Word around the watercooler

When restaurants open, the scene the first few months are chaos. No matter how prepared or not.

I hesitantly attended a few 'soft openings*' in my day and I'm not sure I ever returned. I know you're not supposed to harshly judge a place in that time, but it cant be helped. I know that salmon takes 13 minutes to properly cook through and when I wait 2 hours (Yes, 2 HOURS and this was during lunch) I have a tendency to not include them in my future list of dining options.

I prefer to wait at least 3 months to a year before dining at any new business. Many factors are included in the list of reasons, but mostly-I don't want to experience two things: 1. bad food and 2. the corporate trainers.

So, imagine my surprise to hear that a particular restaurant in my neck of the woods, didn't even make it through my first trial period before closing!

I'm my line of work I get some juicy gossip about different business, but from what I understand-this business brought a closed restaurant's drama to the new store and it killed it.

Folks, this situation is a textbook case of mismanagement! Any restaurant you walk into as an employee, the first rule they say is, 'whatever happens outside of these doors, stays there.' If the managers let the dirt in, harbor the dirt, love the dirt (in any way imaginable) the dirt will win.

The restaurant did do what every store (with half a brain) does. They didn't tell the staff of the closing and posted a sign. I cant believe people are surprised they do that. The owners do that for the following reasons, 1)they just lost around a million dollars setting up a store to have it fail. They are going to try to sell everything in the restaurant (down to the toilet paper) to try and get their money back. 2) The owners just lost a million dollars, if they tell the customers they are closing-they probably will stop coming in and thus they wont make any money to put towards the debt. 3) The staff will drink, steal and rip the place off. I don't care how loyal a staff-they will.

You may have a favorite place to dine, where its quiet and not a lot of people patron and thats fine, but if you are the only people there at 6pm on a Friday thats bad. If the restaurant has been around for awhile and it is generally empty, they probably have a back room that isn't as family friendly as the front. Otherwise, you may want to start thinking about your next regular spot, because you are going to have to get your coconut shrimp somewhere else.



*A soft opening is where a restaurant invites friends, family and associates to the restaurant to be the first diners, but there are a few catches. First of all, while the meal is free the entire staff is brand new to the food and general flow of the restaurant. They are essentially, practicing on you. The service is typically unorganized, the food generally takes a long time and you get to see the store at its (hopefully) worst. They are hoping that you will enjoy your free meal, tip the server and tell your friends.

Greetings and Salutations!

After taking on some extra work, I have noticed the dust accumulating on my coffee table and the laundry overflowing. God bless having a sister in high school who is more than happy to take care of it all for $25! It also hit me that Thanksgiving is this week. My goal was to have all my holiday shopping done by November (I started in September) and boy am I a long way from done!!! I recently discovered a few online stores that Im going to take advantage of . I know they will save me the headache that Im bound to get.

I think I may take advantage of a new site my friends have been talking about, http://www.totallychristmas.com. Its an upscale online store that is privately owned. They design everything in house-so it will be unique and they ship it to you. I wonder if the delivery guy will set it up for $25??? or maybe I'll just have to call Chelsea-B again.