Thursday, October 12, 2006

Getting worried

Well we're opening in less than 5 days. I'm going over my Quickbooks accounting software just looking at where I am and I'm not in a good spot. I'm running way over budget, like 20%-25% over budget. There have been a lot of things that have cost a lot of money that were unforeseen in the beginning. For example, I've basically had to outfit the entire kitchen with new (used) equipment. When I signed the lease the existing equipment that was there was included in the lease. It was the same equipment that the previous restaurant was using. Come to find out they weren’t using much of it because it didn’t work. I don’t know what they were doing and/or how they got away with it. They had no real refrigeration to speak of, the oven did not work (the burners and the griddle did though), and I could go on and on. Yesterday the plumber fixed yet even more of the plumbing problems. Get this; they had the sewage back fill backing into the ice machine! That’s right, which means that if the drain gets backed up, part of the sewage backed into the ice machine where it made little doo-doo ice cubes that they were using for customer usage. When it’s all said and done I will have spent around $20,000 just fixing or replacing equipment that I did not foresee doing. To make matters even worse the majority of all this has taken place within the past couple weeks or so. We got into the kitchen to start practicing and prepping and literally 75% of the equipment started breaking down on us, such as the oven on the Wolf stove. What does all this mean, it means that I may not have enough funds to survive longer than a couple of months. I will either have to sell some personal things to add equity to the business, or the first month or two will need to do about double the cash flow I anticipated it doing. I've said all along that if I can just get to March we should be o.k. As of right now I don’t know if we can get to Christmas. All I can do is pray to the good Lord above that a lot of people come eat there right out of the gates, because if they don’t I'll be done before I even get a chance to get started. Keep us in your prayers!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Buddy, I'm going to keep you in my prayers. I hope and think that things will work out for you. If they food on Saturday night's party was any indication, you're going to be fine. Keep that chin up and have a good one.

Anonymous said...

Hang in there my friend....

The Blankinships said...

for what it's worth, we pray for you every day (and so does my mama, who loves you and martha!) keep smilin, and know we're here for ya! you're gonna do GREAT!

What is this Blog???

You ever been sitting around cooking for your family and friends and been told the following: "Hoss, this is the best I've ever had in my dadgum life.....you have got to open up a place of your own". The thought crosses your mind to do just that, but for whatever reason you dont. Well I'm "that" guy that actually went through with it and did it. I had absolutely ZERO restaurant experience! I decided to start this blog about my own experience hoping that it may be of some use and help to others who might be interested in opening their own place.
I learned this craft almost 20 years ago cooking whole hogs on brick & cinder block pits at a couple of little BBQ Joints in Henderson, TN. I learned from old, lifelong career Pit-Masters, working with them as an apprentice during school off and on for four years. Over the course of that time I learned the old, time-honored craft of REAL pit barbecue. At Martin's Bar-B-Que Joint I am trying as hard as I can everyday to bring that time-honored authenticity to my customers.
As you read you'll see I've made some stupid decisions, and I've made some good decisions. If you are thinking of opening a restaurant, especially a BBQ Joint, read this blog! Maybe some of this info can be of use to you. At the very least you will be entertained because I pull no punches.
Now listen, this is my blog to not only help with information but my blog to freely rant about my day to day experiences. There is no real "bad language" on this blog but there might be some things said that are very "tongue in cheek". If you are easily offended and/or cant see the satire in my posts then please just leave the blog. It will save both of us the annoyance of each other. For those of you who do like satire and are looking for good information about this experience, then by all means enjoy!