Melissa:
On what would normally be a busy holiday weekend for restaurants, small business owners still recovering from the shutdown. We spoke to restaurant owner, Buddy Foy Jr back in June about reopening, watch this.
Buddy Foy Jr:
Customers are eager to spend money and we were able to fill every seat in all of our restaurants, with the guidelines. Get open, and the money we know it’s going to come cause we’re selling out at capacity, and we’re in a very small populated area, and it’s not even our season yet.
Melissa:
So he joins us now with an update. Buddy Foy Jr, owner of a Chateau on the Lake in Bolton Landing, New York. Thank you so much for joining us. When we have people on we don’t want to just say goodbye and good luck. We like to bring them back to hear how it’s going, so how did the rest of your summer go, and what do you expect for this weekend?
Buddy Foy Jr:
Melissa this summer was phenomenal. We beat last years numbers in a pandemic. Our top line sales are up over 50%. Now, we got a lot more overhead, with social distancing guidelines, and some investments are we had to make, but at least we have some money to figure it out. And this weekend looks to be just as strong, and we were very blessed, praise God for the good weather. Our summer weather had a lot to do with it, and we’re very fortunate that we were able to take advantage of the outdoor elements.
Melissa:
So your top line was up. That means you did more sales, you did more volume than you did last summer. How is that possible?
Buddy Foy Jr:
Like we said the last time we were on, we leaned into this pandemic. We decided to make investments, it was scary. 90 days ago we didn’t even know if we’d be in business or file bankruptcy, and today we’re sitting here looking at our results and the decisions we made. They were scary. It was scary to invest money, but we had no choice. We were all in. We had our fixed overhead, we had to spend money in building outdoor seating, getting outdoor furniture, covering the area with tents. And the staff that we needed in order the service of social distancing was 50% more staff than last year. So, there’s a lot of investments to be made, but we just had confidence that people want to dine out. They did. They listened to the guidelines, we followed the guidelines, and we had a very successful summer.
Melissa:
We’re seeing the same thing around here. We look around, and we’re like, “People don’t want to eat at home anymore.” They don’t want to cook and do the dishes themselves, they’re out and about. The people who made the investment, like you said are the ones that have done well. I know your season is over though.
So, if you were in a place where the weather was about to turn, what advice would you give to restaurants that are being told, they either can’t open at full capacity or they still have to be outside, that these variables are continuing, even though the weather’s going to change, what would you do if you were in their shoes?
Buddy Foy Jr:
We’re turning into their shoes because although most of our business is during the summertime. I still make 25% of my profits in the off season, and those profits pay for my winter bills. We need to make decisions, we don’t know what we’re going to do. These restaurants that are in Manhattan, they’re older buildings, there’s power issues, so adding heat for the outdoor in a covered environment that you can’t put sides up, or can we put sides up in a tent?
We need to understand what the guidelines are, what are the rules of engagement? Then let us figure out where to spend our money. Right now, the scary part about moving into the cold weather season. We don’t know if we’re going to wake up in the morning and there’s going to be announcement that we’re closed down completely. We don’t know what the guidelines are.
We’re thankful that we’re open up here, we need to open up the other restaurants. Melisa, 15,000 people came in our restaurant this summer, with an average of three employees touching tables for each visit. That’s 45,000 touch points. Not one of our employees came down with COVID. 60% of our staff are college kids. They’re back in college. They all got tested, there’s no positive COVID cases in our restaurant when we’re interfacing with 15,000 customers.
There’s a way to do this safely, we did it… And the government officials and the regulators out there, we got to eventually train ourselves for a new environment. This industry has changed forever. So we need to understand what the rules of engagement are and proprietors be ready to sell online food, be ready to invest in outdoor seating, get blankets. You’ve got to figure out what’s going on with your environment, what you can leverage, and you got to make the investment or you’re going to be out of business. So make the investment customers will support you.
If you’ve ran an honest business up until now, there’s no reason that your customers won’t support you once you get open.
Melissa:
Buddy, you are fantastic, you’re so inspirational. Thank you for your advice and for your confidence. Have a great weekend and congratulations to you. Thanks for coming back.
Buddy Foy Jr:
Melisa, thank you.