2020 In Hindsight

Families need affordable takeout options that allow them to put together a quality meal on the fly. It has been challenging for a fine dining restaurant in the Beaverton area to meet this need, especially the affordable part. Ready to cook meals in the Marketplace enables us to feed a family of four for under $30 with the same ingredients used in the restaurant. How did we get here?I got into this business after my most unpleasant sister, Shelley, bought into a short-lived franchise concept called “Dinners Ready,” a meal assembly business that erupted onto the scene around 2007. Dinners Ready and its competitors all disappeared by 2010, and it wasn’t the recession that took them down. The concept was devised to sell franchises, locking would-be entrepreneurs into a business model based on a relationship strategy that promised investors they could run the business for their own convenience and retire rich. In order to overcome her impending failure Shelley, it turned out needed to actually work. This fact stressed her beyond what she could bear and she ran off screaming with her hair on fire.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...

Shelley was always crazy but she had seemed to stabilize prior to buying into the franchise. Her failure created a pivot point in both of our lives. She unraveled, stayed angry and began the work of unstringing every relationship in her life. For my part, with few options and Janet’s talent and work ethic to pull the wagon we began the work of creating a restaurant from thin air and a spot on the corner. By the time we had weathered the recession and created a business with positive cash flow, everything was gone. Sold. The cars, the furniture, the dog. If we found a quarter on the sidewalk we’d pick it up and invest it in the restaurant. There was no cash, no assets but the business. It was long hours, week after week. We must have reinvented ourselves a thousand times.

A Long Haul

Each of our six kids worked in the restaurant, some more than others. The ability to provide this opportunity for them and to teach them to work, and to interact with them as young adults, made all the hard work worthwhile, regardless of the sparse financial outcomes. Almost every September we would close for remodel. We operated from 2009 to 2014 without a hood in the kitchen, grilling on a barbecue on the back porch and using induction burners on the line. In 2016 we finally gutted the restaurant and created more or less the environment you see today, sans Marketplace. Business grew. We became marginally profitable but used most of that profit to pay off the $150,000 bill we ran up trying and failing to open a second restaurant; the single least regrettable failure of my life.In 2019, revenue grew just enough to take us over the top. December was our best month ever with sales 20% above the same month in 2018. January 2020 was up 30% over 2019, and so was February and the first half of March. Then all hell broke loose. Annual revenue for the remainder of 2020 down over 25%. The great month of December was down 35%. But only 35%!

Next?

The crisis stew we were born into in 2009 became quite spicy in 2020. Nonetheless, crisis is the devil we know. We sprang into action, launching the "Pandemic Business Model." Closed for dining on Tuesday, St Paddy’s Day, an online ordering system for takeout and delivery was installed and operational that Friday. We closed on Sunday and Monday in order to shrink our staffing bubble around a five-day week. Online payments we up and running the following Tuesday. Over time we upgraded the online ordering to better integrate it with our POS system. Once we were allowed to reopen we moved the takeout business into the wine bar and invested in a retail, reach-in cooler and freezer, POS hardware, shelving, containers and labels. The Marketplace was born and it looks like it is here to stay. Families need affordable takeout options that allow them to put together a quality meal on the fly. The State closed us down again but the newly invented Marketplace saved us.

How the Angels Guide Us

It is a good thing that we don’t get the lives that we think we want: steady winds and smooth sailing, no hurt, no harm. For if we achieved the struggle-free life we think we wish for, by the time we crossed the threshold our spirits would be flaccid, gelatinous. It occurs to me, now in my wise old age, that obstacles are placed in our path not to obstruct us, but to guide us. The trick is to look around and discern what is trying to happen. What alternate path might that obstacle be guiding us toward. What is called for?Just as the so-called Great Recession caused us to open a restaurant despite the lack of cooking equipment, plates and silverware or tables, the pandemic has guided us into a much-enhanced business model and staffing plan that answers the call for well made, organic, affordable takeout options.. Now we are looking to triple our refrigeration, add a café, host an ad hoc farmers market and maybe install that pizza oven Janet always wanted. In 2021 we will emerge from this pandemic but life will never be the same. It is up to us to make it better. You can view the full takeout and Marketplace menus by clicking here. Changes are made daily. Simply enter January 7th as your order date to see our planned offering when we reopen.