling around in the negatively charged atmosphere of the café, I know I’m not in Kansas anymore. And I do hope that I won’t come to realize I should never have left my own back yard to go looking for my heart’s desire…

Where Things Stand Now

2006-06-07T20:36:00.000-07:00

Today, I delivered the non-refundable deposit the seller of the business we’re buying insisted he needed, in order to quit holding "other offers" over my head. So now, more than at any time up until now, this looks like a done deal. How I would love to be breathing a sigh of relief. How I would love to be looking forward, unconditionally thrilled, to assuming the captaincy of my own ship. But this whole exercise is turning out to be like a game of "Whack-a-mole." Have you ever played "Whack-a-mole?" It’s the arcade game where you get a big padded mallet, and you use it to pound these little mole-heads back into the holes they pop out of. As soon as you whack one mole, another pops out of another hole. Sometimes two or three at the same time.

So, I whacked the "financing" mole. And I mashed the "mollify the seller" mole. And I’m working on wrestling the "OLCC" (liquor license) mole back down into his little hole. But, what’s this? A monstrous head just popped out of a crater the size of a manhole. Egad...it’s the "present owner’s overly-emotional manager" mole! Mr. Present Owner has gone out of his way to warn me that this girl’s family has lived in the county for a hundred years, and that even the appearance that she has been ill-treated in the transition could cost me big in terms of community relations for the next...century. Oh. Thank you so much, Mr. Present Owner!

I have met this girl. She is very nice. She is sweet. She is eminently likeable. In fact, everybody likes her—customers, staff and (obviously) Mr. Present Owner himself.

She is the absolute antithesis of me.

Nothing can strike more abject fear into my heart than the prospect of dealing with a sweet, likeable, fragile psyche. I am the personification of the bull in the china shop, when it comes to personal relationships. I have no guile, no political savvy, no off button. As a general rule, whatever is in my mind just falls out my mouth. I know enough not to be outright rude or abusive, but somehow that makes the situation even worse. It really hurts my feelings when people don’t get me. If I had a rhinoceros-tough hide to go along with my social ineptitude, it wouldn’t matter to me that I make such a god-awful impression on most people the first (second, third, gotta-know-me-for-a-year-before-you-can-tolerate-me) time I meet them.

Mind you, I only have to work with this girl for two weeks. And Mr. Present Owner has already promised her a generous severance package. All she has to do is work with me long enough to allow me to get my feet under me concerning the day to day operation of the place. But when you combine what he has been so "kind" as to tell me about her, and what I know from having interacted with her for a couple weeks a year ago, I know that she and I will get along like gasoline and a match.

I am scared shitless. My friends…. Any suggestions?

Overthinking It

2006-06-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

For a moment, I consider that I am simply too old to be standing with a foot suspended over the abyss of the unknown. On the verge of leaning forward, about to shift the weight to that outstretched foot, confident that the resultant free-fall will be an escapade of the highest order. I have been there, and I have done that.

Thirty years ago, that expectation of adventure was richly rewarded. There may have been accompanying bumps, bruises, a compound fracture or two….but they always healed quickly, and always the golden nugget of knowledge, of experience, was squirreled away into memory.

Perhaps there are, at last, too many of those little nuggets stored in the cupboards and closets of my mind. They are stacked to the rafters and oozing out under the doors and around the hinges; no longer golden, but turned to dross. Unrewarded risks, confident forays into mud or mire, heedless wagers placed on losing horses… They mock me; they haunt me. They drag me down. To safety. To uncertainty. To paralysis.

All I can do is strap on the blinders…allow no look back, nor to the side, nor too far ahead. Certainly no further ahead than the next footfall. Just make myself keep moving, and I will get There. And once I am There, the fear, the restraint, the immobility will be pushed aside by the process of contriving to make it from day to day…the simple groundwork of success.

The Next Step in the Process

2006-05-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

Last night’s meeting at the bank took an hour and a half. After ninety minutes of stupid bullshit questions that mostly re-hashed things I had put in my presentation (I don’t think she read it…What a colossal waste of time!) we left without signing on any dotted line for any specific amount of money. Now, she says, she’ll have to "crunch the numbers" and will get back to us on Wednesday. Dammit! We got enough of a commitment out of her to at least believe this was going to happen eventually ("You guys looked real good for the last deal we tried to put together, and that was for more money…") But it certainly wasn’t the definite yes or no, here’s-how-much answer I was expecting to have by the end of the day.

