Breaking down a dream ...excerpts from a happy cooker

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Breaking down a Dream........ (excerpts from a Happy Cooker)....... part one

 

 It was a recurring theme...in the scheme of things. This really unique place for everyone to come and order a fantastic, great meal that only we could produce.The world was missing out on this particular gastromical delight because we were limited in our distribution ...not having a store front location.  I figured once we had the logistics solved then the world would be our oyster (move over Mc Donalds ...there is a ‘Real beef’ sandwich  in town)

 

 We, being my then husband, and our two kids (our first...’work for food’... employees) , child labour was not such a big issue back then...in fact we just did what we had to do to pay the bills. We were not poor but we did have to overcome some setbacks from an ill-timed venture that we invested in when the markets were at 20% interest rates. That the venture was a tire shop (competing with Canadian tire) was a mute point.

 

 We sorta fell into the food business by accident....isn’t that how all good businesses start? We were broke and beaten from the tire shop and brother-in- law had a homemade barbeque (I think everyone knows someone that has a big barbeque that can cook everything from huge chunks of meat to whole animals...lol) . Well this one cooked whole hogs on a rotisserie and was much in demand. Since we had a whole lot of time on our hands and no money and  brother- in-law with lots of money and not enough time , he  hired us to go barbeque this whole hog in some godforsaken place up north.  

 

 Off we go in our camper overnight to spend the next day barbequing this hog for a gift opening . It was boring as hell and we were hard pressed to fill our time while this thing was cooking (8 to 10 hours in those days). The guests would wander over and ooh and aah at this whole hog sizzling on the spit. The end of the day (we didn’t even have to carve it!) we made over 500 dollars !!!! ...and at that exact moment this boring little job turned into a million dollar business ( I was just dreaming then).

 

 ....and so started our auspicious career in catering and notice I said OUR...! Because as it turns out... it is not only your family , and I am talking parents, aunts , uncles, cousins , siblings and anyone even remotely related as well as your friends (this is where you find out who your real friends are) all come into play....(work). Sometimes even anyone with a pulse gets snagged ...and don’t be surprised when you show up at an event and we put an apron on you....it is necessary sometimes.

 

 We got rid of the brother- in- law when he got greedy and wanted to cut me out ...had nothing to do with us almost burning his barbeque down to the ground. We built our own and we (well not me cause I can’t weld) built it bigger  and better than his. We could cook THREE whole hogs at once in ours !!! Oh ya...we were gonna show him! and so our  adventure into catering began . 

 

...anyway ...back to where I started , this recurring dream to open up a real storefront... turnkey operation that will be ,  not the next Mc Donalds ...cause we are going to serve ‘real’ down home ‘best you ever tasted’ delicious food that will give Mc Donalds some true competition! The people want ‘real beef’ in their bun....beef that is barbequed for 4 to 6 hours ‘slow roasted’ on a rotisserie barbeque and hand carved onto the bun!! Yep...no cutting costs or corners here....

 

 You all know the movie  where the theme is “if you build it .....they will come?”  Well I think there is a lot of that in all of us dreamers and entrepreneur's and I certainly wanted to build it. I made up drawings of what  the building  would look  like and I even bought an old  property on one of the busiest streets in the city (rented it out till I could realize the dream). I only needed to  find an architect that would work for nothing (and a piece of the pie) and then I had to fight  with City Hall about something called zoning and having enough parking stalls.... well all I can say about that is, thank god I had renters ...that is until they skipped out on the rent and all that traffic going past the front door was not conducive to getting good renters anyway......hmmmmmm.

 

 Then something magical happened, a Swiss Chalet on a real busy intersection closed down....and the building was for rent...omg.... IT WAS PERFECT ...well...almost. I needed to figure out how to rotate big roasts of beef in there and  not chickens. The location was really busy but only one side of the highway allowed the traffic in ...but that was no big deal cause our food would make turning around and going out of your way to get some .......that much sweeter!

 

 The rent was a little steep though....10,000.00 a month (that was 15years ago!) hmmmmm ....it was a lot of money but it was also a prime location and my dream was pretty big. I could hardly sleep and I had all sorts of plans ...and...and... I needed advice. So I called the one and only Catering Guru I knew...that taught us so much over the years. We met him at a yearly conference of classes and lectures and hands on teaching , called Catersource. Mike Roman was THE MAN and I put him on speakerphone for all of us to hear what advice he could give us to make my dream a reality.

 

 After my gushing ...glowing report of what a perfect location and building and the count of how many thousands of vehicles pass there a day..... he asked me TWO  questions , how much was the rent? .....and the second most devastating question of all....” let me ask you Cherylle , how many ‘beef on buns’ will you have to sell to pay the rent?”

 

 Now lets just break this down  hmmmmm 10,000.00 divided by 4.00 would be 2,500 ‘beef on a bun’ divided by 4 would be 625 a week ...which would be approx. 100 a day....hmmmmm that would be just to pay the rent . Lets see... 2500 beef on a bun would require that many buns at 3.00 a dozen then there would be the cost of about 800lbs of triple A Angus beef  (certified yet!no cutting corners here) and then the propane costs to barbeque it , don’t forget the wrappers and the condiments ...hmmmmm ...geeze forgot about the cost of staff (well that would be free cause we would be running it....) , now this is getting real complicated.... and why do we have to pay taxes on the property when we don’t even own it?

 

 Well needless to say when we got off the phone it was not pretty. Didn't matter how we cut it, diced it or mixed it ....how much product we needed to sell to pay expenses, was the deal breaker !!

 

 Some dreams are worth pursuing and some aren’t ....some are realistic and others are best laid to rest. I never gave up on my dream, I just put it on the back burner to simmer and I still bring it out every once in awhile when I see an ideal location or a perfect building or...or...or........