I am working hard to complete my "Mike Puts His Money Where His Mouth is - Detroit Style Pizza" post. However, it's going to be delayed a little more than a week than I had planned.
In the interim, I want to share my account of the day we closed our restaurant Loui Loui's Authentic Detroit Style Pizza, almost four years ago. In this post, I included some recipes from several dishes we served during that final day in business along with commentary from my perspective from the moment I woke up until we closed the doors for the last time. I hope you find this interesting.
“There’s a trick to the 'graceful exit.' It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.”
― Ellen Goodman
After
not showering or shaving the two previous days, I figured repeating the cycle one
more day would not cause much harm to anyone except those who decide to walk up
and hug me. And there may be a higher
number of hugs today than normal but since I planned to spend much of the day
in the kitchen, shower or no shower, I would end up smelling of BO in a couple
hours in any case. Without wasting any
time, I threw on the same tomato sauce stained jeans I have been wearing for
the past two weeks, a clean shirt, socks and shoes (also tomato stained) all in
the name of efficiency. Somehow, I also
managed to get a big yellow mustard stain on my jeans. That too was not worth worrying about - I
figured people would understand knowing the business I am in. I then went to the counter near the garage
door and went through my usual ritual of stuffing my pockets with the same
items I carry with me every day:
Wallet
Money Clip
One Hundred dollars of change in fives and
ones
Personal Keys
Restaurant Keys
Dunlop 2.0 mm extra heavy guitar pick
Smart Phone
Noisy Cricket
High-intensity compact flashlight
Black Sharpie Marker
Black ball point pen
I ran out the door without a coat and got in my SUV. The commute to the restaurant was only 2.4 miles - usually a quick 10 to 12 minutes with traffic. Seeing how it was Sunday morning, today should be a little shorter, maybe 7 to 8 minutes. I pulled up to the back of the restaurant, grabbed a few things out of my SUV, and started for the back door. It was a damp, cold November morning, but the weather was of little concern, except that days like this usually drove more business our way than bright sunny days.
After
unlocking the door, I disarmed the alarm that I had set only a few hours
earlier, flipped on the lights and out of habit, turned on the ovens and
started looking through the refrigerators to see how much dough, sauce, cheese
and other essentials we had left over from the night before. Then I started making a list of the things we
might run out of today that would become a small order and prep list.
You
see, today was going to be different than any other day since the restaurant
opened more than four and a half years ago. Today,
we would offer the public a limited menu consisting of mostly pizza, salad and
a couple of pastas. We also had several
pre-ordered items that would be picked up and paid for that we had to ensure
were ready when the customers came to get them.
And lastly, we are closing early tonight so that we can host a private
party for some VIPs with a special menu that hadn’t even been created yet.
It's
8:30AM and I see a number of things that concern me. We may run out of cheese. We are almost out of marinara sauce. We may run out of pepperoni, we have a lot of
ground beef and sausage, almost no pasta made up, a full gallon of alfredo
sauce (that we won’t use if we don’t have pasta) and a bunch of vegetables and
other miscellaneous items that may or may not get used up today. When you run a pizzeria, you simply can’t run
out of dough, cheese, sauce or pepperoni.
The kitchen manager is due in around 11AM and we open at noon
today. I can make some progress on prep
list for today and tonight but at some point, I have to make a run to
Restaurant Depot to buy more cheese, San Marzano tomatoes, flour, salami,
Canadian bacon and pepperoni – that’s an hour round-trip. The kitchen manager can handle the other
important things but when the crowds start coming in, we’re probably going to
need all hands-on deck. Hopefully, everyone who is scheduled to work today will
show up – in this business, that is never a foregone conclusion. And because we have special events planned
today, the risk is even higher that somebody will call in sick or worse, be a
“no-call, no-show” foisting even more work on an already overworked and
undercompensated staff.
