Month: April 2012

7,000 indie restaurants closed since fall of 2008…

…But how many opened? This recent article in the L.A. Times caught my attention for two reasons: 1. It doesn’t provide any context. OK, so 7,000 closed in the last 3.5 years. Well, why not tell us how many have closed on average every 3.5 years. Is it 2,000? 5,000? I have no reference point […]

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ROU video series – Dave Query part V…

Here is the final video we made from our interview with Dave Query at Big Red F Restaurant Group in Boulder, CO. In this interview Dave talks about the crazy life of being a restaurant owner, and ownership’s biggest challenge. We’re so honored to have had the opportunity to interview Dave to kick off this […]

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Why a "hippy from the 60’s" takes great care of his employees

Chip Bair has owned Colorado pizzeria Beau Jo’s for 37 years. When he bought a tiny little pizza place on a side street in Idaho Springs, CO, $30 was a big day. He did everything from sleeping on the restaurant floor to avoid having to pay for an apartment, to recycling the paper from the […]

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How Arch Rock Fish creatively spent only $13,000 to create big time buzz before opening…

When Arch Rock Fish opened it’s doors in Santa Barbara a couple of years ago, the restaurant already had nearly 1,800 Facebook fans as well as lots of coverage in the local media and blogs. And they had spent only $13,000 on pre-opening marketing. Rather than follow traditional strategies and dropping tens of thousands of […]

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Business Insider mentions Schedulefly in an article about NYC’s The Meatball Shop

The Meatball Shop is making some serious noise in the New York city restaurant scene. Their simple focus (on serving meatballs) is creating quite a buzz for their 3 locations. The Business Insider has written about them a few times, most recently this past week. The article (which refers to the owners as “culinary game-changers” […]

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ROU video series – Dave Query part IV…

Here is the fourth (of five) videos we’re making from our interview with Dave Query at Big Red F Restaurant Group in Boulder, CO. In this interview Dave talks about the challenge of managing “Millenials” and the types of creative benefits his group offers to help build brand loyalty from his team. Dave is one […]

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Getting old is cool

Assuming you’re healthy and happy – getting old is cool. For a bunch of reasons actually – personally and professionally. One of the best things about it is that you learn (and become OK with) the fact that most people don’t communicate the same as you do. Most people don’t react the same way you […]

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"La la la la la la I can’t hear you la la la la…."

Last Friday afternoon I was at the U.S. National Whitewater Center (USNWC) here in Charlotte, watching the Olympic trials for kayaking and canoeing. As I watched a team of two late 30’s guys compete in the 2-man canoe event and place third overall (against competitors who were all nearly half their age), and heard stories […]

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16,981

Our book, “Restaurant Owners Uncorked” (“ROU”), is currently ranked #16,981 out of over 8,000,000 paperback books available on Amazon.com. The stats update hourly, and I don’t fully understand how they are measured, but it’s the second highest rank we’ve achieved (it was #10,294 on April 2). Anyway, it seems pretty cool that we’re in the […]

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A lesson learned from our dog…

My family lost a dog this morning. Cami. We had her 11 years, but we think she was around 15-17 years old. We adopted her, and the rescue mission had picked her up from the pound so nobody knew how old she was. When they found her she was matted and had heart worms, but […]

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