Marla's Restaurant Blog

Negative Comments...

Ok, I'm a weeny. Received a couple of negative comments and after leaving them on and mulling them over for a couple of days, I deleted them. Then I was sorry I did so and could not directly respond to those offended, but I can't get them back. I was told I was bitching too much, shouldn't air my dirty laundry on this blog, that I had a bad attitude. Well except for my husband hearing about the problems, this is my forum. This is a very hard, tedious business and so far removed from the celebrity status that people hear about, that I want to share what a restaurant owner deals with every day.

But perhaps I do take the time to write more when I am ticked off.

I should write more about our regulars who are the bread and butter of any restaurant and how nice they are to my staff and myself. I should write more often about how I actually do love going to work, every day. I love the pace, the hard work and my staff. I do love taking care of my guests, old and new:  serving them food, suggesting wine pairings, tiding their table, following up with special requests. I love being able to support my servers when they are slammed. I love the jazzy feel of the restaurant  when we are in full swing, even on a quieter night. I get true pleasures when the line cooks get in the weeds and I get behind the line to work with them. 

Showtime is fun, exciting and rewarding. Getting to showtime is hard.

Staff Party

We had our staff holiday party last night.  It was a blast.  Dancing, wrestling, (really) a little drinking and great food: Chinese Takeout.  I have a great staff.

The Truth about Groupon

Groupon approached me to offer a coupon on their site.  I ran the numbers inside and out and I could not figure out how I could do this without losing money on each person.

The customer buys a $50.00 groupon.  Groupon really wants restaurants to offer coupons that will cover the price of one person's meal.  In other words, they won't approve a coupon for lets say $15.00.  If you see a restaurant offering one at that price you'll see alot of negative comments.  Groupon doesn't like negative comments.  No one does.

The customer pays $25.00.  The restaurant receives $12.50 and Groupon keeps the other $12.50.  The problem is that a $50.00 meal will cost the restaurant about $16.00 to produce.  So the restaurant loses $3.50 for every person with a Groupon just in the cost of food and beverage.  There is no money for overhead and payroll.

The sales pitch offered by Groupon to the restaurant is that the Groupon holder will bring in someone else to eat with them filling the restaurant's empty seats.  Another pitch is the promotion will get new people in and they will become regulars and come back and spend money on their next visit. Groupon tries to set some limits such as not allowing more than one coupon for every two people, or just 2 per table.

The reality is that most of the time the Groupon holder will just spend the $50.00, even for 2 people.  There is a certain pleasure in not spending a penny more.  Another reality is that Groupon holders will not come back, they will go to the next place that is offering a Groupon.  And the last reality is that Groupon holders will come in on a Saturday night when you are already going to be booked and take up the space of regular diners whose check average covers the costs and overhead.  This is a big concern when the Groupon is about to expire and the dining room is packed with people using theirs before they expire.  This really hit a friend of mine last week.  I know this isn't very nice of me to say and of course some of the diners will not fit this profile, but those are the facts. 

It is very hard to stay competive in this business.  It's very hard not to want to try anything to bring in a new customer base, but when you are already cutting your margins very tight in order to offer your guests a great value, this program is too risky.