You can make money off food alone. And some of the best business models involve high, volume, absurdly low margin products. Like pizza. Full size pizza out the door only makes you like 3-6 bucks at the end of the day, but put 100 out a shift. Two shifts a day. Seven days a week. And it adds up fast.

“ “nice guy” owners who gave a free meal per shift.”

You’d think. Trick is that there are massive, massive, massive tax write offs for real estate losses. And vacant spaces create instant losses hot on tap. Often without losing much actual money. Thing is you can take losses from real estate or real estate businesses and pass them through to your personal income. Then…

No it actually happened. There was a particularly famous actress that’s the core example. She did like one talkie and it killed her career. I’ve only slept about 8 hours in the last three days so I’m drawing a blank on the name. But a bunch of performers were pressed out of the business or quit because their voices…

Yeah but it’s the right way to do it. Given how half assed most French toast is a straight forward presentation of how to do it well, that doesn't start with 10k words of lifestyle journalling can blow minds. 

It’s a reference to numerous silent film stars who’s odd voices or thick accents killed their careers when sound cinema hit.

I believe the average offered in most studies or industry reports is the median. Because otherwise it’d be hugely skewed upwards by including chain restaurants. They tend to have much higher profit margins due to vertically integrated supply chains, and especially negotiating power on alcohol pricing. When Applebee’s…

Kitchen Nightmares too. It’s considerably less shouty than most of the competition shows. And he actually knows what he’s doing.

We were at a wedding and there was drinking involved. So I also told him if he made that mistake I’d be there to fix it.

And two other things you can learn from McDonald’s.

Because most people don’t know the numbers, or assume they can be the rare case that beats them. Cause they’re special and look at this charming sandwich served in a shoe.

Noone believes me about the 6% average profit margin either! But that’s the “good news!” number released by the industry when average margin *went up* in the past few years. 

He has chops. And in large part all the angry is a feature of American TV. His British stuff was calmer and his first show was about moving to farm with his family to learn hands on how quality food is produced.

“I have the cushiest, best paid job in the food business. Everyone tells me I should spend my life savings to become a hardcore alcoholic who bleeds money!”

For tax reasons you *always* take a salary no matter what. Even if it puts you in the red that becomes a loss you can right off. I worked for an accountant for a couple of years as a secretary and tech monkey. 90% of his consultations with new business clients started out with him disabusing then of that particular…

The price thing doesn’t work that way with restaurants. While pricing for certain items need to be in the range if the full market, and prices need to match your market segment (dive bar or artisinal cocktail spot). The rules are to set prices for the margin you need regardless of what your neighbors are doing. And to…

The number one thing that disabused me of cheffy dreams was actually working as a cook for a few years. I don’t think I cooked for myself or anyone else for a full year after that. It absolutely drove all the joy out of cooking and food.

I had that conversation with a friend a while back. Thought it would be fun to run a bar. But at he had the presence of mind to ask someone who knows what they’re doing (me!). Plus his interest is apparently rooted in the fact that he doesn’t know how it works and is mostly about learning how it’s done.

Ramsey’s TV persona is apparently a put on. I know some people who have worked with him (though not directly for him). Apparently he’s never run a kitchen the way we see him act on TV, and is fairly critical of people who do. He’s basically playing the role of a very particular type of French trained chef that became…

A lot of the people who fail rapidly in the restaurant business are people who have experience in other businesses. I’ve seen a lot of people try to apply what worked for their construction or retail business to food/bev. They get brought up short, fast.