I
start working on a pork belly that we baked yesterday. Not really recalling why we bought it, I
found the belly in the back of one of our freezers and decided we needed to
find a way to use it this weekend. Most
people know pork belly as bacon – and everyone loves bacon – so there has to be
some interesting way to pair the pork belly with something on our menu. Before baking, I created an Italian spice rub
consisting of dried oregano, garlic powder, salt, fennel seed, star anise and
red pepper flake. After covering the
pork belly with honey, the rub was applied liberally and it was placed in the
oven at 325 degrees for about three hours. I thought “man, that should have some serious
flavor.” However, I was still unsure how
I was going to use it. Without essential
pizza making supplies, delicious pork belly wasn’t going to do anybody much
good.
After
trimming and dicing the pork belly, it was time to focus on more important
issues. I started gathering up the
essentials and made a Restaurant Depot (RD) list. I also started making a batch of marinara
sauce and cleaning our Detroit Style Pizza pans. Once I got the sauce on the stove, I said to
myself “now this kitchen smells like a pizzeria.” The smell of our marinara sauce with those
slightly acidic San Marzano tomatoes from Naples, Italy with hints of basil,
oregano, and garlic fills the air and makes the mouth water – there’s no better
way to describe it. When you smell that sauce cooking down on the stove, it
just makes you want to put it on anything you can find and eat it. Ahhhh…I just love that smell. The only thing better is when you mix the
smell of our sauce with freshly baked pizza crust. Smells are an interesting thing – like music,
a certain smell can make you remember people, times and places. At this moment, I was reminded of the first
few weeks the restaurant was open. I was
working in the kitchen and one of our servers asked me to come to the dining
room and speak to a family that had just tried our arancini covered in our
sauce. I said “sure,” washed my hands
and walked out to the table. There were
a man and a woman and their two children.
The adults were really excited and told me their names were Tommy and
Karen. Karen explained to me that Tommy
had throat cancer and had his vocal chords removed. Consequently, Tommy could
not really speak. Tommy’s treatment had also cost him his senses of smell and
taste. Karen said it had been a long
time since Tommy had been able to taste anything. However, he could taste our sauce! I was floored. Tommy and Karen were so appreciative to find
food that Tommy could taste that they wanted to personally thank me and said
they would be back. We talked for a
little while and I thanked them too – I told them their thanks was precisely
why I wanted to start this restaurant.
On my way back to the kitchen, I had to wipe tears from my eyes. Moments like this were the exact reason I
wanted to open a restaurant.
Shortly
after getting the sauce on the stove and cleaning a few pans, our kitchen
manager Jon arrived. We talked about the
plan for the day and agreed on priorities.
We also agreed that we probably needed to make two trips – one to RD and
one to Gordon Food Service (GFS) because GFS carries pepperoni, salami and
Canadian bacon that is more consistent with those items purchased from our
usual supplier (who was closed over the weekend). Thankfully, my wife Michelle stopped in and
offered to take care of the GFS stop. I headed for my SUV to make that trip to
RD.
The
thing about an hour round trip is that you have some time to think – which is
good and terrible. It’s good in that you
have some quiet time to organize your thoughts.
It is also terrible when the thoughts turn into a torrent of
overwhelming ideas and thoughts about missed opportunities. But today, I will focus on the positives –
the people I get to see, the food I will get to serve and the bittersweet feeling
that awaits when I enter that alarm code and lock the doors tonight.
The
RD trip was uneventful. When I returned
to the restaurant, our open sign was on but I was surprised to see only a
couple of cars in the parking lot. I was
surprised because all week, people had been making a beeline for the restaurant
and we were busier than we had been in months.
When Michelle dropped off the items from GFS, we now had the critical
supplies we would need to make it through the day. I resumed work on the prep list when a server
walked into the kitchen and told me there was someone in the dining room who
wanted to speak to me. Minutes later, I
washed my hands and walked into the dining room to see a former employee named
Cody and two of his friends. He was
wearing one of the logoed restaurant shirts we gave employees when we first
opened. Cody had been one of our first
employees and had been gone for a couple of years. He asked if he could go in the kitchen and
make his own pizza. Normally for insurance and a variety of other reasons, I
could not allow non-employees this sort of access to the kitchen. But today was different, so I invited him back
into the kitchen and asked Jon to give Cody access to whatever he wanted. Jon was cool with it – it was two less pizzas
he would have to make – and Jon could stick to the prep list. Two other kitchen employees were due in, but
hadn’t arrived yet. I know Jon was
concerned that we would get slammed before they arrive, especially since this
was exactly what had happened the three previous days in a row.
