[ SECRET POST #2445 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2445 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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06.
[Breaking Bad]


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[Cillian Murphy]


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[Robert Downey Jr.]


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[Star Trek]


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[Homestuck]


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 010 secrets from Secret Submission Post #349.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Complaints thread

[kelincihutan]

The restaurant where I work is loosing money when we open at night. We don't sell enough to cover overhead/labor. The boss doesn't want to close at nights because she isn't sure how to make up the money we'd "loose" by not making sales at nights. As she explained it to me, "If even two people wanted to come, and we miss the opportunity to make a buck..." Apparently the concept of it costing us more to feed those two people than they pay us back on their bill is somehow eluding her.

...At least I am not the manager, and therefore am not responsible for trying to figure out how to get this reality to sink in.

Re: Complaints thread

[(Anonymous)]

Losing. You're losing money.

Also, your boss seems like she is not the best businessperson of all time? Maybe? I mean, it's a very basic concept there, really. That's kind of worrying. I hope everything goes well with the restaurant!

Re: Complaints thread

[kelincihutan]

Crap. I swear, I can actually spell. Loose/lose is like my kryptonite, though, and it's really embarrassing. *headdesk*

And no, she's really not the most stellar businessperson ever. She has a crippling fear of anything to do with computers and is nearly allergic to anything resembling a marketing campaign. All our advertising at the moment comes from word-of-mouth or from curious folks who happen to be passing by. It's like the worst combination ever. TBH, I'm not really sure how we're staying open now. (And don't get me started on her husband, the co-owner, who will bully you in public and then come along later and say he's "not fussing" and that he "loves you.") Blah.

Re: Complaints thread

[(Anonymous)]

No worries! It's just the one thing that I really notice a lot, I don't know why.

And the thing that I wonder is - how the hell do these people get to the point where they own restaurants? Doesn't that require a certain amount of, you know, operating capital? It's so bizarre.

Re: Complaints thread

[(Anonymous)]

As far as I can tell, it can be deceptively easy to open a restaurant or B&B, so a good many people are just not prepared for how difficult it is to succeed in the hospitality business.

Both my grandfathers were Greek restaurateurs, and both of them had a string of failed ventures under their belts before they finally opened a restaurant that lasted.

Re: Complaints thread

[(Anonymous)]

maybe have someone do the math and show it to her (if she's a cool person and wouldn't fire you out of spite for showing her up or something)

it's not the same seeing the actual numbers

Re: Complaints thread

[kelincihutan]

That's the thing, though. We did do the math and show it to her. Subtracting just the labor costs from gross sales at night gave us a deficit of over $100 over the course of a month (it's a little restaurant, so that's a pretty big hit). I shudder to think how bad the deficit actually is when you also factor in utilities and food costs. Her saying she didn't want to lose that one two-top that couldn't make up the deficit came after she saw these numbers. I just don't know what to do with that one. I really don't.

Re: Complaints thread

[(Anonymous)]

Where I live (midwestern college town) there are several restaurants that do just fine serving only breakfast and lunch--including one local institution that's been in business for about 40 years and has been featured in Jane and Michael Stern's Roadfood and on The Splendid Table). I think your boss should figure out a specialty or two that will set her place off from other restaurants that serve breakfast and lunch; if she can do it consistently well, then she may be able to keep her restaurant afloat. But if she just keeps staying open at night, thinking that this time we might have a good crowd...well, that's one of the definitions of madness.

My father tells a couple of stories of his restaurant days (his dad was a Greek immigrant restaurateur). Here is one: in the early days of his restaurant, my grandfather employed a cousin of his as chef. Every Sunday this chef would cook 50 chickens and serve them up as 100 chicken dinners. The restaurant stood by a highway, and they had a huge business from weekend travelers; perhaps 75 chicken dinners would be ordered at maybe $1.50 each and the remaining chicken became the Monday special, chicken pot pie, which sold for perhaps $.75.

Then a new highway was built, bypassing their restaurant. Business fell off: the first Sunday night after the new highway opened, the chef cooked 100 chicken dinners and they only sold 25 of them. The rest went into chicken pot pies, which sold out. This happened the next week, and the next, until my grandfather went to his chef and said "Nick, we have to cut back on the chicken dinners; nobody is buying them."

"Butbutbut..." said Nick--"but Tasso, I've always cooked 100 chicken dinners on Sunday."

"Yes," said my grandfather, "but we can't do that anymore; we're losing money."

"Tasso," said Nick with dignity, "I always cook 100 chicken dinners on Sunday."

And the next Sunday, he cooked another 100 chicken dinners. That Monday, my grandfather let him go. When you play the game of restaurants, you adapt or you die.