judysmith’s blog

Anyone else out there love red wine?  I do!  Want to justify drinking it?  It is healthy.

Hello everyone,  Easter is coming up and we are planning for a blowout at the restaurant.  Last year we did over 800 dinners.  We already have 450 reservations and we are weeks out.

Easter

We are going to have someone dress up as a bunny and hand out treats to the kids (and I am sure the adults will enjoy them too).  I have a question - should we go with all cadbury eggs or the reeses eggs?

I recently started carriying this wine
from Argentina. It's only 8 dollars whole
sale and Wow!
Since 1884, the wines of Don Miguel Gascón have been recognized for the rich, smooth flavors that come from Argentina's Mendoza wine region. High altitude vineyards situated along the Cordillera of the Andes Mountains produce full mature grapes for this classic Malbec. It is full bodied and elegant with soft, round tannins, layered with flavors of blackberry, blueberry, dark cherry, and a hint of mocha. Definate try!

Tanngo

Wine

1 comment

Tinto's is a fabulous world class restaurant.  Chef Garces has brought something special to Pennsylvania.  I highly recommend dining here, fly in for the weekend, it is really that good.

Tinto's<-------

Italy

I love to travel, the world is so amazing, the different places and cultures.  The best part about traveling is getting away from it all.  Every time I go away I realize that there is a lot more going on than just "me".  The world is a huge place.  My favorite place to travel is ITALY :)  The food is so darn good.

So while I am sitting here typing this, my mind is traveling off in Italy...

This is a one of my favorite websites -  www.travelpod.com

Ok, now it is time to come back to reality and get back to work.

Restaurants are fun to go too and can be very difficult to manage.  If you have an amazing dining experience, just know that there is someone who is working very hard for that to happen.

There are so many restaurants these days, I think there is a new one that opens every 6 minutes...and then one closes every 5.5 minutes.  You have to be very skilled and persistent in order to make it in the restaurant industry.  http://www.restaurantowner.com

There is so much going on it can be frustrating and harm your sense of well being.  I currently have 56 employees.  That is 56 people that have to show up on time and perform there specific job.  Employees can clock in for each other, driving payroll through the roof, monitor that from minute to minute, nope, can't.

One of the worst parts is the theft from employees and there is not much that you can do about it.  Cameras help, but it is impossible to track everything.  The easiest place for the employees to steal from you is in the bar.  Little bit here, little bit there, the owner will never know.  Give a free drink (wow, i made 30% tips tonight from sales)...and stole $145 from the owner x 30 days a month.  It gives me a headache and heartburn just thinking about it. 

Payroll, to take care of the issues that come about, you need managers.  You hire them, thinking that they are going to watch out for you so you can have a life, and then you come into work the next day and this manager got drunk at work, and then the other one left work early and had a 19 year running the place.  No matter who you hire, there will never be anyone who cares as much as you to watch out for your own business and the customers experience.  The world lies on the owners shoulders.  http://www.allbusiness.com

Inventory control, what goes in and what goes out, impossible with a big facility like mine.  Predicting how much business that you are going to do from one day to the next, not possible.  I could order 36 cases of tomatoes, and if the people don't come in, then that is 36 cases of wasted money.  Seafood is the most difficult!  4 days and then it goes bad.  The stuff is not cheap either.

Now I am going to talk about the owners of the building (wish it was me, but it is not).  To maintain the building and keep it looking good is up to them, and if they don't want to do it, they don't.  They don't care if your business is doing good or not, they want there money, the money is due no matter what.

Sexual harassment.  Guess who has the upper hand with this one, the owner?  Think again.  You are at the employees mercy, if you catch them stealing, and you fire them, then they turn around and accuse you the owner or one of your fellow employees of sexual harassment and my boss did nothing about it, so that can turn into a nice $200k settlement out of your pocket that you worked so hard for (working 100+ hours per week).

L&I.  So They go skiing last weekend and then all of the sudden 5 days later they mysteriously fell in the freezer with no witnesses and file for workers comp which drives your L&I through the roof.  If you deny the claim, you employee can turn around and sue you for deformation.  What a joy this is.  http://www.eeoc.gov

I have worked over 100+ hours this week and I am venting right now, thanks for listening .

If you are a restaurant owner, you can understand all of this.  I would recommend to not go into the restaurant business if you want a life.  If you don't have a life and love stress, then go for it.  It can be rewarding but it can also take years off of your life.

Every day I get up knowing that more restaurants go under than succeed, and I still do it, why?  I must like the pain and suffering. 

There must be a "restaurant owner therapist" somewhere in the US, if you know of any, please leave me a message so I can get this figured out.

To leave this, you also have the customer reviews that go into http://www.citysearch.com and http://www.zagat.com and http://www.yelp.com anyone can post anything they want, especially an upset employee.  There is no way to know if the review is real or not.  It could also be your competition.  I hope that it is from actual customers, but there is no way to ever know.

Again, thanks for listening to the venting, I feel better now for some reason.  JudySmith

I am in the restaurant industry and my back has been acting up for a couple of years...Of course like any other restauranteur we are always to busy to go to the doctor. So I looked online for an alternative. I have been taking this pills for about three months now and for the last three weeks this is the best my back has felt in over two years. I am writing this to share with others out there who are always "too busy" Velatol works...it may not be immediate but it does work. I am so excited about this because now I can go to work at my restaurant on Friday nights...with out any worries about my back pain.
I recommend to go to velatol.com and pick up this stuff, it works