2/5/2011 3:29:14 PM
I always thought this guy was a prick, but I tried to stay out of this thread because I figured, hey, your business collapsing, that's gotta suck bad enough.But this is the stupidest thing I've ever laid eyes on:
2/5/2011 3:32:11 PM
2/5/2011 4:02:31 PM
Noen gave some awesome advice and if you choose not to take it you'll keep failing
2/5/2011 4:18:42 PM
^^ You weren't bitching about the economy. You were bitching about how "cheap" your customers were, and how they like going to "shitty" places. You were bitching about how everyone keeps leaving. You were bitching about taxes, minimum wage, the "system" in general. You were bitching about the location. Seems to me that the economy was the least of your problems.Your food distributor's pricing is something you could have found out BEFORE you started your business. Let me put it like this. Of almost all of the things you listed, you could have found them out before you started your business. Had you done your research, you would have found out that running a business in that area, or that location, was not viable. Who's fault is it that you didn't look up anything?And I could have sworn you opened your business about a year ago. The economy crashed about 2.5 years ago. If you opened a business in a bad economy, IT'S YOUR FUCKING FAULT!
2/5/2011 4:29:56 PM
2/5/2011 4:32:37 PM
Hey, since we are talking about it, mind telling us what your typical revenue and expenses are like? Did it ever look like you'd be profitable (in those first 7 months?) or was it just a long slow cash burn? For those of us playing at home, how many customers did you bring in on average? What was your advertising like? Did you notice any trends in the business? What exactly did you do to try and be successful?I have no plans of critiquing any of this (though others no doubt will), I'm honestly curious because I romanticize about starting my own business (even if its a side business) but I simply don't have a very good skill set for doing it (high tech isn't something you just do on the side).[Edited on February 5, 2011 at 4:33 PM. Reason : .]
2/5/2011 4:33:13 PM
^^ Adjust your prices accordingly. Everyone else did.
2/5/2011 4:35:16 PM
i'd be curious to know about that as well
2/5/2011 4:37:49 PM
2/5/2011 4:57:58 PM
the mcdonalds lawsuit isn't the frivolous when you realize that hot coffee isn't typically scalding hot. if you spill normal coffee on yourself you will not get full-thickness (3rd degree) burns. the discovery process revealed more than 700 claims of people being burned and documents showing that mcdonalds advised coffee be kept at 180-190 degrees (coffee is typically served at about 135 degrees, which is good because anything over 140 starts to have a burn potential)just get tired of hearing that used as an example of a frivolous lawsuit
2/5/2011 5:04:24 PM
i mean, it couldn't possibly be that the fucker that spilled the coffee on himself should have been a little more careful, could it? naaaaahoh, and I'm glad to hear your business failed. you always seemed to have a shitty outlook towards your customers AND employees. that generally doesn't bode well for a service establishment
2/5/2011 5:22:39 PM
they found that they were 20% negligent so the damages were reduced accordingly
2/5/2011 5:23:24 PM
pretty sure it was an old lady. oh, and the temperature was high enough to destroy reproductive organs.
2/5/2011 5:25:08 PM
I always thought you had the most eclectic beer selection I've ever seen. That selection makes even less sense after finding out it was for a strip mall restaurant in a military town.
2/5/2011 5:30:26 PM
^^ Nature beat the coffee to it...[Edited on February 5, 2011 at 5:32 PM. Reason : .]
2/5/2011 5:31:54 PM
2/5/2011 5:42:21 PM
2/5/2011 9:24:56 PM
If you lasted almost four years then you managed to do better than about 85% of the restaurants that open up. so at least there's that i guess.
2/5/2011 11:57:00 PM
stop complaining and pick yourself up from your boot straps.
2/6/2011 12:14:56 AM
I got tired of explaining to people that photography is not just as simple as pressing a button. People still didn't get why I was worth 150 an hour, plus printing costs and they couldn't get the high res images free after the sessions. Never mind, I'll just continue doing what I do best, find hot chicks and play real life Barbie for no apparent reason at all except to waste my time, effort and piss away my so called "talent". I was just fixated on the hot chicks part... then attempting to make a business out of it.
