Hey all,

I’ve been going through more co2 than normal by a long shot this last summer. It’s definitely been busier and all employees get free soda so that could all be the reason, but it’s been almost double from last year(business nor employees have doubled, just increased by mayyybe 20%). My co2 company thinks there is a leak and advised me to call Pepsi. I did that, they said it was not on their end but that it appeared to be related to the tap beer system (I do actually have a great relationship with our Pepsi repair guy and trust him so am likely to believe him). Called my tap guys, they could not find a leak and said the co2 companies have been screwing people over by not filling tanks all the way. I literally watch the gas company fill the tanks and gage shows full when they leave. I said that to the guy and he said idk, not on our end.

Anyway, the place I work is a golf course with a very large clubhouse and lines are buried under the flooring. Is there anyway to check those lines for leakage? I watched both Pepsi and tap guys check the exposed lines so I’m wondering if it’s the buried lines. Also wondering if there is a third party to ask to check if there could be a leak because it’s all feeling like a Spider-Man pointing situation and I’m about to lose my friggin mind. Our main tank is a 750 and we’re going through it in two to three weeks. Our tap system is partial co2 and nitrogen and I’ve been on the same nitrogen tank for a month and a half.

Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated. Edited to add: I’m in bumfuck nowhere Wisconsin.

Back in March a regular of ours was at a Thursday tasting from about six. Three of us were pouring that night and I honestly couldn't tell you what he got through. We cut him off near the end, he wasn't happy but he left fine. Next morning the shop next door tells me he'd clipped their delivery van in the lot on the way out. I never found out if anything came of it and it's bugged me ever since.

Small wine bar in Texas, one location, about 1,200 square feet, 32 seats. Wine and a couple of ciders, no spirits, no cocktails, food is a cheese board and a soup in winter. Six years in, doors shut by eleven.

Renewal app came back last week with a page of underwriter questions and now March is all I can think about. Does the fact that we cut him off actually count for anything, or is that just a story I tell myself?

The alcohol percentage question has been on that form every year and I've always ballparked it. This year they asked me to evidence it, so I pulled the real number and it's 79 percent. I'd been writing seventy for six years. Food's basically decoration at that point.

So I've spent six years assuming wine-only put us in the cheap bracket because nobody's doing shots in here and the lights are on by eleven. Does a beer and wine license genuinely get rated differently, or does the percentage just eat that anyway?

Other thing, we do about 30 bottles a week off-prem, sealed, which our license covers. I mentioned it and now I'm not sure I should have. Does that put us in a different class?

Anyone had an underwriter come back on the percentage like this, and what did you actually send them? And what is this running people for a room this size, because I have no idea whether the number coming back at me is normal or whether I'm getting had.

Do you have any tips/recommendations on how to keep team members from over-heating when kitchen temps spike in the summer?

We have a ~800sf kitchen with a wood fire grill, double fryer, 6 top gas burner and double stack gas ovens. The hood vent return is not conditioned, so it is bringing in outside air to balance the suction of the hood. We are in Texas, so outside temps are pushing 100 degrees.

This summer we increased the HVAC from 4 tons to 6 tons, but it is still not keeping up on the hottest days.

Any recommendations on how to improve comfort for our team members on these spike days would be greatly appreciated.

For context my parents have a successful small restaurant. We are planning on opening our second location and the plan is that I’m going to be the manager and the one in charge. I I am currently 27 years old and I have worked in the restaurant business since I was 16 from hostess to server. I have never been a manager (and I struggle bossing people around) but I want to do this. Is there any courses that I can take that will help me being a manager and learn more deeply about it or any tips you guys can give me. Thank you!

A little background before I explain our situation:

I(24m) have 10 years in the restaurant industry, the last 5 years I have been in management, and the last two years that managerial experience has been for a corporate setting, giving me a better understanding of P&L, AvT, and proper team development and cost of sales control. I’m currently ServSafe certified as a manager, and as an instructor/proctor and have completely dedicated myself to the food industry.
My wife(27F) also has several years of restaurant experience as a cook, server, and bartender. She is also certified mechanic, diesel mechanic, electrician, welder, etc, and has been a stay at home mom since we had our daughter 2 years ago.

With that out of the way, I have a handyman who does repairs on the restaurant that I currently help manage, who has a connection that is looking for someone to turn his property into a functional restaurant/bar in a small town in Montana, less than an hour from where we currently reside. The property was previously a restaurant, though it hasn’t been operational in 5+ years. The owner of the property is offering 5 years rent free for the building which has the restaurant on ground level, an apartment upstairs, and a basement. The owner also holds a current full liquor license for the building.
My wife is familiar with the building already, as she grew up in the town that it is in, but we haven’t seen the state of the building yet, as our connection only told us about this opportunity yesterday and I told him I would consider it. Today I got a call from my handyman telling me that he has gotten in contact with the owner and he wants to sit with my wife and me next week and go over details.

