I poured my blood, sweat and life savings into my restaurant. It ruined my life. • Hacker News Board

Re: I poured my blood, sweat and life savings into my restaurant. It ruined my life.

#171

Post by RestlessMind » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 4:09 PM UTC

I read the whole article end to end - this guy looks like he had a real interest into cooking, was willing to work hard and was able to contribute to the society in terms of a nice highly rated restaurant. It doesn't look like he wanted to draw millions of dollars from day 1 nor that he wanted his restaurant in the fanciest of the places. This should be a very normal thing to do and such people should succeed. Why is our modern day society arranged such that following this straightforward path doesn't help you make the ends meet?

Something is very very wrong.

Re: I poured my blood, sweat and life savings into my restaurant. It ruined my life.

#172

Post by thinkythought » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 4:55 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #36

photoJ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breakfast prep starts at 6am, maybe 4am if you are baking. In a restaurant lights out might be midnight, later for a bar. Which staff do you trust with free access to the thousands of dollars of liquor, food and property? Do you stay closed for two days a week?

It doesn't help with inventory loss, but these days I think I would try to run a non cash business - credit cards only.

I know a lot of really experienced bartenders, waitstaff, etc and was in the industry for years. No one you'd want to hire would work at a place that didn't do cash tips, unless we're talking super duper fine dining black tie stuff. And possibly even then.

EDIT: I've also known of places that switched to cashless have all their good staff quit, and be stuck with only completely useless people

Re: I poured my blood, sweat and life savings into my restaurant. It ruined my life.

#173

Post by drewmol » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 4:58 PM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #25

binarymax wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An order of magnitude higher than 60k, if your goal is to compete in the market he was targeting. For 60k he could have opened a pizza or sandwich shop.

You'd have a hard time even opening a Subway with $60k

They recommend at least $30k in liquid assets, but I'm sure that depends on the market. $80-$310k minimum net worth. I agree with your statement, though this was interesting.

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-it-costs-to-open-a-subwa...

Re: I poured my blood, sweat and life savings into my restaurant. It ruined my life.

#174

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 5:00 PM UTC

thinkythought wrote: post #172

scarface74 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't help with inventory loss, but these days I think I would try to run a non cash business - credit cards only.

I know a lot of really experienced bartenders, waitstaff, etc and was in the industry for years. No one you'd want to hire would work at a place that didn't do cash tips, unless we're talking super duper fine dining black tie stuff. And possibly even then. EDIT: I've also known of places that switched to cashless have all their good staff quit, and be stuck with only completely useless people

Every study I've seen shows that people spend and tip more when they are using credit cards than cash. Do high and mid income earners walk around cash and use it a lot at any place but strip clubs?

Re: I poured my blood, sweat and life savings into my restaurant. It ruined my life.

#175

Post by geebee » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 5:23 PM UTC

smogcutter wrote: post #19

The first big red flag for me (besides that the whole thing pretty obviously started as a mid life crisis) was how little time it sounds like he spent working at his friend's bar in the three months he needed to put in to qualify for the liquor license. How could he not take that seriously as an opportunity to learn about the industry? I would bet money that the answer is he was afraid to learn that running a restaur…

That was a red flag for me, too.

Though honestly, the first big red flag for me was that he wanted to open a restaurant because he loves to cook. This is a little surprising, the way people don't distinguish between the art and the business. It's as if a screenwriter decided to open a production studio, or a guitarist decided to open a music venue. The only finally successful guy I know in the music business (he got into booking and organizing) loves to jam, but he's not very good. Me? I love playing music, but I know that opening a cabaret wouldn't be the way to fulfill that. Honestly, sounds like the best way to ensure I'd never have time to play music again.

The funny thing is, I actually kind of like the financial and operational concepts in restaurants. I studied industrial engineering and ops research, and I loved the examples of restaurant queuing, batch processing, methods to reduce lead time, even supply chains, the way one decision cascades through he others. The idea of discovering that the marginal cost of one dish is much lower than the average cost because it can be prepared using the idle time during the prep and machinery for expensive dishes, that interests me.

