The Quiet Storm

As an entrepreneur or start up you need an approach that is gritty and scrappy in normal times. For the restauranteur, especially the independent, you need to double down on that approach. I grew up in Virginia Beach in the restaurant business, now called the “hospitality business”, starting at the age of six. My parents seemed to be ahead of the curve opening concepts, that not only provided a unique social experience, but consistent food and service day in and day out. 

The Old Straw Hat was a family destination with an old-fashioned candy shop, a self-playing piano and a large party room or “PDR”. It was casual American fare with a kickass soda fountain where mom churned out unique flavored ice cream from the two beastly Hobarts. The Great Gatsby was a speakeasy where you rang the bell to get in. The waiters wore machine guns on their sides and the waitresses wore flappers. The popular salad bar was in two old fashion bathtubs. It was here that I first dabbled in the kitchen. One of my first jobs was cleaning the scallops. They came in a twenty-five-pound burlap bag. They were sticky and stinky. I thought “who the hell would order these smelly things?”. Little did I know that they would become one of my favorite foods to cook and eat. Diamond Jim Brady’s was closer to the beach and would become very popular with tourists and locals alike. These were the days of late-night happy hours, crab legs and prime rib. I was a teen and worked my way up to line cook from dishwasher and potato peeler. A lot of us surfed and we often took off to Cape Hatteras after our work. The cooks and servers would party until late in the night so I would drive Terry Ferebee’s Alfa Romeo loaded with surfboards. I was a fourteen-year-old designated driver, so this was a thrill for me!

I went off to college and came back in 1991 to open Freemason Abbey in Norfolk, Virginia with my father. This was a concept in an old church with great mezzanine seating where lobster and prime rib ruled the day. I recall driving to the airport twice a week to pick up the live lobsters. It was here I learned the importance of being part of the community. My father, the late Roy Badgley Sr., created the Downtown Norfolk Restaurant Association. It united a group of competitors together to create marketing strategies and fend off rising meals taxes. 

My father often encouraged me to go work for a chain to see the structure, systems and discipline that he learned working for a fast food chain early in life. I honored his with after he passed away a few years later.

Ruby Tuesday in Virginia Beach became that chain after a high school friend talked me into coming to work for them. I transferred to Richmond with a promotion a year later. It made sense to me to make the move. They were expanding in Richmond; my wife was pregnant with our first child and her family is from there. I did learn a lot about structure, discipline and systems. I also learned that much of the operating philosophy of these publicly held chains is to increase shareholder value at all cost. I became lost in the constant push to drive numbers and not employee growth and guest experience.

I went on to do a short stint as a general manager at fast casual Einstein Brothers Bagels. Instead of staying up until four in the morning counting inventory I was getting up at four in the morning to cook bagels with the team. I adjusted well but being at the right place at the right time is often key to advancement.

I landed an equity position in the sister restaurant of a landmark in Richmond. The owners frequented Einstein’s and “liked my style of management”. I operated Joe’s Inn with a partner until our operating philosophies started to differ enough that I decided to sell my share six years later.

I went on to work for Parry Restaurant group ten years ago. The owner entrusted me to open nine concepts ranging from tequila bars, tap houses, pizza and high-end steak houses.

I’ve painted a pretty rosy picture of working in the industry. I have seen the ups, but I have seen my fair share of downs as well. I have seen some pretty “chilly winters” as Tony Robbins would say. This is not the season winter, but the financial winter. Call it winter, call it a reset, call it a recession or call it a storm.

Some storms are shorter than others and some are more defined than others. With tight and shrinking margins, as well as a huge dependency on cash flow, business interruptions for restaurants can often be the kiss of death.

I have seen disruptions and interruptions of all sorts. I have been through power outages of all sorts. I have witnessed storms including hurricanes, floods and a derecho. At one location we had three “one hundred year” floods in fourteen months…you do the math. Now we find ourselves in a pandemic. Covid-19 will not only change the landscape of the restaurant business, it will redefine it.

There are different strategies in recovering after disruption in the restaurant industry. Recovery after all is one of the key elements in surviving ordinary times.

It was a beautiful sunny day in April. The patio was packed, and we were on a forty-five-minute wait at Waterstone Fire Roasted Pizza. The power flickered then flickered again and then went out. Guests start cheering, backup batteries start chirping and the hoods screech to a halt. The dining room, now quiet, begins to fill with smoke with pizzas still blistering in the Woodstone oven.

What’s the protocol? First and foremost - safety! Second, capture revenue, which means printing off checks before the backup batteries die. There is a power outage of no known reason, there is no storm. Will this be short lived or long lived? Most likely short. Maybe a car accident has knocked a pole down or a squirrel has blown a transformer. Sometimes it is more important to know the power grid you’re on than your wife’s favorite color. Keep the tabletop prep stations closed and do not open the walk-in door! The power companies can usually give pretty precise estimates on restoring power. This is a pretty black and white power outage. There are other types of outages that require different strategies. Protocol becomes a little foggier as different monkey wrenches are thrown in.

Hurricane Isabel hits Virginia on September 3, 2003. As a partner a Joe’s Inn Bon Air, this storm almost took my lively hood. The power goes out and we know this might be a while. The wind is howling, and trees are snapping like twigs. Power lines look like balls of yarn that a cat got a hold of.

Same protocol as previous described outage to start. Dominion Power has no prediction on power restoration. Day 3: We realize that we are going to lose all refrigerated items. We donate what we safely can and throw the rest out. We discuss the well-being of the staff both physically and financially. Day 4: we realize that we are going to lose all frozen product. We donate what we safely can and throw the rest out. Day 5: we realize that this could potentially sink us. We continue to clean and keep most staff busy maintaining facility. Day 7: we run out of work for staff and realize we will need to temporarily furlough them. Day 8: we contemplate a generator. Day 9: we rent a tractor trailer sized generator. We order food and start prepping our asses off. Days 10 trough 12: We have the busiest three day stretch ever. 

I knew of the Covid-19 virus back in late January. The news slowly grabbed more and more attention as the month of February rolled by. By the beginning of March there were two camps: those that did not seem to understand or care about what was coming and those that did. 

By Thursday, March 13th business at the restaurants under my watch was still pretty normal. The following day sales were down. Saturday, even more so and by Sunday I knew this was real. In my head I had a pretty good idea of how we do takeout, curbside and delivery. At one of the locations we were already well set up for this mode. I received a phone call on March 18th and was told to shut down the restaurants.

I secured the restaurants. We donated the Perishable food to the local fire stations and froze as much as we could. We broke down all the equipment. We cleaned and power washed all the Kitchens. The assumption was that this could potentially be an extremely long interruption. We took the liquor and wine off the shelves. We were in survival mode. 

What a weird time. The quiet storm had arrived…. literally. The question became, how do we need to pace ourselves for this “weirdness”. Do we cancel services like trash removal and subscriptions? Do we need to start negotiations with vendors and landlords? The days, weeks and months to come would reveal this.

What is the best pandemic strategy? Well, there is no play book for this. You can’t just crawl into a ball. Some operators are surviving on curbside, take-out and delivery by default. Think Chic-Fil-A. Some operators are trying to clumsily figure it out. Some operators have tried and failed. The rest have either folded all together or are praying they have enough runway to take off when the storm passes.

The industry is “too small to fail” as David Chang says. The bank, automobile and airline industries were too big to fail in 2008 and the small businesses are too small too fail. We need help, guidance and solidarity.