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

"And then bought 5 orders to take home and give out."
Most people have to pay good money for such advertisement. I hope to stop by one of these days on my way to visit my children in Chicago.
 
I cannot wait to get back home & stop in.....My wife is using this as leverage to move us back to Indiana ASAP!!

I have driven by this location so many times & wondered about the restaurants...you...have made it a destination!

BTW: any thought of tapping into the campground as a market?
 
Spotu said:
BTW: any thought of tapping into the campground as a market?
Click to expand...

I sort of already have. This winter there's been a big pipeline project going on right across the street and the whole campground has been full of pipeline workers for about six months. Took a bunch of menus down there and had daily pipeline traffic coming in.

They just recently pulled out, but when the regular campers come in I'll do the same thing since they are within walking distance. What's better than grabbing some BBQ and eating it by your own campfire?
 
I understand the concept of not investing in a new smoker until you can tell if you are going to need one long term, but if you are turning down big catering jobs on a daily basis and still running out of food for the restaurant, it seems to me that you might want to look into getting one. I obviously don't know the details of your finances, but I would think that you could pay for a new smoker just with the catering jobs that you are having to turn down because of a lack of capacity.

This may be what you have in mind when you say you are looking into making the catering a separate business, but until then a mobile smoker and a new part-time employee or two might allow you to take those catering jobs that you currently have to turn away.
 
Well, with more smoker space, big catering gigs, and more food means more storage. My two walk-ins are pretty full as it is. All the dry storage shelves are more than packed and we've had to resort to storing some stuff out in the shed, and even that's nearly full now.

25tkjmr.jpg


zlqih0.jpg
 
marubozo said:
Well, with more smoker space, big catering gigs, and more food means more storage. My two walk-ins are pretty full as it is. All the dry storage shelves are more than packed and we've had to resort to storing some stuff out in the shed, and even that's nearly full now.

25tkjmr.jpg


zlqih0.jpg
Click to expand...

I would like to shop here.... Great job! Love this thread!
 
marubozo said:
well, with more smoker space, big catering gigs, and more food means more storage. My two walk-ins are pretty full as it is. All the dry storage shelves are more than packed and we've had to resort to storing some stuff out in the shed, and even that's nearly full now.

25tkjmr.jpg


zlqih0.jpg
Click to expand...

wow!!!
 
bander7003 said:
To change things up, you could also run pics of some of your customers or some of the area attractions.
Click to expand...

If you have one of your employees walk through the tables now and then and take pictures of large groups, that will create some simple slide-show content that you can run on your TV along with shots of the food (the real star). People who return will get a kick out of seeing themselves on your TV -- at least that works for my kids and their favorite local frozen yogurt place.

Just make sure to mention when you're taking the pictures that they are for your TV.
 
marubozo said:
Well, with more smoker space, big catering gigs, and more food means more storage. My two walk-ins are pretty full as it is. All the dry storage shelves are more than packed and we've had to resort to storing some stuff out in the shed, and even that's nearly full now.

25tkjmr.jpg


zlqih0.jpg
Click to expand...

Whenever I have multiple events going on I utilize speed racks in my walk in cooler to accommodate the additional items.
 
So with the price of meat going up are any of you owners increasing insurance value to cover lost inventory?
 
And I'm finally feeling comfortable to delegate more to my employees. It's quite hard when you're a control freak, but on Thursday I didn't touch a single piece of meat or plate anything. I let them handle it all and just stood back doing some quality control. It felt great, so hopefully I can begin to step back a little so that I can spend more time actually running the business.
Click to expand...

Good for you AND your employees.
 
So, a couple of back-end updates since I have a little time before hitting the sack and starting another grueling week.

Month to date we've had about 1,600 transactions. Average transaction is 1.8 people. So, not counting all the bulk orders and catering, we've served close to 3,000 people this month. Not too shabby considering Niles only has a population of about 11,000, so it's clear there are a lot of people making a trip out here to stop in.

