Name: certain members of the restaurant industry
Age: various
Occupation: servers of food
Last Seen: everywhere
Bee-otched For: not knowing how to be successful
Age: various
Occupation: servers of food
Last Seen: everywhere
Bee-otched For: not knowing how to be successful
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Way out in the boonies of Montcalm County, Michigan is a log home. The inhabitants of this house are a distant cousin of mine and his wife.
In the 1960s, he helped to run an A&W with his father. In the 70s, he owned a bar. However, he immediately hated the bar business. Every competing bar owner he knew was cheating on their spouse. And being a family man, it was just not what he wanted. He put the bar up for sale about six months after he bought it and finally sold it off a few years later.
I've been to his home a few times, and one of the best features of his property is a brick oven on his deck. Over the years, he's mastered the art of baking bread and cooking dozens of delicious thin crust pizzas for family and friends. I asked him if his old bar made pizzas, and his response was yes, but they were frozen. I did tell him that if he mastered the art of making brick oven pizzas back in the day, his bar would have been more of a family destination instead of boozing up the locals. Well, we were both right.
Granted, a restaurant cannot be successful if they're serving Tombstones or DiGiornios to their customers. They need to be famous for good food. Since I moved to Grand Rapids 18 years ago, many restaurants have come and gone. In my neck of the woods, the closures include BD's Mongolian Grill, Happy's Pizza (whose founder is a convicted felon), Smashburger, Penn Station, a Tim Horton's, a Moe's Southwestern Grill, Wokbox, Bar Louie (which just filed for bankruptcy) and two Big Boys just to name a few. Even bigger chains like Chili's are down to just one location here in Grand Rapids.
Nine years ago, a restaurant called Don Julio's created controversy when they booted out a family because the father and husband had a service dog with him. He was an Iraqi War vet with PTSD and the dog was needed. Shortly after what happened, the family went to the IHOP adjacent to Don Julio's where they were treated with dignity and respect. Don Julio's faced backlash as a result and closed soon after. To add insult to injury, the building has been abandoned since, with their signs still up.
Same thing with Steak 'n Shake. Sadly, there have been too many instances where I've been to one and the service was horrid. One time, I went to one in Battle Creek while driving back from seeing my Dad in Kentucky. The roads were slick ice and I was white-knuckling it from Indianapolis northward. They took me to a booth and I sat there for 15 minutes while they ignored me. Pissed off, I stood up and left. I ended up going to the Denny's up the street and got way better service.
Other times, I've waited an hour for food and when I got my chili, it was stone cold. Another time, the waitress got me a salad instead of chili. Yes, Steak 'n Shake has decent food, but piss-poor service.
Late last year, the chain announced that over 100 locations would be "temporarily" be closing. One of them is by me in Cascade, which has been closed for over a year. At this point, I would be SHOCKED if it were to reopen.
Steak 'n Shake is owned by Iranian Sardar Biglari, who bought it in 2008. Biglari also owns roughly 20% of Cracker Barrel and Maxim Magazine. I've heard rumors that Biglari is quite the shady individual since his properties are losing money. One rumor I've heard is that Biglari is known to snoop around his models' photoshoots when they are in various states of undress, making them very uncomfortable.
Where I grew up in northern Michigan, the restaurant business has its own issues. The Denny's in Traverse City had been operating on limited hours due to staffing problems. The Ruby Tuesday closed (the one here in GR closed six years ago and Trader Joe's is in its place) and poor, sweet 'ol Bardon's closed as well. Like many other restaurants, they pay their workers shitty wages.
Recently, I was alerted that another well-known restaurant up north shuttered their doors after five decades of service. The owners were trying to sell for years but no takers. So, they sold off their equipment and called it good. In an interview, the owner claimed that business had been challenging for years. Online reviews didn't help, with people claiming that the food was too expensive, the food was microwaved and tasted like dog food. It was a hit for locals, but thanks to the internet, people were avoiding the place like the plague. For shits 'n giggles, I went there one weekend last Summer and I think there were only ten people there on a Saturday night. It didn't help that 1950s music was playing in the background and some of the clientele looked like they were 90. To me, the food wasn't bad. But then again, I grew up with this place.
You see, I worked there throughout high school as a dishwasher. I always was on time and even came into work when others didn't show up. Hell, my boss even loved me by giving me raises all the time. Yes, things were hunky-dory... until they hired somebody who shouldn't have been near me or any of the teens who worked there.
This asshole was the worst person I ever worked with. He was in his 40s, lived in a small, run-down cabin and drove a nasty 1970s car. He worked at the town supermarket where he was fired for asking his boss for a raise. He stocked shelves and often put items on the shelves backwards. As a dishwasher, he was the worst. You asked him to do something and he'd swear at you. He was very disrespectful. But, we only had to deal with him for two years. Two years too many.
Several years before my restaurant hired him, he was charged with fondling and performing oral sex on a six-year-old boy. However, he was acquitted because during his trial he didn't recall telling police that he did it, even though he didn't deny it. While he worked with me, he told me that he babysat a neighbor's kid and admitted that he used to cuddle with him. To make matters worse, my boss told me that she was too nice to fire people. Simply put, she thought that everybody needed a job, even those who couldn't be hired elsewhere. I quit to go to school downstate but came back a year later after I graduated. However, I quit for the last time because they hired another older moron to wash dishes.
Well, not long after I quit, the child molesting retard was busted again. This time, he lured an 11-year-old boy into a shed and grabbed his penis. He was charged with second degree sexual assault and was sentenced to six to 15 years in prison. I heard he only served two.
In my honest opinion, if you own a business that hires minors and you hire adults, they need to have a squeaky clean record. Of course, this especially goes to businesses in small towns. True, Yelp and other review sites weren't around back in the 1990s. But gossip has always been around. It wouldn't shock me that one reason for this particular restaurant's demise was due to the town knowing that they hired this sick fuck to work with teens. When you live in a small town, you're an instant celebrity because everybody knows you. They know when you eat, when you sleep and when you poop. Even if you're in the closet, everybody knows you're gay. Even if you go around town dressed up like a clown and give kids candy, everybody knows that you're a sex addict with a massive gay porn collection and will perform BJs to any guy who wants it. The list goes on. If you hire child molesters to work with children themselves, kiss your credibility goodbye.
A restaurant is like any other business. Once something bad happens, it's over unless you change. I know some people wanted to put a pox on Hardee's when they bought out Burger Chef and gradually closed the chain down. At one point, Burger Chef was the #3 fast food chain in America. Well, in the end, Hardee's became known for their poor reputation and they ended up merging with Carl's Jr.
Look, I don't wish any business to fail. But if you fuck up, kiss it goodbye. Poor service, treating people like shit and hiring the wrong people are the keys to failure. I've worked at four different places when I lived in northern Michigan and all four either closed or changed owners. My current workplace's former president almost ran down the company by not giving people like me raises and belittling his employees. He retired, his partner took over the company and business is much better now.
Sometimes, the only thing that will save your business is if the idiot in charge isn't there. It reminds me of what I wrote to my boss when we all passed a card for his retirement: "this place won't be the same without you".
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Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!
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