2/6/2011 12:15:34 AM
2/6/2011 2:02:48 AM
Everything must be done by a deadline you set. It's like an orchestra and you are multitasking hundreds of small tasks at once to rendezvous at a single point that's called a deadline. If you fuck up and get out of sync, you're orchestra will run at less than an optimal level. You are penalized and have to wait until your next deadline to try to make everything work again. You know what you have to do. That's the easy part. KNOWNS. We, in business, LOVE knowns. It's the UNKNOWNS that really fuck everything up.In planning day to day, no one is going to tell you you're going to have 10 customers or 80 customers today. They'll not going to tell you in advance what they're going to order. No one is going to tell you if they're going to call all at once or spread them out throughout the day. If people ordered consistently, life would be good. In reality, most days your sitting there doing nothing, nothing, nothing....then BAAAAAAAAM!!!! For one hour you get your ass handed to you, people get mad you're moving too slow, ask for discounts, ask for their money back, cancel their order, even though they physically see that there are LOTS of other customers ahead of them. Then as soon as 9 hits...nothing...nothing.. nothing again. Why don't I hire people from 8 to 9 then? Because the time the rush hits is COMPLETELY RANDOM. It can happen at 4pm, 7pm, 11pm, 1am, or even at 2:45am! It's ridiculous. It's like predicting when fish are going to feed in the ocean or a lake. You just have to sit there and wait and wait and wait and then BAAAAAAAM!!!! ... or no bam at all. You never know.I've tried talking to other business owners for help and they gave me the run around. I don't blame them. Why create more competition for yourself?? Your demise is their celebration.Fun Fact: People who said their businesses were doing great were actually failing. Yet, the people who said their places were doing crappy were actually succeeding.
2/6/2011 2:03:30 AM
In business, it's everyone for themselves. Distributors charge a minimum $500 for every truck. They only come once a week. I've asked other businesses if I could piggyback on their truck, meaning I'll tell him to order my product and I'll pick it up at their store. Sometimes customers order more than expected of one food item and you run out. I would do the same for him if he needed it. They didn't go for it. They felt like I was there to steal their lousy secrets lol. The only thing you can do is wait and wait and wait for your next truck to come. When you compensate by ordering more than you need people suddenly stop ordering the particular item and you have to throw most of it away! Then the minute you throw it away, they start ordering it again! Fuckers.Business is not something you can predict. Not for at least 7 years since days are offset by +1 every year. That means if Christmas falls on a friday and friday is your busiest day, then your friday will be all fucked up, whereas next year christmas falls on a saturday, and then your saturday is fucked up. You have to worry about all holidays messing with your business and people's spending habits. The weather is different every day, every year. The economic state is different every day, every year. You never know.Then you have to worry about payday. What day does payday fall on for military? It's the 1st and 15th. Is that a Friday or a Monday? Did you get the advertisement out on time? Can you even get it out? Are the weather conditions right? If it's raining, you don't want to put paper menus on doors or walk in the rain for two hours. If it's too windy, you're fucked, too. Is there snow on the ground? Can you deliver in the snow? Is it too hot and dehydrating to pass out fliers? Will a hurricane come and fuck up whether or not people leave their houses? Will my drivers risk being out in a hurricane for $2 tips? Will it flood in neighborhood? Will my power go out? Are your menus still in date? Are the coupons in date? Then you have to worry about competition.Will my competitors come behind me and take my fliers off the doors and put theirs on it?Fliers are not cheap, it's about $700 for 15,000. That's 4.6 cents per menu. Two people can put 400 menus on houses in 2 hours which is $18.66. $18.66 plus 2 hours of labor times 2 people at $10, yes $10! it's a lot more work than you think. That's $58.66 that you're competition causes you to lose per diem, plus the cost of the unknown business you COULD have generated. Now you have to sell $180 worth of product to make the $58.66 back.