We decided to proceed with the seller as if we had the money in hand. Called the seller’s agent to tell him we were ready to present an offer, we just wanted to know what the firm "cash price" was… And he basically blew us off. "Oh, we don’t write anything up right away. Just float us a number, I’ll present it to the seller, and he’ll either accept, reject, or counter." What? For god’s sake…I just want to buy this business. Can I please just buy this business????? Can you please just tell me how the hell much f’ing money he wants for it? We’re ready. We don’t have the time (or the patience) to play "Let’s Make a Deal."

So, last night I was up until midnight crafting a carefully worded email to the seller about how we think his asking price was fair, we just want to know what his "discount for cash is," and we thought everyone wanted to get this deal done as quickly as possible. Copied Mr. Seller’s Agent, and my husband’s work email (he was long asleep by the time I had finished the thing.)

Hop out of bed this morning hoping to see a reply. From somebody. Nothing. Damn. My guts are twisting into tighter and tighter knots about this. So I shoot off an email to the hubs asking if he read it and what did he think?

Three minutes later, the phone rings. It’s the hubs. "So?" I ask. "What did you think?" "I just got off the phone with (Mr. Seller.) He called me on my cel. I did the deal. Everything is agreed to."

"Wha-wha-WHAT? Hold the phone…WHAT?"

So there it is. Just like…getting hit in the face with a pie.

A very expensive, gourmet to the hilt, rich and yummy French Silk Cream Pie. Which, when the shock wears off, I intend to spend delicious hours licking up every single bit. In a year or two. When I might again have the time to attend to such things.

Yay!

And Now, We Wait

2006-05-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

I feel like I have just run a marathon. Today was THE day. The day to quit the hedging and second-guessing and put my money where my mouth is. Or, try to get someone to put money into my mouth. Or something.

This morning at 3 AM, I was stacking and patting down the last of the documents I had collected, copied, polished and printed for my presentation to the bank. To get the money. To buy the business. I had assembled, as best I could, snapshots of my life—old and new—that I hoped would tell the story of a competent, experienced restaurant manager on the threshold of realizing her lifelong dream of buying a place of her very own. It felt like walking down the runway in the bathing suit competition at a beauty pageant. Half-naked, exposed, wishing real life could be air-brushed…

I dragged myself out of bed at 8:30, attended to my chores, and rushed upstairs to get ready. It was so bizarre…superstition ruled my toilette. I hunted down my "lucky" shirt and built my dress-for-success outfit around it. I thought about lucky earrings, and realized I had one small pair left from the days of my late lamented dream job. They’re tarnished, bent and sticky with old hair-spray residue. But they had to be part of the ensemble. I even found, under my vanity, an old bottle of the cologne I used to wear back in those days. After a cursory test-sniff to determine whether it had gone off from age, I splashed that on as well. Liberally. Like holy water.

In the end, after all that trouble, I never even got to see the Loan Officer. She was busy with another client, so I just dropped off that folder full of my life’s blood at the front counter. She never saw my casual-yet-conservative power outfit, never glimpsed the sticky little onyx hearts that dangled from my ears, never got a whiff of Victoria’s Secret’s "Her Majesty’s Rose." It didn’t matter. All that mumbo jumbo had comforted me. It made me feel as if I had wrapped myself in a robe of positive ions. Old positive ions, but positive ions, nonetheless.

Arriving back home, I had a moment of panic that the ineffective-looking receptionist might not realize how hugely momentous was the information that I had entrusted into his hands. How direly it needed to be relayed to the all-powerful Loan Officer. I walked around the house,making coffee, scrounging up breakfast; but it was no good. I couldn’t get shed of that electric knife in my gut until I made the phone call. Called the Loan Officer, made sure she knew the packet—my life—was in her hands now. Casually, she laughed. "Oh, I haven’t seen it yet. They must have put it in my box." In your box? I wanted to scream. Go get it, woman! Have you no ken of how vital this is to the continued existence of the universe? But, no, that wouldn’t do. So I merely stuttered, "Well, I just wanted to make sure you knew I had dropped it off…"

I hung up the phone, and felt like all the air had just gone out of me. Like someone pulling the plug out of one of those big multi-colored punch balls we used to play with as kids. You’d pull out the cork, it would make that loud, flabby flatulence noise and go limp. And everybody would giggle.

Yep, all the spunk has just farted right out of me. Right now, I’m going to sit with my feet up and stare at…well, maybe nothing. Even television doesn’t sound appealing right now. I don’t want to think or worry or even move. For about an hour or so. And then I’ll blow some life back into myself, get up and go on to the next thing. Carrying around that little knot of apprehension in my stomach. Which is not likely to become untied until about 4:30 Monday afternoon. When I get to hear what fate the mighty Loan Officer has assigned my dream.