We are thrilled to be open again and at least temporarily back to our full weekly schedule, thanks to our wonderful staff and very understanding and supportive guests! It is never cheap or easy to close or open a restaurant and we have successfully done so three times in the past year. Every time we risk not meeting our goals and our guests expectations, each time we must hire and train staff to be more than a sum of their parts and bring more than a meal to our guests. We are a busy restaurant with a strong reputation which comes with the huge responsibility to meet high expectations and it has never been harder for restaurants to do that than right now. I have been running independent kitchens for almost thirty years and have never been more unable to find staff as now. We normally have five servers in season and we have now been operating with only three for months and months. It has been challenging and exhausting for everyone but we need to keep the doors open and must attempt to serve as many guests as possible in order to pay our staff and bills. Restaurant profit margins are famously low, so most restaurants must approach maximum sales to be at all profitable and many are not, ever. After over ten years we know what we must do to stay competitive and in operation. But most profitable restaurants achieve a margin of 3-5 % in a normal year and many restaurants are like us are still unable to even attempt operating at a full schedule 0r seating due to low staffing. Although we pay our staff at the very top of the local scale and our servers are normally rewarded well for their excellent service, we still can not even get one real potential applicant in recent weeks. So, our primary costs have increased over 20% just over these past few months while we are still unable to fill all our available seats. The struggle of the past year is by no means over for restaurants like us. We must stay on this rollercoaster of be tossed off to face injury or death.
I would respectfully ask everyone who reads this to please keep this struggle in mind when making reservations and especially when leaving tips and writing reviews. I want to stay positive and of course we accept responsibility for our shortcomings of which there are many. I will not detail the specific cases of unreasonable expectations and childish tantrums restaurants and their employees have experienced, in far greater numbers, this past thirteen months. I will simply request that everyone, figuratively, tries to walk in one another’s shoes before passing judgement. We take your opinions very seriously and very much to heart. It is difficult to be even fairly criticized when you are battling powers beyond your control and are making every effort just to fight another day. But, in part our jobs are to shield our guests from the stress and impossible situations restaurants overcome every day, to ensure your comfort and enjoyment, and that means not making excuses when you are dining. But everyone needs to realize, at this time, it may be impossible for most restaurants to both meet their financial requirements and also provide the service and prices we all wish for. We deeply appreciate all our guests and are making every possible effort to meet these currently difficult and contradictory goals. Please be patient and expect prices to be a little higher and service to be a little slower in the short term; relax and enjoy the food and friendships we missed this past year! Thank you all for your attention and support!
Much Love and Thanks,
Toni, Kaighn & The FLPH staff.
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