Opening a new restaurant is one of the most terrifying and exhilarating experiences of your life. You put it all on the line: your job security, your savings, your reputation, and your sense of self. In the process, you discover the limits of your capacity, and they are far beyond what you ever expected of yourself. You push yourself further than you thought possible, accomplishing more in a single day than you previously did in a week. You do this because it is life or death for the business and for every single thing you put on the line.
The reality is cold. Many restaurants fail. Economics are one thing, but the formula for survival is another. In inflationary times, people are not just looking for a meal; they are looking for a rare treat. The experience is everything. If that experience is unique, genuine, and the quality matches the hype, they will come back again and again.
This war begins the moment you sign the lease and it never truly ends.
The War of Construction
When you started construction, you entered a war against time and a war against money. Every day you are held up, every day something stops you from opening, is the enemy. You are up at dawn. Every moment must be productivity. If you are not pushing forward, you are losing ground. Lost ground can be recovered, but lost time is gone forever.
When you fall into bed at 1:00 a.m. after cleaning up the mess your contractors left so they will be more efficient the next day, you realize this will be your life for longer than you expected. Insurance costs more than you planned. Those countertops? They cost twice what you budgeted. Now it is time to hire staff, and the nature of your battle is about to change.
The Warrior’s Pivot
You are about to step into the realm of hospitality. It requires you to pivot every day. Hiring, training, testing. How much do you order? Do you have a grand opening before anything is tested? At some point, you have to pull the trigger. All your permits are in place, and if you do not put your staff to work, they will find jobs elsewhere. You make decisions quickly and hope you are making the right decisions.
You are the warrior in the arena, and you must win. It is a painful metaphor, but it applies. This is a market economy where you are fighting for every client and every dollar. Down the road is another restaurant doing the same. Your hope is that you are more innovative, smarter, and a better fighter than the restaurant down the street. If you do not impress your guests, they will not return. Winning is the only option (but plenty of people fail).
The Marathon Without a Finish Line
You put in the effort and the restaurant is doing okay. You see that in a few months the bleeding will end and you may make a profit. That does not allow you to rest. There is no security in simply being in the black. You have debt, operating expenses, and unknown expenses on the horizon. The war is far from over.
The battle rages on, but your role changes. You might get an extra hour of sleep here and there, but now you have to deal with customer reviews that cut deep. You deal with the ones where something actually went wrong, and the ones that are simply not fair. You face the odd occasion of an employee failing to show up for their shift, product delivered that is subpar, and an HVAC system that rattles so loudly in the afternoon that you cannot seat guests at the tables near the window.
This marathon never truly ends. You rise to the occasion because you have to. You are making thousands of decisions a day, managing diverse and disparate issues that would break a person with less resolve. You didn’t know you had the capacity for this until you were standing in the middle of it, wiping counters, scratching scotch tape off windows, scrubbing pots, and repairing toilets.
Reinforcements for the Front Lines
You already have too many problems to solve, and we would like to take one category off your plate. At Deep Blue Distilleries, we aim to be the easiest supplier you deal with. We provide highly regarded spirits that look great on your back bar and impress even your most prickly customers. Beyond the bottle, we can help with the heavy lifting of training. We will meet with your staff to educate them on the craft, and we offer private tours for restaurant and bar teams to teach them about the spirits industry firsthand. Let us handle the education so you can focus on the floor.
The Hero in the Mirror
What have you learned about yourself? It turns out you are a hero. You have capacities far beyond anything you imagined as a child. You are not just your own hero; you are ours, too. We see the grit. We understand the stakes. You could just as easily be running a massive corporation; in fact, that would be easy for you at this point because you run a restaurant and you do it well.
You have gone all in. You are committed. This is a war and a marathon. You are still standing. Congratulations.