Opening a new Tiki bar restaurant? What do you look for in a Tiki bar? - General Tiki

T tikiskip Grand Member (8 years) Joined: Nov 26, 2005 Posts: 5994	T tikiskip Posted posted on Sun, Jan 27, 2019 6:34 AM That all does sound harsh, sorry. But I have walked the walk as in I grew up in a family that had four diner type places and I even owned the last one for 10.5 years. Adding the point 5 sounds funny but on the bad days a day can feel like a year so every day you lasted in the restaurant biz is like a badge of honor. We always did well and made money and that is the publics vote saying you are good and the average check was 5 or 6 bucks in 2004 so that made it even harder. You could eat two days in our place for what that "Hand Crafted Cocktail" is costing you we also made our food with our hands. But it's hard to keep doing good every day as many times your help works against you. Your dishwasher might be in the walk-in drunk in the middle of lunch sitting on a milk crate trying to "stay woked up", the new waitress might tell people "your food will be here soon" only to hear the customer say "You have not even taken our order" all true. A homeless man may come in at the height of lunch hour trying to sell shoes from the trash to the people sitting down or maybe to shoot drugs in your bathroom before you can see them rush in. If they are nice they give you small problems like pooping or pissing on your door to clean up. Our places did not have booze and were all small, this in a way can be even harder as our problem was not keeping people in the place drinking but trying to get them to eat quick and leave. One day I snuck out the side door and got in the back of the line to get in and shouted "hurry up and eat we need a seat" as if I was a customer they all laughed. I would crank Van Halen's Eruption song to drive people out. We had a disco ball in the dining room I would turn on to keep people from reading when we were really packed as the light would fly across the pages making reading hard. Also the fast paced downtown lunch crowd had to be in and out in thirty minuets so it was very fast paced and many workers you would hire could not keep up. But since we started in 1942 most of our customers were regulars and that helps as regulars understand when you have problems you will fix them soon. The guy who bought my place is doing WAY less business than we did and has to go out soon I'm sure. I really miss it. Good luck new tiki bar owner. Eruption Guitar Solo--Eddie Van Halen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_lwocmL9dQ [ Edited by: tikiskip 2019-01-27 06:45 ]

That all does sound harsh, sorry.

But I have walked the walk as in I grew up in a family that had four diner type places and I even owned the last one for 10.5 years.
Adding the point 5 sounds funny but on the bad days a day can feel like a year so every day you lasted in the restaurant biz is like a badge of honor.

We always did well and made money and that is the publics vote saying you are good and the average check was 5 or 6 bucks in 2004 so that made it even harder.
You could eat two days in our place for what that "Hand Crafted Cocktail" is costing you we also made our food with our hands.

But it's hard to keep doing good every day as many times your help works against you.
Your dishwasher might be in the walk-in drunk in the middle of lunch sitting on a milk crate trying to "stay woked up", the new waitress might tell people "your food will be here soon" only to hear the customer say "You have not even taken our order" all true.

A homeless man may come in at the height of lunch hour trying to sell shoes from the trash to the people sitting down or maybe to shoot drugs in your bathroom before you can see them rush in.
If they are nice they give you small problems like pooping or pissing on your door to clean up.

Our places did not have booze and were all small, this in a way can be even harder as our problem was not keeping people in the place drinking but trying to get them to eat quick and leave.

One day I snuck out the side door and got in the back of the line to get in and shouted "hurry up and eat we need a seat" as if I was a customer they all laughed.
I would crank Van Halen's Eruption song to drive people out.
We had a disco ball in the dining room I would turn on to keep people from reading when we were really packed as the light would fly across the pages making reading hard.

Also the fast paced downtown lunch crowd had to be in and out in thirty minuets so it was very fast paced and many workers you would hire could not keep up.

But since we started in 1942 most of our customers were regulars and that helps as regulars understand when you have problems you will fix them soon.

The guy who bought my place is doing WAY less business than we did and has to go out soon I'm sure.

I really miss it.

Good luck new tiki bar owner.

Eruption Guitar Solo--Eddie Van Halen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_lwocmL9dQ

[ Edited by: tikiskip 2019-01-27 06:45 ]

Post #792709 by tikiskip on Sun, Jan 27, 2019 6:34 AM