At
around 2PM, the other kitchen guys arrived and I was able to redirect my
attention to this evening’s menu.
Earlier, I had taken an inventory of the items I could use to create
some special dishes for the VIPs tonight.
Primarily, I found:
Canned cut green beans
Fresh tomatoes
Two bags of Idahoan Instamash potatoes
A bag of 12” Hoagie buns
Twenty pounds of 80/20 ground beef
Five pounds of ground mild Italian sausage
A couple pounds of prosciutto ham
Four pounds of unsalted butter
Part of a smoked turkey breast
Six pints of heavy whipping cream
Tub of mascarpone cheese
Two tubs of ricotta
Black truffle oil
Three pounds of grated parmesan cheese
Pound of swiss cheese slices
#10 can of collard greens
#10 can of red beans
Three pounds of Italian bread crumbs
5-pound bag of shredded parmesan
Almost a gallon of alfredo sauce
Pork belly I diced up earlier.
Miscellaneous herbs and spices
Plenty of pizza cheese and marinara sauce
We are expecting about
thirty VIPs tonight and with this array of food items, I feel pretty confident
that I can create multi-course meal fit for a panel of Food Network Chopped
Challenge judges. However, tonight’s
VIPs were more important to me than any panel of judges although the task of
preparing a fine meal was similar to the Chopped Challenge format – I have to
use what we have on-hand to make something truly special.
I
got started opening the canned beans and collard greens when we get really
busy. I walked into the dining room and saw
one employee trying to wait on several tables and a crowd was gathering at the
bar. The beans and greens would have to
wait a while. I start pulling tickets off of the point-of-sale bar printer and
made a bunch of drinks. Thankfully, the front-of-house
printers were working. Two days earlier,
as customers were starting to arrive for the Friday night dinner rush, the
front-of-house printers started re-directing to the kitchen. Dan, our general manager, my son Tim (server,
host and information technology specialist) and I worked on this for an hour
before we put out an SOS call to our POS vendor. A restaurant full of customers on Friday
night and a less than fully-functional POS system is a disaster. We tried all of the tricks and for no
apparent reason, the system started printing tickets to the correct printers
just as several large parties started to arrive. I comp’d the POS vendor a couple of pizzas
and beer for showing up on the spot. I
was praying we would have no POS issues today – not today.
When
you stand behind the bar in your own restaurant, it’s really hard to get back
into the kitchen because everyone wants to talk to you. Frankly, getting to interact with customers at
the bar is one of the best things about owning a restaurant – until you get
busy. Unfortunately, sometimes you have
to be short with people almost to the point of rudeness. But today, everyone seems to understand. Today, they’ll take whatever time, food or
drink I can provide. It’s not the
quality of interaction that I would prefer, but I’m just glad they came
in.
Before
I go back to the kitchen, I try to process an order for a customer who pre-ordered
three par-baked and frozen pizzas. Now
the POS system will not process the credit card I was given. I ask if we can try another card but explain
it may not be the card. We try a second
card but no dice. I see from a message
on the POS system that we have lost our internet connection. A crowd is growing at the bar and I ask for
everyone’s patience while I run to the basement to check the router. I reset the router and it appears we are back
in business, but the POS system is still not connecting. So, I have to restart the POS system – first
the POS server behind the bar, then the POS station near the kitchen and last
the POS station near the host stand.
Five minutes later, we’re processing credit cards and the lines are
getting back under control. I’m finally
able to return to the kitchen and get back to the business of preparing tonight’s
feast.
The red beans and collard greens were easy and flavorful. It might be a little off-center for a place specializing in Detroit Style Pizza, but people do like it when you change it up from time to time. Here’s the recipe:
Red Beans and Collard
Greens
One #10 can of
red beans
One #10 can of
collard greens
Drain off ½ of
the liquid from each can and pour contents into a half hotel pan
Two tablespoons
minced garlic
Two tablespoons
dried basil
One tablespoon
kosher salt
Two cups of
diced pork belly
One tablespoon
of black pepper
Cover
with plastic kitchen wrap and foil and bake at 325 degrees for one hour. When you have a large party, this is a good item to
bake early because it can be moved into a warmer and maintained at the right
temperature until you are ready to serve.
