And now the hard part…
Sundial Construction, NW Basics, Bowles Corporation, Villager Homes, Northwest Builders and three or four more plus various partnerships. Recounting these, I always said I was a “businessman.” Now, facing down today’s challenges, I realize that I started and owned those businesses not because of my business acumen but, rather, my love of ideas.
Many of you have followed our Restaurant Remodel Reality Show these last several months. What we pulled off was a miracle. Technically it could not be done. We gutted the kitchen, relocating the hood, cooking line and dish pit, ground the floors, framed a hard ceiling. We built a world-class bar, a small group private dining room, wine room and installed 15 tons of new HVAC equipment.
We closed on New Year’s Day and reopened the first of March. I added up my time and it totaled 900 hours for those two months. Brutal, but pretty impressive, right?
In the fall of 2020, as we lost our outdoor seating, we realized that we had to give up the ad hoc Marketplace that was occupying the wine bar or move it permanently into the space next door.
Inflation anybody?
It was foolish not to expect significant inflation after my government had just printed $5.2 trillion (with a ‘T’) dollars. In the school of economics I studied at, the University of Hard Knocks, such events precede inflation. Regardless, there was no looking back. We couldn’t build half a project.
We were pretty stretched coming into the remodel. Keeping our staffing life and limb together during the pandemic set us back a couple hundred thousand, but we survived intact. Most did not. Strange what one will call good fortune.
I originally hoped to complete the remodel in five weeks, and I have the GANNT chart to prove it. But it wasn’t realistic. Eight weeks was still a miracle. I didn’t have an HVAC contractor on board until the last minute and that contract cost 2x my budget. Untangling the electrical mess left by a procession of tenants had a similar effect on my budget, as did many other line items.
Time for a road trip!
Bottom line is that our budget anticipated utilizing all of our cash, and then we spent an extra $150,000. The corporate card got maxed out, this guy is owed $15,000, that one is owed 10k, the other 6k, etc. I just returned from an 8,000-mile loop around the country delivering pianos in order to fatten the coffers and clear my jets. But while this gave me time to ponder, the $8,000 I earned isn’t even a month’s rent. Meanwhile I have been swimming with sharks, entertaining loan offers with exorbitant rates.
So, you see why I say that I am more of an idea man than a business man. A real (good) business man would not put himself in this pickle. I figure I’ll find a solution. Janet admires how good I am at getting us out of the messes I get us into. The good news is that business is up, way up. Sales in March, reopening from a dead stop, were 50% above March ’22. April in ’22 was a record non-holiday month but we exceeded those sales by 20% and, so far, May is 40% above last year. These are extraordinary figures (thanks to you) but they simply don’t generate the cash we need short term. If any of you readers out there are actually business people with experience in such matters, I‘d love to have some input. Before I sign up for one of those loans I thought there might be some helpful advice to be had amongst our vast pool of talented customers.
From whence we came…
Folks have expressed much appreciation for Janet’s and my low privacy needs as we have waded through this latest adventure. We’ve come a long way from our 3-burner camp stove with a BBQ on the back porch. Many of you have been with us for the whole ride. We were never a concept. We just showed up and tried to meet you well with good food and a sense of humor. The work we recently completed was the fulfillment of our dream for the restaurant. Grasping that dream, striving such as we do, has created a special moment in the BT biography.
Always remember… you were there! We couldn’t do it without you. (I wonder if we can undo it with you!)
