Last Friday night was a very busy dinner service for us at both, Mezzanotte and Piqueo. At Mezzanotte all of our systems have been tested for the last 6 years so we feel very comfortable with how things run both, in the kitchen and at the front. But Piqueo is a new baby (only 4 weeks old) so we tend to spend more time there specially at busy times. But this doesn’t help (actually nothing helps) when you have the visit of difficult guests. And we do get them from time to time. We are basically a neighborhood restaurant and roughly 60% of our guests are regulars, another 25% are on their way to become regulars, 10% are happy but don’t go out that often so we may see them again in a couple of months. The last 5% are people that probably will not come back because of a number of reasons. OK…so what happened Friday night? We had a packed restaurant with a 20 to 30 minute wait. Our cooks (including me) were sweating bullets trying to keep up with the orders pouring out of our ticket printer. So, an order came in for 2 Piqueo Salads. We prepared them when their turn came and we promptly send them out. A few minutes later we see the salads coming back to the kitchen. Our manager is loudly saying: “chef, these are the wrong salads, they wanted the Ensaladitas”. OK – this sets us back a little bit but we drop everything else to quickly plate the new salads. They go out. BUT they go out to another table! The manager did not enter a new order so the ticket didn’t print. Our runner only takes food to tables that have tickets pending. Anyway…to make matters worse we had a waiter trying to help and giving us contradicting info –> the table wants the salads now! no – the table doesn’t want the salads any more! wait, the table really wants them; no, no, they want their main courses now! you get the idea – a mini crisis at a table because of a miscommunication. But the worst part is when the people at the table decided to abruptly leave and curse everyone on their way out.  Yes, we were at fault (and, believe me, it will never happen again – we learn quickly). But there is no need for such behavior on the guests part. We had already the crisis resolved and we were ready to give them a bottle of wine on the house for the delay. After all it was a Friday night. I would think that people want to go out to a nice restaurant on a Friday night to have a good time, have some good wine, catch up on each others lives. It was the beginning of the year also – maybe a mini celebration to thank for their blessings. I don’t know, maybe it is just my simple thinking – but, if I want something fast to eat I would probably go elsewhere.

This is a tough business and sometimes we get depressed and worried when things like this happen. But then we quickly realize that these incidents occur very rarely and we should rejoice about the great service and great food we provide to the other 99.9% of the guests we receive. Life is great!

Just came back from dinner with Adriana at a restaurant (other than Mezzanotte) doing market research. Dinner was not that great – we won’t get into specifics because this post is not about the dinner. This post is about my physical changes as I age!!! inevitable!!

I used to wear 32 waist pants. Then I moved to 34 and quickly to 36 a few years ago. Then I came very close to 38 but I fought it with passion and I won!! But now the 38s look so tempting. What to do!!!???? I love the food and the wine and my body refuses to cooperate. We are going to Matzke park at least three times a week and do 3 laps. But it doesn’t make a difference!! Oh well, I guess I should just be grateful that we are healthy and busy!

I just drove by the Vino Bello wine bar on Grant Rd. and I saw it suspiciously dark. I noticed a big note on the door so I decided to turn around and check it out. In my mind I said “oh no…they are out of business”.  Sure enough – the sign at the door said: “CLOSED – NO A/C”.  But then I looked inside and I saw that all the furniture was gone; actually there was no trace of anything having been there ever!  So this business is gone.

A few weeks ago another business near us went bust also. This was Amalia’s Mexican Grill. They had been in business for way longer than us so this was a surprise.

Every time I see a business going bust I feel my heart sinking. We are in this business so we know what it means. It is not just a “business”. It is somebody else’s hopes and dreams. It is somebody else’s savings and sweat. Why do they go out of business?? It is certainly not because they planned it this way!  It could be bad management. But what is bad management?? it could be anything from not understanding (positive) cash flow to not understanding marketing to not understanding service, etc. But in our experience I would say that OPERATING CAPITAL RESERVES is a vital component of the equation of success. I don’t want to say we are successful because this business is a long journey and the successes are measured weekly and even daily. Success is not a given – we have to work very hard every single day for it. But…if you don’t have a good operating capital cushion you just won’t make it. Many people get in the business thinking that everything will work as planned. NO!!! it doesn’t. And if you don’t have that cushion then, well, you are done. The cushion will allow you to learn, tweak and fix. Without the cushion you have to survive. And survival some times means dropping your standards to save money. But your customers will notice the cuts and they won’t come back. And so you enter the “death spiral”.

Being an entrepreneur is exciting and rewarding but the risk is high and the hours are LONG. I wish all of you my fellow entrepreneurs prosperity and success. Stay away from the “spiral”!

Last Friday night we had a very busy night but I always look for that “slow down” in the kitchen to come out and greet our guests. So that evening I was walking the floor when I noticed a couple leaving from the bar area. I approached them and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Great to have you here tonight. I hope you enjoyed our food and our wines!

Guest: Do you do business with XXXX Wine Distributor? Because I notice you sell a lot of their wines.

Me: Are you with XXXX Wine Distributor?

Guest: Yes

Me: Well, I used to do business with XXXX but not anymore.

Guest: Who was your rep?

Me: Mr. YYYY – but I don’t deal with him anymore.

Guest: Well, that’s too bad. And he walked away!

I want to think (and I hope) that this gentleman was not in the executive ranks or was in the sales organization of XXX Wine Distributor company. But even if he wasn’t his attitude was deplorable. He had two opportunities to attempt to change things. I would probably have said something like: “oh, I hope you didn’t have a bad experience with us – please allow me to have somebody contact you to explore what went wrong.” Instead, he just walked away and left me with another bad impression of his company.

So what’s wrong with people these days? Courtesy, pride, ethics, etc. seem to be on a decline everywhere you look. Hope it is just me with bad luck coming across with the wrong people (thankfully, not always).