When I opened the red
beans and collard green cans, I also opened a #10 can of cut green beans and
dumped them, water and all, into a half pan as well – time to make some Spicy
Italian Green Beans. Here’s the recipe:
Spicy
Italian Green Beans
One #10 can of
cut green beans
One tablespoon
garlic powder
Two tablespoons
dried oregano
Two tablespoons
dried basil
One tablespoon
kosher salt
Two cups of
diced pork belly (or 1 cup of lay flat hickory smoked bacon)
One tablespoon
red pepper flake
One half
tablespoon black pepper
Mix thoroughly. Cover with plastic kitchen wrap and foil and
bake at 325 degrees for one hour. Again,
this is a great item to prepare and heat in advance – it will keep for hours in
a hot box or let cool and re-heat when ready to serve.
OK, now I’m on a roll but
it’s nearing 4 O’clock when my family planned to gather for dinner at the
restaurant and I’m supposed to join them.
My staff tells me they are starting to gather when my brother bursts
into the kitchen and announces his arrival.
I said I’d be out shortly – famous last words of course. I had gotten started hydrating the bag of instant
potato and was thinking about what was remaining that I could add to make some
otherwise very uninteresting instant potatoes taste absolutely fabulous for our
guests tonight. I grabbed some garlic
powder, butter, a pint of heavy cream, grated parmesan, the black truffle oil,
salt and pepper and went to work mixing and tasting and mixing and tasting
until they tasted like something straight out of an Emeril Lagasse
cookbook. These mashed potatoes must
have been the best of show because the half pan had been completely ravaged by
the end of the night. Use this recipe
but be careful – these potatoes are addictive, especially when you add some
brown gravy with cooking sherry or bourbon!
Garlic
Parmesan Mashed Potatoes with Black Truffle Oil
One 28 Oz bag of
instant mashed potatoes placed into a half hotel pan (6” depth)
3/4 gallon of
boiling water (mix thoroughly but don’t whip)
½ LB of unsalted
butter
One-pint heavy
whipping cream
Two cups grated
parmesan cheese
One tablespoon
garlic powder
One tablespoon
salt
½ tablespoon
black pepper
6 to 8 drops of
black truffle oil (or add to taste – the truffle oil can overpower everything
else)
Mix thoroughly,
cover with plastic wrap and foil, place in a hot box or serve immediately.
Now I have two dishes in
my mind that I can make out of what remains:
Some really big Italian meatballs and a Kentucky Hot Brown casserole.
The restaurant serves Italian Meatballs as part of the regular menu but our
inventory was dwindling, so I decided to use up the ground chuck, Italian
sausage and pork belly on some truly magnificent meatballs that would surely
evoke a “holy shit!” reaction from the VIPs.
And, of course, I have to hurry because my family is still expecting me
to join their table. But I’m making
pretty good time and I know their orders have not made it back to the make line
yet so I figure I have enough time to knock these dishes out and get them into
the oven before my brother or sister come looking for me in the kitchen. The main deviation from our regular recipe
was the addition of pork belly (because I had plenty on-hand) and the meatball
size. Adding the pork belly meant I
would need to trim the skin off and grind the rest in our Robo Coup food
processor to arrive at the correct consistency for the meatballs. I also needed to do a quick check of our
marinara sauce to ensure there was plenty on-hand for the meatballs. One of the things that makes them taste so
good is that after we flash fry the meatballs in a 350-degree fryer, we cover
the meatballs in our delicious sauce before we bake them for over an hour. Italians call the sauce or gravy “il sugo” –
baking the meatballs in the Italian gravy causes the meatballs to absorb the
flavor of the sauce and coats the outside of the meatballs so they naturally
have the tomato flavor all over.