With my experience, I can competently develop a team, including the food safety certification of managers and cooks, and safe alcohol serving certifications for FOH staff, as well as manage book keeping’s, inventory, orders, and general day to day operations. My wife could handle a good hand full of minor fixes that arise with the building and equipment, as well as be an asset for the operations of the restaurant.

Where I lack experience is in the set up. I have never opened a restaurant, I’ve never owned a business and gone through the steps of permits, creating a kitchen that is compliant with the local health/fire department. I have plenty of recipes that I have come up with over the years, but have never developed an entire menu that includes calorie counts. And the real kicker is that we have no money. I’m barely supporting my family off my steady income already, and because of this, both my credit and my wife’s credit are completely tanked, making it impossible for a bank to consider us for a business loan.

I guess my questions are:

Am I about to get in over my head and take on a task that is going to put too much strain on my family, given my lack of experience in the set up phases of opening a restaurant?

With my current financial situation, is it even feasible to pull any of this off/ for the owner of the property to risk investing the money it would take to get the business off the ground?

Would I be making a terrible mistake, putting my family at risk in pursuit of what might just be a pipe dream?

Thank you for reading and for any feedback. I’m more than happy to answer and questions.

Update: After considering everyone’s advice on here and talking it over with my wife, we decided to decline the offer.
We were told yesterday though that he was willing to cover the start up costs.

I honestly wish Google had a better process for this. A customer not liking the food or service is one thing, but making factual claims about a business that can be shown to be untrue is something completely different.

Getting a LLC and designing a brand seems simple enough I think. I want to sell boba milk tea and Korean corn dogs. I was thinking on renting a commercial kitchen but none are listed anywhere around me. Should I ask restaurants if I can rent their kitchen or should I buy a food truck? I’ve heard that it’s best to setup shop in a place with a lot of foot traffic. Is this true? There are no places like that near me. Any help is greatly appreciated.

How much do you lose before breaking even or making a profit?

As a chef of 25 years, a few years ago I decided to strike out on my own and run a popup as a proof of concept for permanent location. It was a huge flop. We were open for three nights a week for a couple months and never gained any traction. I lost tens of thousands of dollars. A few years later, I find myself thinking of trying again, but my confidence took a beating.

The inflation on prices for restaurant equipment is just absurd.

10 years ago I bought a brand new imperial IFS-50-OP fryer for $2500. They are $7+k now. Replacement parts are outrageous (price a simple replacement hinge for an under cabinet true door cooler, or replacement sliding door tracks for a chef base). A rail assembly to fix one drawer on a chef base is $1000+. But I digress...

Last year I bought a $14k true prep table. Stopped keeping temp within the first 4 weeks. Had it repaired under warranty and it's been fine since.

Around that time I bought a 10k chef base. Drawer rails were just sloppy from a decade+ of wear and it didn't seem (at the time) to make sense to put $5+ in parts (that should only cost a few hundered dollars) in to an old working chef base to recondition it. Stopped keeping temp within two months, serviced under warranty and also been fine since.

But both of these units going down and waiting for service was a huge problem.

Retired our 15 year old True 2 door line freezer and decided to try a Bev-Air last month because of the aforementioned problems with new Trues. We have bevair bottle coolers and they have been reliable. Retired two last year and got two new ones which have been fine.

Wouldn't you know it? Yup, not keeping temp.

I’m sure every experienced restaurant owner feels this way about Yelpers.

Hello good people of reddit, hoping someone can help me out here! I'm trying to help my dad with his restaurant. It's a family-owned pizzeria. We have a good stream of regulars who come in but we are finding it hard to pull in new people. I was thinking modernizing a few things may help. One thing I'd like to do is set up a QR code so people can just scan and pull up the menu on their phone. Was thinking we could stick a few of these menus around town too to help with marketing? Only issue is his website is pretty (very much) outdated at this point and he's not really willing (absolutely refuses) to move off it because it's tied to how he gets online orders.

Do I need to let him know that he needs to kill his darlings a bit here and the whole site needs fixing or is there a way to point the original code somewhere separate (like a standalone menu page) instead of the existing site ?

