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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.