Here’s the recipe for the
giant Italian Meatballs I made that day:
Giant Italian Meatballs il Sugo
3 lbs Ground
Beef 80/20
2 lbs Ground
Mild Italian Sausage
1 lb Seasoned
and Ground Pork Belly Skin Removed
1 Cup Italian
Bread Crumbs
3 Large Eggs
2 Teaspoons Salt
1 Teaspoon Black
Pepper
2 Tablespoons Dried
Basil
2 Tablespoons Dried Oregano
1 Cup Parmesan
Shred
2 Tablespoon Minced
Garlic
1 Cup Diced White
Onions
2 Quarts
Marinara Sauce
Sautee the
minced garlic with the white onions in a skillet over medium heat with some
extra virgin olive oil until translucent – take care not to overcook the
garlic. Combine all ingredients and hand mix them all together until fully
mixed. Form the mixture into 1 lb balls
and set aside. Drop the meatballs into a
350-degree fryer for about 2 minutes or until the outside of the meatballs start
to appear browned and crispy. Place the
meatballs into a pan and cover each one with marinara sauce. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and
foil. Bake at 350 degrees for
approximately 1 hour or until the meatballs reach a minimum internal
temperature of 160 degrees. Allow to
cool and either serve or re-heat in a microwave. Cover each meatball with marinara sauce and
serve with slightly browned baked ricotta cheese and bread. These big balls are the bomb!
Once I got those
meatballs in the oven, my staff told me my family had eaten and were waiting
for me. Crap, I thought. I washed my hands and ran out into the dining
room to see several tables of people who all waved and wanted to shake my
hand. I finally made it to the room
where my family was just finishing dinner and sat down. My mom said “have some of this pizza, it’s
probably the best I have ever had.” I stared
down the table and saw a couple slices of my favorite signature pizza The Loui
Loui (a “supreme” topped with pepperoni, Italian sausage, Canadian bacon, green
peppers, black olives, sliced mushrooms and white onions) so I snagged one and
began to devour a slice of our best-selling pizza topped with that delicious
marinara sauce.
Continuing to worry about
taking care of the building customer crowd while getting the last of the VIP
entrees done, I walked back into the kitchen and began working on the last dish
for the night…a Kentucky Hot Brown Casserole.
The Hot Brown is an open-face sandwich that was developed by a chef at
Louisville’s historic Brown Hotel in 1926.
While it may not be the healthful sandwich out there, it sure is delicious. The original consists of slices of bread,
turkey, ham, mornay sauce, bacon and tomatoes.
We have done a Hot Brown pizza since the restaurant opened but today, we
lack mornay sauce and American ham. So
again, I had to improvise with alfredo sauce and prosciutto ham. Here is that recipe:
Kentucky
Hot Brown Casserole
Two 12” hoagie
buns diced into 1-2” cubes
1.5 Cups of
diced seasoned pork belly (skin removed)
2 Quarts of
alfredo sauce
6 Large tomatoes
diced
1 lb diced prosciutto
ham
1 lb smoked turkey
breast sliced into 3” strips
Place all
ingredients into a half hotel pan and hand mix thoroughly. Add swiss cheese slices on top of the mixture
and cover with plastic wrap and foil.
Bake at 350 degrees for approximately one hour. When done, the bread cubes should begin to
crisp and brown and looks more like a hot mess than a hot brown but reserve
judgment until you taste it. In this
particular case, the alfredo sauce, pork belly and prosciutto served as
wonderful substitutes for the usual mornay, bacon and ham. We have done this casserole before and it was
a hit. And even with the substitutes,
this recipe was another crowd pleaser.
On a buffet, people can help themselves to as little or as much as they
like and it’s such an awesome dish there is little chance there will be
leftovers.
It’s now the middle of
the peak dinner hour and there’s a pretty good crowd in the dining room but
things are slowing down. The staff put a
sign on the door indicating we would be closing early for a private party. My business partners and a number of good
friends started showing up and as things were slowing down, I took advantage of
the beer specials we had been running all week and talked to the folks as they
started to gather. We planned to set up
a buffet in the back-party room when another group cleared out but we were in
no hurry. It was good to relax for a
change although I spent most of my time running behind the bar fetching drinks
for the arriving guests.