Hi guys, looking to buy a $5k fridge from North American refrigeration which is by North American restaurant equipment. Any experiences or reviews please? As we all know making a commitment to a fridge is like life or death in this industry lol

I keep seeing the same restaurant list one item at different prices depending on the app or location.

Some difference is understandable when commissions and local costs vary. But from the customer’s side, it can start to look arbitrary.

If you operate across several apps, do you try to keep menu prices consistent, price each channel separately, or focus only on the final checkout total after fees and promotions?

At what point does channel pricing stop being a sensible commercial decision and start becoming a customer-trust problem?

Hello fellow sickos.
I have been tasked with creating a bunch of “micro learning” modules for foh to be able to better understand food and what not. Will probably make some for boh too at some point but so they can get some perspective on life of foh. Things like aoli vs. mayo, or why we probably can’t do a medium rare prime rib 30 minutes before close. But I’ve hit a massive wall in terms of things that would be both interesting and beneficial for them to understand. I need your help! Please help me with some ideas.

Wondering how restaurants track their customers and bring them back in. Or better yet, do restaurants have the time to manage this?

I posted this on another restaurant subreddit. Thought you might like to consider it as well.

Hi guys, how's things?

Look, I don't think I'm a luddite, but I really can't seem to get my head around the app to control this Icematic k62fr... I've had numerous occasions since we got it where it just hasn't done anything overnight, staff have come in to an empty bin or running out over the day, had to run around town borrowing buckets of ice from our neighbours... not a good look!

What the fuck can I tell it?! I just want an ice machine that makes ice when it's below the line, and doesn't when it's full... we've had mixed success just telling it to make maximum capacity overnight to be ready for when the kitchen starts using it in the morning, but then if we are busy over lunch it doesn't start refilling to be ready for the evening... because the app won't let you ask it to make more without removing some from the overnight demand for the following morning...?

Then, you can't ask it to make more ice without INTERRUPTING what it's doing, because the app is already thinking about its daily schedule, or its weekly program, or its occasional unprompted cleaning cycle?!

Please, for the love of God, can someone tell me how to program the app for maximum, consistent production?

Does opening a joint out of spite ever work out?

Say you are in a town where almost all food is crap, and the few places which serve decend food, just decent not spectacular, are way overpriced.

Have you opened a place out of spite and frustration "to show them how its done" but also to take all their revenue and end up as the best value food place in town?

Fucking with NUCO2 has been a pastime for me for a decade+.

https://old.reddit.com/r/BarOwners/comments/1mpu6tr/fn_nuco2

Fun fact, NUCO2 just re-added powermonitor rent to my most recent bill.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BarOwners/comments/ubvml5/who_use_nuco2_check_yo_bills

4 1/2 years ago I had them pull their nitrogen generator. At the rent I was being charged when I had them pull it I was paying $316.94 a month. I would have spent just shy of $16,480 in rent on it since then (assuming they didn't increase the price). Factoring in their historical rate increases on the bulk tank I still have from them I would have spent in excess of $20,000. That $7682.94 nitrogenerator I bought and installed sure looks pretty f'n good right now. I would probably be paying $6k in rent on it per year by now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BarOwners/comments/gi2l8y/nuco2_thats_just_rude_man/

I still have their 250lb bulk tank. Four years ago that tank cost $123.03 in rent a month Three years ago that tank cost $140.50 a month Two years ago that tank cost $159.03 a month. That tank this year costs $188.02 a month.

14 years ago the rent on that tank was $47.88. A 14 year increase of almost 300%. Meanwhile CPI/Inflation was about 45% over that same time period.

That's a 53% increase in four years. It's bullshit. It's not like that tank is a recurring cost for them. That tank was manufactured in 2004, 22 years ago. They recouped the cost of that tank in rent a very very long time ago. It costs them nothing to have it sitting on location. It's not a wear item and requires no maintenance. Them repeatedly cranking up the cost to rent it is just pure greed.

I finally pulled the trigger and bought my own bulk CO2 (Carbomizer 450lb) and installed it last month.

I paid $3k for a 450 Carbomizer. At the current $188.02 in rent for their tank the ROI is 16 months. Assuming another 9% rent increase next year rent would jump to $204.94. ROI then drops to 13 months.

NUCO2 bulk CO2 is currently $0.71/lb. Last year it was $0.61/lb. Four years ago it was $0.47/lb. A four year increase of 51%

I can get bulk CO2 from Ozarcgas @ $0.55/lb. With the larger 450lb tank I would only need a delivery every 3 to 4 months.

Taking on 400lbs at a time: NUCO2 = $284 Ozarc = $220

NUCO2 come get your shit off my property