More of the Same

On friday I was back working in the restaurant.  I started of the day working with the accountant for Cedar Creek.  She talked about how she would keep track of all the sales made the previous day, and then break down the sales by different sub-topics.  She put all of the amounts into an Excel spreadsheet, and then on the other side was the sales made in the previous year.  She said Mr. Doody likes to compare the sales to the previous year, and on certain holidays, such as Mothers Day, he wanted to have more sales than the previous year so they opened the restaurant earlier to allow for more reservations to be made.  She also put into the spreadsheet the amount the restaurant has to spend in paying workers, and buying food and appliances.  This is very important because if you're not making more than you're spending then the business is going to fail.  After working with her, I went out into the restaurant and worked as a host for the rest of the day.

In the Kitchen

Today at Cedar Creek, I worked in the back of the restaurant for the first time, as a prep chef.  What this job entails is preparing as many items as possible so when the kitchen chefs go to make the meal, the time consuming parts are already finished.  I started off proportioning out the amount of certain foods.  I was given a tub of spaghetti and had to put 7 ounces of pasts into each bad and then roll it up and put it where the cooks can use it when needed.  I also learned how to make crab cakes while on the job.  I spent a little over an hour rolling up balls of the crab cake mixture, flatting out the ball into a cake size cylinder and then proceeding to bread the cakes.  The back of the restaurant was definitely a lot more work than any of the previous jobs I had done, but the part that I enjoyed was the time went by very quickly because I always had something to do, and I was never just standing and waiting.

Designing the Restaurants

On Friday, I spent the day in Mr. Doody's office with him and the architect in his office going over the designs for new restaurants all over the country.  They both showed me the designs they had both been working on and then they had me watch as they compared and commented on the others.  After working on the plans, they called the architect that would be looking over each project depending on the location.  They conversed about what new ideas they wanted incorporate into the designs, and then would email sketches back and forth so they could understand better what each person meant.  While listening to all this, I realized how much detailed thinking they put into creating the restaurants.  They worked on how the outside would be viewed from the road and also worked on how long each booth would be inside the restaurant.  Mr. Doody continues to talk about how a restaurant is about 10,000 little details, and he displayed this during the meetings.

Restaurant Part 2

The past three days I have spent working at Cedar Creek Grille.  On Tuesday, I worked as a bus boy clearing tables and changing table settings.  I shadowed a bus boy that worked at the restaurant named Justin.  He was a really nice guy and showed me a lot.  He had me walk around with him for the first half of the day and then the rest of the day i spent busing the tables on my own.  The next day I spent the day with Justin again, but this time I took the food from the kitchen out to the customers.  And finally i spent Thursday working as a host again.  So far i have found that i enjoyed busing and hosting the most.  It has also been a very pleasant surprise that everyone I have been working with has been very welcoming of me and very friendly.  Next week I am going to work in the kitchen and learn a little bit about cooking the meals.

Making a Business

For my project on Monday I met with Mr. Doody at his office where he taught me about creating a new business.  He started my telling me about the 5 P's of marketing.  1. Product 2. Price 3. Place 4. People 5. Promotion.  He really focused on number three and four when talking about it.  He used two businesses in the area to talk about the Place part.  He compared Waterway to another car wash on Washington Street in Chagrin.  Waterway's location makes it very visible and accessible because so many cars drive through that circle, and that is why they are able to charge $30 for a carwash.  While the carwash on Washington Street only charges $5 dollars per wash and yet it is always empty because not nearly as many cars drive that way each day.  And the People part he told us if you're going to start a business, pick a location where the people living there have disposable income.  He also empathized that whatever you are doing, to be successful you have to be the best at that particular thing.

Post 2

On Friday I started off the day with learning about how to create business plans with Mr. Doody.  He showed me plans of restaurants he has already created, and also plans or restaurants that are still in the works.  After learning about the business plan he taught me how to manage a budget.  He took the budget from one of his restaurants, and explained why he gave certain categories more money than others.  After learning about it, he gave me the numbers to a different project and asked me to make a spread sheet using the numbers.  I created the spread sheet and before sending it to the designer he checked it over.  Following the spread sheet, Mr. Doody let me shadow the head builder in his project, Scotty.  Scotty showed me around the new building and introduced me to all the others guys working on the project.  All along the tour he was talking to me about how he runs the building site.  His main focus is that the other workers and him can joke around with each other, but once he needs them to do something, they need to know to respect and listen to him and get the job done.  This mentality is why Scotty and his team were able to construct an addition in 1 month while other construction groups said they could only finish in 3 months.

In the Restaurant

Today I worked in Cedar Creek Grille.  At the beginning of my shift I worked with the manager to open up the restaurant.  We started by going around and making sure all workers were there.  After that i was given the bar registers to count the cash to make sure there was an exact amount of money in the box for the beginning of the shift.  Finally before we opened, we went around each table to check all tables to verify that they were set properly, and had no stains on the tablecloth.  When we opened the doors to the public, I was positioned as a host.  I enjoyed my day hosting very much.  The other two hosts that I worked with were very helpful and taught me a lot.  I learned how each table is numbered, and in what order to place the guests.  The hosts taught me to stager the amount of guests you are allowing in even if there are open tables, to make sure the kitchen does not get backed up with orders.  They also taught me how to decide which waiter/waitress gets the most guests in their waiting area.  Tomorrow, I will be working at Mr. Doody's office with one of his business partners, and will be learning about all the choices that go into where they place the restaurant, and all the negations they must go through before making the deal permanent.