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

Funny looking back to my post in March saying it would be an interesting few weeks... and here we are in October.

I guess it's fair to provide you guys an update during these unprecedented times. I could write a whole book on the past few months alone. It's been something else. But, I'm still here. Hanging in there, slinging BBQ to the best of my ability.

So, a brief overview since we left off in March. I ended up closing down completely for a while shortly after all the restrictions went into place in March. We thought it would just be a short-term thing, let it play out, and get back to business. Obviously that wasn't the case. So, after closing and having some time to regroup, I began opening once or twice a week for flash BBQ events. Rather than try to limp along and staff a restaurant seeing only 20% of usual volume, we just cooked a whole bunch of food on one day, promoted the hell out of it, and sold everything in a matter of hours. It was great. I'd have lines stretched around the block.

This worked fairly well for almost two months. It allowed me to get most of my staff off payroll and they could get their unemployment and stimulus, and we could make enough each week to keep the lights on. Of course, the novelty of this model waned after a few months, and with no end in sight on re-opening restaurants to full capacity anytime soon, we opted to open at a limited capacity for carry out only. So, opened on weekend for carry out.

This also did ok since we already had a large carry out business to begin with, but customers dining behaviors changed across the board, so sales still took a significant hit during this.

Remember that food truck I bought right before all this hit the fan? Yeah, all our events for the summer for that got canceled. Hindsight is 20/20, never should have bought that thing this year. But, all wasn't completely lost. We hooked up with the Mishawaka farmer's market and set up our truck every sunday there. Then did some food truck friday events, and we're hooking up with a local craft beer bar to do some events, so we're starting to get some money out of that thing.

Now that the market is over for the year, we're slowly ramping back up to a pre-covid schedule here at the store wednesday through sunday. Sales are still down roughly 50% from this time last year. Part of it is football catering, or lack thereof. ND has had to postpone a game, and there's not really any tailgating going on, so those big fall weekend orders are a lot slimmer than they used to be.

Also, we have not reopened the dining room to full capacity yet. Partly because Indiana is not clear. Last week they allowed restaurants to open at full capacity, but you still have to maintain 6 foot distancing. Well, restaurant capacity isn't designed with 6' distancing in mind, so how can you say full capacity yet if you do that you're violating the 6' rule? We spoke to the health department and they don't have an answer. They said it's up to the inspectors own interpretation... *insert massive eyeroll here*

So because our dining room is so small and we do often have a line for carry out, we're opting to just have a few limited tables for guests to sit down to eat if they want, but we no longer have servers or table service. Which also sucks because we spent all that money and redid a full bar, and have not been able to utilize it one bit.

This slow time has allowed me to experiment a bit more. I've been doing some interesting stuff like smoking cow heads for barbacoa, I bought a goat from a farmer and smoked a whole goat, done lamb, making things like gyros, gazpacho, even made our own hot dogs one weekend, etc. So that part has been refreshing.

Needless to say, on a personal note, the stress of the business with all this covid stuff going on, I got extremely burned out and had a bit of a breakdown earlier this summer. It was just too overwhelming. So, I got the hell out of here for a week and I went to Alaska on vacation. All by myself, just to get as far away from people and the restaurant as I could. It had been years since I truly went on vacation, and it was so greatly needed. It was an amazing trip. I'm back, refreshed, and trying to get things back up to speed but it's still a long road ahead.

Oh, and I stayed open until 1am last night doing the annual pub crawl here. Not the best idea. The idiots kind of trashed the place, and found out this morning someone stole a brisket off the smoker at some point last night. I mean come on man...

Here's the goat:



Also, when we were closed down, I started a fundraiser #PPBBQrelief to feed BBQ to area frontline workers. Customers could make a donation, and we'd put their name and a heart in our store window. We raised enough money with this fundraiser to feed hundreds of area police officers, firefighters, healthcare workers, grocery store employees, etc. That was pretty cool.

Ready for a new plot twist? We had to close the restaurant this week, temporarily at least, because I have covid. I damn near wound up in the hospital Monday night.

Seriously, 2020 can kiss my ass.

Worst part of it is not having taste or smell. My entire life revolves around tasting things. If this doesn’t come back I don’t know what I’ll do. To be honest I’m kind of scared.