Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur – A&W Opening Day
The construction of the new A&W restaurant was near completion, my training was complete and opening day was approaching – March 14, 2001. We hired twice as many people as we thought we would need based on A&W’s suggestion. They indicated that we would lose half of our employees in the first month. I thought wow that seems high. But I heeded their advice and hired a bunch of people both full time and part time. During the last week before opening, it was all hands-on deck as we stocked up on supplies, trained the staff and did whatever we needed to do to open in time. My manager and I were painting the shelves to help speed up the construction. Finally, we were ready – well as ready as we are ever going to be.
We did a soft opening on March 13th and invited family and friends to the restaurant and provided them with free food as part of a test run. We thought this went reasonably well. The next day was the official opening. Nothing quite prepares you for opening day at a new restaurant that you have never run before. We had five deep at each cash all day long with a little reprieve in the morning and night. There is no gradual build up so the staff can learn and get better – it was mayhem and they either rose to the challenge, or they didn’t. The woman that was scheduled to work the grill that day said, “I can’t do this” and left in the middle of her shift. The saving grace is A&W sends in a team to help during the first week and they keep us focused as they worked beside us. We also had people just not show up for their shifts and people not returning after one shift. I always wondered why someone would have applied and gone through the whole process to not show up. At the end of the month, half the staff remained.
The kitchen in the restaurant had five people in it to handle the demand, with one person almost continually on dishes and stock runs. There was about 2’ wide by 6’ long of space in the kitchen for five people. The stockroom was in the bowels of the mall, so we had to wheel all our products by cart through the mall, and we did this many times per day. At the front there were three cash registers open, and a runner. The runner is the person that gathers the food for the cashiers and puts it in on the customers’ tray. The most critical position in the restaurant was the person on point. This is the person that calls out what needs to be on the grill, in the fryers and also dresses all the burgers and packages them. Not everyone can do this job as it requires focus and speed. If your point person is good, your restaurant hums. Being in the back was magical at times when the right people were in the right places – as they say “aces in their places”. Because the space was small it was like synchronized swimming or a waltz with everyone moving in time doing their work at speed without bumping into each other. I liked working in the kitchen and really enjoyed the pace and teamwork required to meet the quality and service times the guests expected.
Whenever there was any downtime we would clean, restock, prep and send people on breaks. If you were not on break there was no downtime, as there is always something to do. We needed to impart the culture into the workplace – time to lean, time to clean. Your shift would fly by when you were busy. It takes about six weeks before things start to settle, where you get into the routine, and the restaurant starts to have a natural rhythm. I worked most nights and weekends during those first six weeks while also working at Stroma during the weekdays as we continued to hire new consultants.
I hired a manager to run the restaurant. He was sent to Ottawa to get training and between the two of us, we survived the first six weeks. After the first six weeks it was now time to focus on ensuring the correct procedures and processes were engrained into the staff. You can develop a lot of bad habits when you are busy and just trying to survive.
In an operation like A&W you cannot be lazy, and if you are you will not last long. Staffing is the number one issue as the workforce is transient and it churns a great deal. So, we were constantly training new hires. It can be hard to tell in an interview whether someone will make it or not, as it all comes down to can they handle the pressure. Once I was called at home and had to go in because a girlfriend and boyfriend decided to quit together at midday on a busy Saturday. I guess they were doing their own Thelma and Louise. Let’s just say they never received a reference from me.
A busy quick service (fast food) restaurant is a good place for a kid to work for a first job. It teaches them how to work and there is enough training and supervision to help them succeed. If anyone can take the pressure in the kitchen on a busy day, then they will be successful in life.
I never understood why people want to be the first to eat at a new restaurant. I avoid going to a new restaurant until it has been open for at least six weeks. When the new restaurant opens, service is slow, your food has a higher probability of being cold or improperly cooked, and in most cases you have to wait in line for all of this. But I am glad there are people that want to as they provide immediate cash flow to a business the moment they open. Being busy and generating cash flow is critical as the restaurant is inefficient at the beginning, which results in higher labour and food costs than normal. So, thank you to those guests who are early guests as you help restaurants tremendously. Also, give a new restaurant a few tries before you judge, as it takes a while for the restaurant to find its flow.
And of course, you cannot have an opening without someone in the A&W Rootbear suit. A&W’s rule was you needed to have someone accompany the bear. It doesn’t take long to understand why, as kids are enamoured with the mascot and punched it and tried to pull its tail off. So, the bear needs a kid bodyguard. While it sounds fun to be the one in the bear suit, it gets very hot inside the costume. The head has a fan that you can turn on to blow air on you (if it works!), but you are still going to come out sweaty. If you are ever asked to don a mascot outfit, make sure you are first one to use it, it is gross to be the second in line. To this date I have never worn the bear costume. My daughter wore the suit and rocked it when we opened our second store on McKeown St. To see the video click here