New Job

I got a job at a new independent restaurant in the downtown area. We don't have a liquor license yet so we are just serving breakfast and lunch. The owners are nice and the GM is very cool. He appreciates me and all the knowledge I have to offer. He likes the fact that I work hard and he makes me want to contribute to the success of this restaurant. I pretty much took over the Togo part of lunch (I'm just not making much money off of it) and run it out of the bar. It's a crap shoot as to whether or not I'm going to be busy with Togo on any given day. I have slowly started to get some gentleman who sit at the bar for lunch. I get tipped on every other Togo, so I am starting to make a little bit of money, but I'm waiting for my paycheck on Friday so I can get my checking account out of the negative. The girls from The Seafood Restaurant keep calling and checking on me. That's nice. Some of them want to come to Sunday Brunch at the new restaurant to see me and to have some of the wonderful homemade food that we are serving. After having opened six corporate restaurants, I knew opening an independent restaurant was going to be a different experience, but I didn't realize how difficult it would be when the owners of this new restaurant have no experience in the industry! They are doing OK for right now, but just OK. The kitchen needs some serious work! We have no experienced line cooks! I've run kitchen shifts and I've expedited quite a bit. This new kitchen falls down every day. Part of that has been the computer system. The computers were set up specifically for this store so we have quite a few bugs to work out. We have the system running pretty smooth. I have had the opportunity to work with the computer guy. He is way cool. He is 75 and has been doing this type of things for years, both in the military and for NCR. He started out training people how to use cash registers. The front-of-house is good. We have some good servers and the place looks great! We definitely need to purchase many more place settings. The bar needs a major amount of work. We need to purchase pretty much everything that you would need for a new bar. Plus, we need to put together a wine list, decide which beers and liquors to carry, and need to formalize happy hour and hire some bartenders. There is potential for this place to be great...as long as they hire the right people and make the right decisions. I just want us to open for dinner so I can make some money. The bills don't stop when your unemployed for three weeks and they just get worse when your making less than twenty dollars a day in tips. The only thing that has saved me financially has been my roommate. He has been supporting me for almost two months now. He has taken care of the rent, utilities and the Internet bill. I would be living at my parents house right now if not for him and the dog. I'll write more when we open for dinner or if I find another job. There is a new wine bar opening next month...I will apply there and, if I'm hired, might work both jobs. I'm not sure. I'll keep you posted.