One interesting thing is that I think word has gotten out about the brisket. It has become the best seller, which is totally what I wasn't expecting since up this far north it's all about pork and ribs and most people don't even know what brisket is. Brisket, in all forms, makes up 25% of total sales. Hell, I think last week I went through 600 pounds of brisket and that wasn't even enough come Sunday.

29c3qkk.png


The other somewhat interesting thing is sales throughout the day. Obviously there's a lunch and dinner rush, but even between 2-4pm business is decent. Especially considering we're out in the middle of BFE and most people will have a relatively lengthy drive to come in.

290zxjb.png


All in all, at the three month mark things have exceeded my wildest dreams. I only envisioned this tiny little restaurant in the middle of nowhere to see a few dozen people a day and I would be happy to just be able to pay the bills by cooking BBQ. Little did I know I'd be creating a monster.

Instead, I'm feeding thousands every month, have regulars who come in almost daily and treat us like a home away from home, and I've already made some lifelong friends because of this venture. It's still surreal.

Those who have read the entire thread know how long and painful the startup process was, and there were many times I thought about throwing in the towel. But I'll tell you this; even with the incredibly long hours, hard work, and exhaustion, every morning when I wake up I can't farking wait to get to the restaurant. It doesn't matter if I'm trimming ribs at 7:30 in the morning or just doing paperwork, I can't wait to do it.

And that is priceless, even with all the stress and financial struggles.
 
if you don't mind me asking what is your current food to alcohol sales ratio?

I'm glad your doing well and congrats again.

One of these days I'm going to open my place called Meet House it going to be a modern smoke house with a community style atmosphere.
 
tommye1078 said:
if you don't mind me asking what is your current food to alcohol sales ratio?

I'm glad your doing well and congrats again.

One of these days I'm going to open my place called Meet House it going to be a modern smoke house with a community style atmosphere.
Click to expand...

We don't serve alcohol. Yet. My wife, who is an attorney, is working with the attorney who is the executor of an estate that has a license for the county. I'd really like to add craft beer to the mix.
 
marubozo said:
So, a couple of back-end updates since I have a little time before hitting the sack and starting another grueling week.

Month to date we've had about 1,600 transactions. Average transaction is 1.8 people. So, not counting all the bulk orders and catering, we've served close to 3,000 people this month. Not too shabby considering Niles only has a population of about 11,000, so it's clear there are a lot of people making a trip out here to stop in.

One interesting thing is that I think word has gotten out about the brisket. It has become the best seller, which is totally what I wasn't expecting since up this far north it's all about pork and ribs and most people don't even know what brisket is. Brisket, in all forms, makes up 25% of total sales. Hell, I think last week I went through 600 pounds of brisket and that wasn't even enough come Sunday.

29c3qkk.png


The other somewhat interesting thing is sales throughout the day. Obviously there's a lunch and dinner rush, but even between 2-4pm business is decent. Especially considering we're out in the middle of BFE and most people will have a relatively lengthy drive to come in.

290zxjb.png


All in all, at the three month mark things have exceeded my wildest dreams. I only envisioned this tiny little restaurant in the middle of nowhere to see a few dozen people a day and I would be happy to just be able to pay the bills by cooking BBQ. Little did I know I'd be creating a monster.

Instead, I'm feeding thousands every month, have regulars who come in almost daily and treat us like a home away from home, and I've already made some lifelong friends because of this venture. It's still surreal.

Those who have read the entire thread know how long and painful the startup process was, and there were many times I thought about throwing in the towel. But I'll tell you this; even with the incredibly long hours, hard work, and exhaustion, every morning when I wake up I can't farking wait to get to the restaurant. It doesn't matter if I'm trimming ribs at 7:30 in the morning or just doing paperwork, I can't wait to do it.

And that is priceless, even with all the stress and financial struggles.
Click to expand...

Thanks for being so open. This is really interesting to see some of these numbers. When you decide to retire, you could probably take this thread, and write a pretty successful BBQ book with this stuff :) Really fun to read all this.
 
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