As soon as the party room
cleared out, the staff and I bussed the tables and reorganized the room, lit
the chaffing dishes for the buffet and people started moving toward the back of
the restaurant. Suddenly, I remembered
that two of my friends were vegetarians – oops!
All of the food I had prepared contained meat. I told them we would be happy to make them
the vegetarian pizza of their choice or they could make salads with whatever we
had in the kitchen. They ended up
walking with me into the kitchen and occupying the salad prep station as they
found fresh romaine lettuce, diced tomatoes, red onions, pepperoncini, sliced
cucumbers, red pepper slices and other veggies to complete the ensemble topped
off with what remained of our house-made Italian dressing. I told the kitchen staff to go ahead and make
whatever pizzas they wanted with the last of the dough, sauce, cheese and
toppings and to keep them coming until everyone was full or until we ran out of
ingredients to make pizza. The kitchen
and front of house staff would be joining us for the feast as soon as all of
the food was out on the buffet so they were making all kinds of unorthodox
combination pizzas – a practice I regularly encouraged. I
moved the dishes I had prepared earlier in the day from the hot box to the
chaffing dishes, inserted serving spoons and we were ready to eat.
As I stated earlier, this
was no ordinary day for this restaurant owner.
The activities I have described today were pursuant to a message I
posted on the restaurant’s Facebook Page that had also gone out to over two
thousand people on our email list less than a week ago. The message read:
Important Message from Mike Spurlock,
President, Co-Owner and Founder of Loui Loui's, Inc.:
Friends,
we are closing down Loui Loui's at the end of this business week which is
Sunday November 12th. It's been an interesting five years Since we decided to
get in the pizza business. We really enjoyed the time we've had making pizza
and forging new relationships, playing music and a whole lot of other things
that have helped every one of us grow personally and professionally.
We
have truly loved bringing our style of pizza and other specialties to the the
Louisville food scene and I want to thank each and every one of you who have
supported us all these years.
So,
if you want to get one of the top 10 pan pizzas in the world right here in
Louisville Kentucky, stop by and see us through Sunday night.
Best
regards,
Mike
You probably thought
everything leading to this was about just another chaotic day in a restaurant
owner’s life. Ordinarily, I could always
count on the chaos, but today’s chaos was all driving toward closing our doors
and inviting my partners, their families and a few good friends to join me for
one last delicious meal at Loui Loui’s Authentic Detroit Style Pizza.
Seeing how this was the
final send-off, our good friend, loyal customer and fellow musician Paul wanted
to make a speech. Paul had many great
things to say about my partners and I, the staff and all that we have
created. But he also wanted to read a
social media post that appeared today from another loyal customer that pretty
much summed it all up in his view. Here
it is – from Toni:
Last night
we shared one last night of hugs, smiles, tears and music at Loui Loui's. Next
week it will be…the start of something new. Today I can't help but smile as I
revisit memories from my past two years at Loui Loui's. A couple of people have
commented to me that it was "just a restaurant"...but oh no it wasn't
just a restaurant.
It was a
place where memories were made. Memories that involve laughter, tears, love,
hugs, kisses, smiles, picture taking, dances, cake and more cake! It seems we
celebrated a birthday every week and the staff would say NO not another
birthday cake! But they would graciously cut it and serve it, fighting their
way through the crowd with trays of cake. That kind of thing doesn't happen at
just any restaurant.
I could
go in there any night of the week by myself and be assured that there would be
someone I know there. And we could stay as long as we liked.... and we often
did stay well past closing time. The staff would joke about throwing us out but
they would graciously clean up around us. They weren't just servers and kitchen
help...they became our friends. That kind of thing doesn't happen at just any
restaurant.
Of course,
I have to mention the food...I loved their pizza. Mike Spurlock was always
coming up with something new and he would bring out a tray for us to sample.
That doesn't happen at just any restaurant.