No, not that I should open a restaurant, ha. But the guy who wrote this article does mention that he had a copy of "kitchen confidential", and in that book, Bourdain specifically talks about this, recounting the successful restauranteur who lives for these sorts of operational and financial challenges, takes a kind of joy and fascination in them, kind of how a tax lawyer loves finding ways to profit in the details, and that's why he's well suited for the business.

But yeah, anyway, your "big red flag" raised a big red flag for me too. Phoning it in on the pre-reqs and a learning opportunity is certainly a bad sign.

I'm talking about this because the issues are fascinating - I don't want to harp on the dude who write this, though, cause he clearly paid.

Re: I poured my blood, sweat and life savings into my restaurant. It ruined my life.

#176

Post by vorotato » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 6:05 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #145

imustbeevil wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well as long as he can save enough to pay for his kids' education, at least he has a story to tell and they can learn from him. I didn't get the impression that this was the case from the ending. > I still have an outstanding HST situation, and I face the prospect of personal bankruptcy. > We can barely afford the place, but I wanted my daughters to have their own rooms—like they did before I sold our house. I may…

The cost of education in Canada is much lower then the US. My undergrad CS degree (Earned in 2008) cost me <$30,000 CAD for tuition and textbooks. Decent university, no scholarships.

ehh if you're in state no that's not "much" cheaper, but it is like half off. $12935.28 CAD / year for the university I went to, a four year degree would cost $51740 CAD.

Re: I poured my blood, sweat and life savings into my restaurant. It ruined my life.

#177

Post by vkou » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 6:55 PM UTC

votepaunchy wrote: post #164

JBlue42 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if Walmart paid more than $11/hr to decrease the immediate incentive?

This should be easy to study in Seattle and other "Fight for $15" cities as the higher minimum wage is phased in.

If you increase everyone's wages the quality of employees across the board won't change. If you increase your wages, while other employers' wages stay the same, you'll get better applicants.

Re: I poured my blood, sweat and life savings into my restaurant. It ruined my life.

#178

Post by vkou » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 6:59 PM UTC

icedchai wrote: post #97

megy wrote: post #44

> so I doled out $3,000 to hire a lawyer to oversee my incorporation. He later told me that I could have done it myself online for a couple hundred bucks. This guy is so raw that he is even missing basic stuff. > We can barely afford the place, but I wanted my daughters to have their own rooms And he doesn't learn.

most lawyers don’t charge 3k to incorporate. He got taken advantage of, plain and simple.

From the sounds of it, his lawyer gave him a bit more advice then just how to incorporate. I'm more surprised that he didn't give him the advice that the corporate veil will not shield him from outstanding sales tax receipts.

Re: I poured my blood, sweat and life savings into my restaurant. It ruined my life.

#179

Post by vkou » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 7:02 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #78

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #37

Pretty much every restaurant owner I know is in the same situation - maybe not quite as bad - but generally they have at least one total nightmare horror story about a restaurant they owned that burned down/got shut down/went bankrupt. I find similarities to being a founder in a super risky high tech startup - but with higher possible payoff. Yet, I don't hear a chorus of bar backs, dish washers, servers, hosts and c…

The tech industry is basically printing money, so we workers can afford to be picky about the conditions we choose to work under. Restaurants are ultra-competitive and have very thin margins, so people who work there can't.

Also, a lot of the people working these jobs have very few other options in life. Back-of-house food prep is one of the few industries that won't bat an eye at a felony on your resume.

Re: I poured my blood, sweat and life savings into my restaurant. It ruined my life.

#180

Post by ufmace » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 8:59 PM UTC

I had a few more thoughts after thinking about this one for a bit. It's easy to laugh at the boneheaded mistakes, but can we say anything deeper about this?

The author's actions seem to be motivated by an almost childish level of over-enthusiasm. That the word childish occurs to me makes me wonder - are we making it too difficult for kids to try things? Not actually opening a restaurant, of course, but something moderately ambitions for their age. Big enough for them to fail badly at when they're insanely, blindly hopeful about it. It would be good in a way to experience that sort of failure at an age and life situation where you don't destroy your finances when you're 3/4 to retirement and with kids of your own to send to college. Maybe if he had experienced that, then he could chase after his next dream with a little more realism and self-control and a little less blind optimism.