2/6/2011 2:04:11 AM
Also, did Pizza Hut or Papa Johns just put out a new special to cut in their corporate competitors? They aren't even thinking about small businesses at that point. It's a competition in the big leagues now. The 3 pizza for $5 deals really has a huge impact on small pizza places. Cici's included.Then you have to worry about did the stock market crash? Did people lose a lot of money?What's in the local news? Did someone get shot in my neighborhood? Are they playing segments that scare people into not spending money? Telling people NOT to order out, but to go to the grocery store and use coupons instead? The effect lasts about a day.IF you manage to answer all that correctly, then you have to ask:Will my employee show up for work today?Will my employee be in a good mood or bad mood today?Will my employee be productive or lazy today?Will my customers be annoyingly difficult or easy today?Will I make enough money to pay for my employee today?Will I make enough money to cover utilities and rent today?Is all my food in date? Vegetables only last 3-7 days uncut. Dough only lasts 36 hours.Premade food only lasts 4 hours.I can get a lot of stuff at Sam's club or Restaurant Depot, but it takes TIME. Not something I can do during business hours.Will my equipment hold up? If one of the 17 refrigeration units that are made with 100s of breakable parts, I have to transfer everything to a different unit and block easy access to the other food, slowing us down. The next day, I have to find a repair guy to come out, set an appoint for usually 3 days in advance. They come out to find out what's wrong then you have to wait another 7 days for the part to arrive, then they come back and fix it. That means you are without a working refrigerator with things out of place for at least 10 days! Same with plumbing and air conditioning repairs. Average repair cost for ANYTHING, you can expect a $320 bill. By law, I am not allowed to be sold parts I need without an HVAC license, so learning and doing repairs myself is out of the question right now. I don't have time nor money for school on HVAC to get a license. During business hours I have to worry about:Do people like the food?Did the food come out right?Are hairs and bugs and anything unwanted not in people's food?Did the employee use the right ingredients?Did the employee use the right measurements and specs?Is everything sanitized?Did the employee make each and every menu item EXACTLY how I make it? If not, the customer WILL notice a difference. Must have consistency or else people will go to one of the 16000 other restaurants to choice from.How many errors will be made that night?How much money did the errors cost me?Will the customer come back?Did the employee eat food while I wasn't looking?Did the employee steal from me while I wasn't looking?Did the employee miss ringing up items a customer bought?Did the employee drop pizzas or buckets full of toppings by accident? It happens.Will I get robbed? Pizza places get knocked off all the time. No place is immune.Will my customers steal? Customers do stupid shit like stealing Parmesan or Crushed Red Pepper containers or taking the entire napkin holder full of napkins or hot sauce bottles while you're not looking. Napkins run $60 a case, and the shakers are $2 a piece.At the end of the day:You have to enter in all the credit card tips into the system. Batch out.Put the tickets in chronological order.Are you missing any tickets? Yes? Try to think? Where is it? Did my employee lose the ticket and steal $40, $60, or possibly $80 for a big order?Will the IRS look at the same tickets and accuse ME of being the one that stole tax money from the government if I'm audited and missing tickets?That means, I have to write a reason for each and every ticket that's missing.I have to keep track of all the beer deliveries and write it in a report and send it to ABC monthly.I have to keep track and inventory and stock 90 beers and over 228 food and packaging items including cleaning supplies.I have to place all the food orders.Trucks are allowed to show up anywhere between 9am aaaaaaaaand 7pm. Big fucking window. They won't come back if you're not there.I have to keep track of all the beer I sold verses food I sold.I have to make sure the entire store is clean. Paying employees to clean doesn't make me money. I do 90% the cleaning myself.I have to keep track of payroll and labor.I have to give my final numbers to my ACCOUNTANT ($175/month) to tell me how much I have to pay in taxes to the CITY, STATE, and FEDS. Sales Tax, Withholding Tax, 940/941. Va employment commission/unemployment tax.Did I pay rent? Did I pay the water bill?sewage bill?telephone/cox/internet?electric bill?gas bill?employees?insurance?fees?licenses up to date?How much money do I have left? OH less than 5%? Great!! That was worth it! Not.After all that, you realize:Did I even eat today?When was the last time I took a shower?How's my health?Did I brush my teeth, see a dentist anytime soon? Nope.Can I afford to sleep less tonight to do more work tomorrow?Am I forced to sleep longer tonight because I'm exhausted and my body needs it?Does my brain hurt? Do I have to meditate?How are my muscles? Stretchmarks on my legs? Stress patterns on your ankles? Deteriorating joints?Need new shoes? New pants?Should I spend 15 minutes stretching in the morning? Will I even remember to do it when I wake up late tomorrow? Nope.When was the last time I got laid? Oh yeh, that's right I have kids I haven't got to see in two weeks (which felt like only yesterday)! No time for my kids? then fun time for me. It's off limits until I have enough time to spend with them.When was the last time I got a day off? Not this year, buddy. Unless you're willing to put yourself 10 days behind. Not worth it.What can I do to make me more money? Answer: Spend money.Wait a minute! Fuck! I'm trying to pay my shit off.Well, if I spend more money advertising I'll get more customers.True. True but, I'm not guaranteed those customers an I'm causing myself even more work and I'm already exhausted!Oh. Well I'll hire more employees.True. but employees cost money.How much money?$7.25 an hour.Not bad, but I have to bring in $21.75 per hour to break even on this ONE extra employee alone. That's an extra $240 a day, or roughly 12 more customers per day.but I only average 20 customers a weekday... I'd have to increase business by 60%. You can't do that overnight. You have to build up.Oh wait, your equipment is too slow to handle that much business if it comes ALL AT THE SAME TIME.You have to buy new equipment.Spend more money?Yep. Spend more money. Where do I get this money from? It costs $10,000 to install a 10 foot hood.It costs $600 for a damn nacho cheese warmer. It costs $1399 for a single griddle, $2199 for a triple griddle.Even if I get the equipment, where am I going to put all this new equipment?Cut into the customer area.Wait. no, i need my customer area to make money.Expand? hell no. Costs too much.Get rid of useful equipment? Gonna have to.Cool. Now all we need is money. How we gonna get extra money to spend?Borrow it?Hell no, we already have a loan we're paying on.Work harder?It'll take me a year to make $10,000 at this rate.Fuck. We're stuck in a loop!I need more money.My money. Not someone elses.I'm an expert at making other people money.
