Open a BBQ restaurant, they said. It will be fun, they said

markrvp said:
I wonder if Jeremy is up yet or if he'll sleep all day? Looking forward to a report on yesterday's church business
Click to expand...

Thanks to my wife who scheduled our blinds to be installed at 8am, I didn't get to sleep in. Thankfully, as soon as they were done I went back to bed and just got up a few minutes ago.

Later I'm going to sit down and go through the numbers and get an idea of just how much we made, if any, and get a feel for how everything stacks up against my original estimates. Then hopefully I have some good news to report later.
 
landarc said:
I understand the comment about 'jackhole' and believe me, in the food service industry, the cooks, waitstaff and owners that smile and joke with you at the table, are often quite disparaging at the end of service. And the least liked, are the ones that come in with exceptional orders and expect exceptional response and could care less what it means for everyone else. Cooking IS hard work.

My local coffee shop would order in 50 bagels and 40 morning buns, and reliably, for two weeks, one guy would come in on Tue. and Thurs. and buy all of them. Leaving the coffee shop without those items for the morning. Sure, you sold out, but, you disappointed 90 customers to keep one happy. When told that these items were now limited to 4 of each, or special order, he complained, then tried to send people in, tried coming in when owner wasn't there. Finally, he trashed the shop on Yelp.

You surely can't please everyone and the days wear.
Click to expand...

What my son did with his BBQ food truck with a customer who wanted "x" racks of ribs each week, was that he talked to the customer privately after the first time and asked if this was going to be a standing special order each week. If so, my son would cook extra ribs just for him and make sure they did not get sold. This made the customer feel special, eliminated the risk of waste or other unhappy customers for my son, and guaranteed a set amount of revenue for him that particular day.
 
John Lewis of LA BBQ typically runs out between 1:30 and 2:30.

Aaron Franklin. Similar.

I ate at LA BBQ Wednesday and talked with John for about 45 minutes and I can assure you that , he does not consider it a huge problem.


Memphis Que said:
As some of the others have commented, I believe that the running out of food thing is a huge problem. I live in Memphis and eat BBQ at various places around town at least once a week. I have been to all of the big name places and most of the smaller, hole-in-the wall places. I also travel throughout the southeast for my job quite a bit and love finding new BBQ places to eat at while I am traveling. In over 20 years of doing this, I have been to only two BBQ joints that ran out of food before closing time.
Click to expand...
 
I am OK with a BBQ joint doing "until we run out" as long as the place markets itself that way. I have a choice as to whether to go there at certain times if there is a chance I will not get what I want. Of course, it also drives a longer line at open and I get to make the choice as to whether to wait in that as well. This is obviously very common around my parts. On the other hand, if a place has set hours then I expect them to have food reasonably close to closing time and expect it to be of the quality I would get earlier in the day. My favorite Q place is very successful with his multiple pull system, and though I tend to go at open I am just as comfortable going at other times of the day.
 
Riz58 said:
What my son did with his BBQ food truck with a customer who wanted "x" racks of ribs each week, was that he talked to the customer privately after the first time and asked if this was going to be a standing special order each week. If so, my son would cook extra ribs just for him and make sure they did not get sold. This made the customer feel special, eliminated the risk of waste or other unhappy customers for my son, and guaranteed a set amount of revenue for him that particular day.
Click to expand...
My friends did exactly that, and the guy refused to make that order. He said he would not do that, and in fact, he felt it was their job to accommodate his order, and that, as "a paying customer with American money, that he could d*** well buy everything in the store if he wanted"...and with that, we was banned.

An interesting and useful aside. My friend had a policy that any bad Yelp reviews, he would immediately reach out to the Yelper, apologize and ask them to come in to the shop on his account, meet with him and discuss how things could be better. The net result, was that he made it clear on any bad review, that he was prepared to make anyone whole, who did not enjoy their meal, all they had to do was come in person and tell him why. The end result, was that when this guy flamed the coffee shop, my friend replied that "we have attempted to work with the above reviewer, he has refused to honor our requests, we asked him not to return, as his behavior was detrimental to our business and clientele. He refused, and he is now banned from our shop. We regret that he felt the need to flame us." and that flame review went away. Yelp removed it.
 
sliding_billy said:
I am OK with a BBQ joint doing "until we run out" as long as the place markets itself that way. I have a choice as to whether to go there at certain times if there is a chance I will not get what I want. Of course, it also drives a longer line at open and I get to make the choice as to whether to wait in that as well. This is obviously very common around my parts. On the other hand, if a place has set hours then I expect them to have food reasonably close to closing time and expect it to be of the quality I would get earlier in the day. My favorite Q place is very successful with his multiple pull system, and though I tend to go at open I am just as comfortable going at other times of the day.
Click to expand...

I agree that it is more acceptable to run out of food if you advertise your hours as "until we run out." My main beef (pun intended :biggrin1:) is with having a set closing time and repeatedly running out of food before then which, as I understand it, is what Marubozo has been doing. He has talked about people driving long distances to eat his barbecue, which is great, but how long do you think that is going to last if he runs out of food before they get there?

I just saw on his Facebook page that he has sold 1600 pounds of meat during his first week in business, which is incredible. I hope he is able to keep it up.
 
Good yelp tip, landarc. I haven't had any negative online reviews yet, but I've been doing something similar with the few customers who have called in with a complaint. They seem appreciative of the effort and most have come back in to make good on it.

