Hello, You may be wondering how things have gone for the first two weeks of reopening. Well, hopefully this will answer your questions. We are very thankful for all the wonderful people who helped us restart our dream and although it has been very difficult it was worth it to be productive and bring joy to our friends again. We have worked extremely hard with limited staff and no real chance at profitability. It’s like opening a restaurant knowing your business plan has no chance of success but doing it anyway without any assurance it will get better.
Most of ours staff has been great but the lack of confidence in the future of our industry has been difficult on everyone and we lost some staff already. Extended unemployment benefits without corresponding benefits for returning to work has caused difficulty in reopening, especially without confidence in our business level and the curve of the virus.
Most guests have been great and really understanding.We thank most of you for your patience and understanding. Our staff has been masked and taking all precautions, at all times since we reopened. But a few guests just don’t seem to get it and are making it very hard to stay open when our hard earned reputation is being damaged without any understanding or allowances for the challenges we face from a very difficult food chain to a host of new regulations and systems. This is partially why I decided to share some of my thoughts. Here are some examples from this past week.
1 review Dined on June 20, 2020 Overall2Food3Service2Ambience2
“The food was ok and our server was attentive. However, the lady at the front desk was rude and ruined our experience. We had reservations and arrived early. Even though they clearly had several tables open, she asked us to wait outside and come back at the reservation time…”
This is part of a review left on Open Table where we have been on top of the charts for almost ten years. These folks arrived 1 hour early, probably because they could not make a reservation when they wanted to dine. What can I say? I am sure we were not rude, we just could not give them what they wanted.
We were maxed out from open to close and struggling to operate after three months off with new staff, short staff, masks, new processes to keep every one safe, new table positions and more. Just to get a little deeper we decided it would be safer to use a captain system for the first time in order to reduce contact. It is safer but takes a little more time, so the two servers we have left who are trained had a division of duties they had never seen before.
Here is another review which is positive but puzzled me and awoke thoughts which I will share.
New York Area 6 reviews Dined on June 20, 2020 Overall4Food4Service5Ambience3
The chef is talented and creative. He has the best culinary instinct in the county. I do not understand why he does not do lunch anymore, and open more than 3 days a week right now. He needs to cash in on his talent.
Thank you so much for the compliment, I am happy to answer your questions.
We opened one week before phase 3 was to begin here because profitability is impossible at 50% occupancy. We wanted to be open and ready for phase 3 and planned to open more days in phase 3 but now we will loose more money due to the extension of phase 2, risking the future of our restaurant and the livelihood of our employees. We attempted to make the best decisions and reduce our risk especially with the looming possibility of another shutdown.
We can not have confidence that we can support our staff and ensure the future of the restaurant being open full time with very few tourists in the area yet and reduced capacity. We depend on 50% tourists this time of year, so we are allowed to seat essentially half of half of our regular business in these weeks. It was therefor the responsible decision to open part time allowing our staff to remain on partial unemployment, condensing sales to reduce costs and reducing waste since in many cases we cant just buy what we need for any level of sales. We are fighting for our survival and deeply appreciate the support and understanding of our diners.
Toni, my wife and FOH manager and I, exec chef, run the restaurant with Sean, our chef de cuisine who has been with us since day one. We all work around 60 hours a week now that we do dinner only but when we opened for lunch and brunch we all worked 90 hours and more a week for years, which is an unsustainable lifestyle. I have worked from 60 to 110 hours a week in the kitchen for over 25 years and the years of physical work are starting to take their toil. Toni has an ankle fused with screws and I have a bad hip, we both work and stand in pain for many hours to keep our dream alive. Lunch did well and created revenue which was important at the time but never could have been profitable if our dinner service did not pay for the management and most of the overhead. It also limited our growth because we could not be the dinner restaurant we are now and also be the lunch menu you remember or offer any lunch menu which would rotate our dinner products and also be in a price range acceptable to the Waynesville lunch crowd. If there were more business or people were willing to spend more I would be happy to hire more management and open in some form for lunch. Did you know that Americans spend about 1/2 as much on food as the residents of most similar countries? Maybe if we were willing to spend more there would be less fast food and more independents could do lunch again. It is possible in the future if the economy and restaurant pricing can support the costs to do it right.
This brings me to my final point. The restaurant industry has been unhealthy for a long while and has seen profitability drop dramatically over the last decade. For the past ten years we have been able to mostly maintain the modest profits we predicted but costly regulations and an increase in costs without a corresponding rise in prices has made it more difficult every year. Now f0llowing Covid-19 and decreased occupancy, a rise in costs and a labor shortage profitability is impossible.
One of the greatest problems in the restaurant industry is the inequity of pay for the back of the house and I believe it is time to rectify this and that it will help the industry to recover in a more healthy way if we do.
The basic issue is that in the current system, prices at independent restaurants are driven to an unsustainable low by chains and groups who do not have the wellbeing of their employees, customers or farmers in mind. This creates an environment in which there is not enough revenue to pay a fair wage for the skill, hard work and sacrifices made by chefs, cooks, farmers, laborers and dishwashers. Restaurants inherently work against one another in competition and therefor this general lack of healthy revenue forces us to operate at an ever decreasing profit margin. We have all witnesses how important this industry is over the past months. With the related industries it is a huge part or our economy and we now realize how serious the problems in our industry are and that they trickle down to our culture.
This situation is exacerbated by tipping system which by its very nature creates inequity and in many ways is a gamble for the servers and bartenders and contributes to the unrealistic food prices. I can not change the world and I will not destroy the livelihood of my staff or myself to break this destructive system but I believe we as Americans can change our culture in a healthy way if we work together. This crisis may have created an opportunity for positive change.
At this time of upheaval we are increasing the pay to all our cooks and dishwashers and making the commitment to sustain a healthy wage which reflects their importance to our society and way of life. We have always provided pay above the average and have been proud of the quality jobs we have been able to offer but it is time to do what we can in our own small way to change this broken system.
We ask that all our friends and guests support this effort by continuing your generous patronage of FLPH and please be patient with us as we work and grow through this very challenging time. Tips for the kitchen will be deeply appreciated through this adjustment period and we encourage all lovers of independent restaurants to fight for your favorite independent restaurants by paying and charging the price required to provide a healthy pay to all BOH employees and save the independent restaurant industry from inevitable destruction from regulation and big restaurants. Thanks you for listening, its about the people and the food and we love both!
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