2/6/2011 2:04:37 AM
mis-information ftw
2/6/2011 2:05:06 AM
Good God, cocaine.
2/6/2011 2:07:54 AM
Seriously though, I was upset to learn that you had to close your business. I know other folks are saying they knew it would happen, but I always thought your place sounded cool.On the bright side though, you will now have more time to spend with your children. And I hear they are a thousand times more rewarding than any business, small or large.[Edited on February 6, 2011 at 2:28 AM. Reason : Good luck!]
2/6/2011 2:28:24 AM
2/6/2011 9:42:52 AM
I saw all those posts when I got in last night and actually started feeling bad for the guy.Then I just read them all and was like, "really, that's it??"I did 75% of that shit two weeks into managing my first bar. You listed a ton of extremely easy tasks on there. There were some difficult obstacles you had to overcome, but the difficulty was multiplied tenfold by the fact that you seemed to be stressing over the 100 other menial tasks. You should have managed a restaurant for a while before you decided to own one. I'm actually really impressed that you were able to keep that place open as long as you did...I think it says a lot about you. But the bottom line is that you were in way over your head.
2/6/2011 11:32:55 AM
2/6/2011 12:15:19 PM
^I read that in my head with a gritty noir graphic novel monologue voice.
2/6/2011 12:46:27 PM
So are you going to file for BK soon? If you are thinking about it, should just go ahead, your credit will suck for I think 7 or so years....but oh well...at least you tried!
2/6/2011 1:19:20 PM
^^,^^^ I read it like the narration from Trainspotting.[Edited on February 6, 2011 at 1:32 PM. Reason : ^]
2/6/2011 1:21:04 PM
2/6/2011 1:32:22 PM
i'm sorry for your loss - but how does a pizza place shut doors just before the super bowl?
2/6/2011 1:53:06 PM
2/6/2011 1:55:41 PM
Chance shit all in this threadi'm sure he's a great businessman too
2/6/2011 2:23:53 PM
Did you come here looking for sympathy or advice?Why the fuck would you post this here if you weren't prepared for criticism?That said, that was a pretty fucking epic multiple post rant. A++++]
2/6/2011 2:23:54 PM
So when is your last day open?
2/6/2011 5:16:24 PM
GeniousBoy, your list reads of a classic micro-manager. It's blatantly obvious that you chose to take on ALL responsibility for the business. And it sounds more and more like you should have been the kitchen manager, and hired someone else to handle the front office.Not because you can't do it, but because it's obvious you cant handle all of it. The inability to delegate responsibility is the #1 reason that profitable small businesses fail to grow and succeed. You'd be better off hiring one person with a respectable wage to run the customer facing operations, and leave the kitchen for you to handle. This is common in restaurants, and in business in general, especially successful ones.
2/7/2011 1:11:20 AM
the thing that stuck out to me was that he said he averaged 20 customers a day.should have bought a subway franchise instead
2/7/2011 1:25:42 AM
I thought this was about Rhodes Furniture
2/7/2011 1:26:48 AM
TWW asking him to write out multiple posts distracted him from time spent potentially saving his business.IT'S TWW'S FAULT!
2/7/2011 1:28:46 AM
Good God, cocaine
2/7/2011 1:33:33 AM
2/7/2011 1:37:41 AM
Good God, self-righteous indignation
2/7/2011 1:57:34 AM
If I'm going to take advice from someone, I'm going to take it from someone competent enough to spell my name right in a thread full of my name posted everywhere. If he can't do that, then he would never be able to comprehend what it's like to pay someone a respectable wage that is greater than your own irrespective income.
2/7/2011 2:10:34 AM
GuinnessXXXBoiii, you can't possibly think that someone half-assing or taking shortcuts with your internet forum username disqualifies them from conversing with you at a level above "I'm better than you are! So, whatever!"
2/7/2011 2:13:20 AM
Even you were closer than him at spelling my name right.
2/7/2011 2:16:08 AM