Anyway, today wasn't as relaxing as it should have been given all the errands I had to run, but I did browse through some quick numbers to get a rough idea as to what happened last week, which was just this past Wednesday through yesterday. I'm sure this isn't representative of the long term trend since we just opened, but it's certainly encouraging.

For those five days, we had roughly $9,500 in gross sales. Then if I look at that week's expenses, from payroll, taxes, food, mortgage, utilities, plowing, etc, that came to about $5,600. Food cost came in right around 37%, which is higher than expected. But at the same time, that is to be expected since with all the craziness and shortages, I made a ton of runs to the local market to buy meats and various foods when we ran out, and those items were priced significantly higher than I'd get otherwise.

I'll still need to dig into the fine details when I enter every transaction into quickbooks, but at first glance all I can say is wow. When looking at my original projections in terms of customers and sales, I was planning on only doing about $3,000/week in gross sales, with my break even point at just $2,000/week. So even after the new restaurant honeymoon is over and if sales drop by 50%, that's still far beyond my expectations.

But that's enough business for tonight. After a few naps and personal errands today, it's time for some blues and a bourbon. Then it's off to the radio station tomorrow to record my interview.
 
Great news so far. I have a couple of questions:
1. are you taking a salary?
2. Are you counting insurance, real estate taxes, etc into all that?

All in all, from what you have described, you look like you are in great shape so far. I wish you continued success. I am a small business owner as well and I always root for the small businessman. I hope to come try it out in the spring!
 
oifmarine2003 said:
Great news so far. I have a couple of questions:
1. are you taking a salary?
2. Are you counting insurance, real estate taxes, etc into all that?

All in all, from what you have described, you look like you are in great shape so far. I wish you continued success. I am a small business owner as well and I always root for the small businessman. I hope to come try it out in the spring!
Click to expand...

Well, I'm not taking a salary in terms of getting a check every other week with the payroll run. But I am paying myself a little.

And yes, I'm counting all expenses like insurance, RE taxes, and so on. That's the one benefit of being out here in BFE. The mortgage is low, real estate taxes are low, utilities are low, etc. In fact, I think I pay more on my home electric bill than I do at the restaurant. It's crazy.
 
marubozo said:
Well, I'm not taking a salary in terms of getting a check every other week with the payroll run. But I am paying myself a little.

And yes, I'm counting all expenses like insurance, RE taxes, and so on. That's the one benefit of being out here in BFE. The mortgage is low, real estate taxes are low, utilities are low, etc. In fact, I think I pay more on my home electric bill than I do at the restaurant. It's crazy.
Click to expand...

You are looking good then! Keep it up!
 
marubozo said:
Well, I'm not taking a salary in terms of getting a check every other week with the payroll run. But I am paying myself a little.

And yes, I'm counting all expenses like insurance, RE taxes, and so on. That's the one benefit of being out here in BFE. The mortgage is low, real estate taxes are low, utilities are low, etc. In fact, I think I pay more on my home electric bill than I do at the restaurant. It's crazy.
Click to expand...

I (and I am sure everyone here) really appreciate you letting us in on the back end details of your journey. As has been mentioned many times, you are living the life that so many of us have pondered but never been able to pull off.

As for Yelp, let me know if you need any advice (for some reason or another, I am actually a Yelp Elite). It can be a very powerful tool both good and bad if you manage it appropriately. The one thing I would recommend when you reply is to not make it seem like an automatic form letter. There is a local BBQ joint that replies to almost every review good and bad. Both sound "canned." I have met the guy, and he is a decent owner who puts out solid product. He just needs to put more thought into replying to the exact comments and not just replying.
 
Jeremy, what radio station are you going to be on and when will the interview air?
 
Neil said:
Jeremy, what radio station are you going to be on and when will the interview air?
Click to expand...

It's 96.1 WSBT. What they are doing is a 30 minute interview and then editing it into a bunch of small segments, which will then run throughout the entire day on Wednesday. I'm not sure if it starts this Wednesday or next week though.
 
I'm sure you are because you mentioned your wife is an attorney, but you are incorporated right? It can have have massive implications if you wind up having a judgment against you.
 
marubozo said:
It's 96.1 WSBT. What they are doing is a 30 minute interview and then editing it into a bunch of small segments, which will then run throughout the entire day on Wednesday. I'm not sure if it starts this Wednesday or next week though.
Click to expand...
this is pretty cool
 
Radio thing went well. It should air next wednesday.

Then I got a call this afternoon from channel WNDU 16. They are coming out tomorrow to film a segment and show off the food.

No pressure or anything. I'm still trying to catch up on sleep. :shock:
 
marubozo said:
Radio thing went well. It should air next wednesday.

Then I got a call this afternoon from channel WNDU 16. They are coming out tomorrow to film a segment and show off the food.

No pressure or anything. I'm still trying to catch up on sleep. :shock:
Click to expand...

Congrats maybe we can see a copy of it
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

BGEChicago
TX Folks will laugh at me but...
2
Replies
25
Views
1K
SmokinAussie
SmokinAussie
D
Main smoker chamber grates. Slide out or not Yes or no ?
Replies
11
Views
312
Big George's BBQ
Big George's BBQ
T
Pitts & Spitts adjustable charcoal grill. Reviews?
Replies
7
Views
1K
Nuco59
N
Hotch
You're All Invited to The 2024 Texas BBQ Brethren Spring Bash on April 6!
2 3
Replies
51
Views
4K
Hotch
Hotch
J
Premium/high end offset
2 3
Replies
55
Views
4K
cayenne
cayenne
Back
Top