When You Least Expect It

Monte Silva’s recent post regarding the all-too frequent decision operators make to cut costs in order to improve profitability reminded me of the time when I first took over my first restaurant as general manager. Looking back I can honestly say the deck was stacked against me. The restaurant had opened during a challenging time to disappointing numbers. The general manager I worked under before I took over was a phenomenal operator who taught me a lot, but she was also a vicious penny pincher, so it was common at the end of the weekend to be sold out of a lot of product so that our gross profit would look good Monday morning.

When I took over, I told my managers to loosen up with the orders, and something magical happened: my gross profit went up! It turned out having product on hand meant we could sell more things. The managers were freer to work the floor because they weren’t constantly putting out fires apologizing for shortages and communicating them to the team.

I also promoted a shift lead, charging her with bringing me an extra $20 per hour in sales for every dollar per hour she was getting as a raise. I used her to cross-train my team, so that anybody could help an adjacent position that was struggling. Sales inched up for a year until something incredible happened…

One Saturday night the dinner rush came early, and it didn’t let up until closing. We were slammed, and there were no special events in the area that I could attribute the business to. After we closed for the night, I was walking back to my car and saw a sign that the more expensive, more prestigious restaurant at the end of the block had permanently closed.

Every night after that was at minimum 10% busier than the year before. My team was getting shoutouts every week for putting up unprecedented numbers. The conventional wisdom was always to cut, but I chose to invest in my product and in my people, and when opportunity knocked, we answered!