So, I posted here about 6 months ago, after I bought my first business ( the Daily Bagel Reno). I wanted to give an accounting of all I've learned and accomplished since the takeover in June of last year.
First, let's start with the Bad. Our place is small, 700sqft, 200 of it for the kitchen. We had lots of issues to slog through as first time business owners, and a huge learning curve ahead of us. We had a terrible falling out with previous owner after just a week. She was very off put by any changes we made, and it caused conflict. So after a week, we were on our own. Here's a brief description of the problems we faced. Failing or under capacity equipment, non efficient layout, a kitchen not ready to pass health inspection, under utilization of space, non existent inventory, long customer wait times.
Customers were waiting 10-15 min for small orders and 25-40 min for big orders. We frequently sold out of bagels. People would come in at 8am and see maybe 4 or 5 types of bagel ( we have 15 flavors). The old owner was rude and unfriendly, and frequently upset customer. The previous owner told us keeping a small inventory was smart (which, it is) but her idea of small was literally barley enough food to get through 1 normal business day. There were 2 ovens, which at capacity could bake 3 dozen bagels per hour. A toaster which took 4 min to toast a bagel, and was large and clunky. A traditional cash register, along with hand written tickets. A menu board 48"x24" that contained an entire lunch and breakfast menu. A back storage closet loaded floor to ceiling with nothing but crap. They day our security cameras went on, we caught one of the employees stealing. Our first month was rough. We had 2 1 star Yelp reviews. We had the health department tell us her kitchen would not pass, and we had to get new refrigerators. Then we had employee issues. We had 1 steal, I was super lazy, and one didn't like us. So basically we fired all 3. But we hired people that turned out just as bad. Eventually my wife and got the hang of things, and have needed to rely on employees less and less. My wife and are working 6 days a week, 10hrs+ a day. ( we were open 7 days a week in September, and i ended up working 28 days in a row). The previous was closed on Sundays, open Mon-sat, 630-2pm.
Ok, let's look at the POSITIVES! after all that it might seem as if there are none. But there are! We fixed all the issues. We invested $10,000 in new equipment. We now have 2 ovens, capable of 15 dozen Bagels per hour. We purchased a fridge designed for small spaces, and increased from 5 cbft, to 12 cbft, in the same area. I received my food management certification. We spent 8 hours deep cleaning the kitchen, and passed our Health inspection with a 100. We bought a toaster that takes just 45 seconds to toast a bagel. We invested in a POS system, that has a printer in the kitchen. A new menu board that's 80"x30" and allows customers in line to read it and decide on what they'd like before reaching the register. We reorganized the kitchen for greater efficiency. We invested in a real inventory, that lasts 7 days, while maintaining freshness. By creating a real inventory, we were able reduce our food costs by 15% annually, and reduced our food cost from 35% down to 26%. It has also saved us time, I now shop 1 time a week, for 2 hours, rather than 6 days at 1 hr each. Sales are thru the roof, the previous fiscal year was 180k Gross, but in our first 6 months, we've done 108k, and are expecting to do 225k by out fiscal year end. Customer wait times are down to 3-6min, 8-12 when it's super busy. Since our 2 1 star Yelp reviews, we have had 45 5 star, 18 4 star, 1 3 star and 2 2star. We received very positive reviews in Both the Reno News and review and the Reno Gazette Journal since October. We have also branched out, and now have 4 wholesale clients: 3 coffee shops and the County Hospital ( we out competed another bagel shop for 2 of those accounts), currently those wholesale accounts will gross around 8k. We opened Sundays, and closed mondays. That has paid off big time, as Sunday is now our 2nd busiest day, and Monday was always our slowest.
Things are looking bright, we now are past most of the initial learning curve, we have all our major problems fixed, and now spend our time figuring out how to grow and improve, rather than putting out fires and stressing!
Here are 2 links so you can look at pics and see some of the shop:
Submitted January 30, 2016 at 12:39AM by truckeeriverfisher http://ift.tt/20ydW2p smallbusiness
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