And the
music...the uniting force of music along with the talent of Jeff Rehmet and his
idea for a weekly jam night. And so began J-Boys jam night and then J-Boys
showcase on Thursdays. So many musicians dropped by out of curiosity and ended
up coming back week after week...for years. It was a place for musicians to get
back into the music scene. It revived many a musician who hadn't played in
years. It provided a place where they could sit in for a song without feeling
any pressure or inadequacies. Everyone was accepted. There were often young
musicians who were just getting their start and the older musicians helped them
along...giving them a chance to play in front of a live audience, often for the
first time. That doesn't happen at just any restaurant.
And the
patrons...some only dropped in to try the pizza and quickly discovered it
offered much more than just food. You might go in as as stranger but you left
as a friend. That doesn't happen at just any restaurant.
And then
there were the owners...they would sit at your table and eat and drink with
you, their spouses and kids were there as well. They attended events with us
outside of Loui Loui's. They made friends with their patrons. That kind of
thing doesn't happen at just any restaurant. So, a huge, heartfelt thank you to
Michael Spurlock, Michelle Spurlock, Ben Graves, Michael Shields, David Stewart
and Larry Smith for the memories...it was so much more than just a restaurant❤
Trying to keep from
crying as Paul read the post, I didn’t want this to become a downer of an
evening so I held it together. But
honestly, it was hard – I’ve spent more than five years of my life working hard
to create everything Toni outlined in her post and here we are…enjoying this
fabulous food in the restaurant and community we all built together for the
last time. Tomorrow, I have another
mission – to get everything of value that belongs to me or our company out of
the building to make way to the new tenants.
Some would go to the owners, some to charity, some into the dumpster – and
that’s just how it goes.
I wanted to make a few
remarks myself, but kept things short. I
really couldn’t top what Toni and Paul had to say. So, I echoed what had already been said and
added that I couldn’t say the restaurant was unsuccessful…rather it was just
unprofitable. Therefore, it was time to close and move on. I was at the end of my money and could not
keep the insanity going any longer. Our
staff were taken care of – the new tenants agreed to hire them all – a major
load off my mind since we were closing before the busiest time of the year in
the restaurant business with the biggest money-making potential for our
employees. Everything else was in motion
to close – all I had to do was execute.
It made everyone sad, but it had to be done.
Lessons Learned
I wrote these words two days after we closed the restaurant. I wanted to record a vivid account of the emotional roller coaster and chaos of the restaurant business thinking I might write a book about my experience. After a little time and reflection, I decided to put my energies into writing books that people might actually care about starting with how to make Detroit Style Pizza. It occurred to me that my story is not very unique. I actually thought that my best efforts to tell it like it is might cause neophyte restaurant owners pause before they repeat mistakes that continue to happen over and over again. I realized that despite all of the horror stories and financial losses in this business, as soon as a place closes, a long line of people will form who are eager to lose their asses. You don’t enter the restaurant business to make money. It is certainly a labor of love. You can make money and many owners do. But much of that success is as much a function of luck, timing and sometimes learning from multiple failures as anything.
The primary lesson learned here is that even with passion, energy, a good plan and product, there are so many factors that stack the odds against you. Competitors will resort to ruthless tactics to put you out of business. Sometimes your own employees are your own worst enemies. Social media is brutal because some horrible people will write completely false narratives in an attempt to damage your reputation simply for sport. And with some platforms like Yelp, you can’t get them to take completely false reviews down. And on the rare occasion you succeed in convincing the media platform to remove the post, chances are thousands of people have already seen it. It’s like a trial attorney asking a question or making a statement that lacks truth in an attempt to sway the jury. The judge says, “The jury is to disregard that statement.” Yeah, right. Too late. The jury already heard the statement. You can’t “unring” the bell.
I have more fond memories
of my time in the restaurant business than it might seem. In so many regards, my experience was a
roaring success. We sold millions of dollars worth of food that we created. My partners, employees and I created something awesome from nothing. Many
restaurants never make it as long as we did. Just know that if you ever decide to get into this business, you may find this to be a good way to turn passion
into regret. While it's not all about the money, positive cash flow is necessary for survival. Like someone once said. Q:
How do you get a million dollars? A: Raise ten-million and open a restaurant. That may be an exaggeration, but it’s not
wrong.
MJS
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