Closure

It has been a year since I closed the doors to my restaurant. Best decision I have made.

There was a moment or two when I was using my heart, instead of intuition and thought maybe I made the wrong decision, but I didn’t.

You can only take so much before you have to give in.

Owning a restaurant, is like having another child. Except you have to choose between it, and your real children in order to be successful.

You don’t get days off, even when you’re off. This is why closing a day a week helped with my sanity.

You can’t expect anyone else to be there to run it for you, like you, unless you’re willing to pay them to do so, which is hard in a small business within the first 5 years or more, unless it’s profitable and you know all your numbers, to back that up.

You have to basically live in the business to make any money.

You have to feel like a failure as a parent because you’re not there for your kids like you should be. Having their dad basically raise them, and feeling like you’re not good enough. You’re not there enough. You have to choose. One or the other. It’s hard on the mind.

You want your sanity, but you don’t get it. Ever. Every moment you are in business consumes your mind and you can never get it to slow down. Again, closing one day a week was what helped me keep mine. Because as long as you’re open, it owns you.

You are the employee. Even when you have other employees, you are the on call, 24/7 employee, even if you don’t want to be. You have to be there to answer any questions, or pick something up last minute, it’s all on you. Expecting anything else, is a set up for failure.

Owning a restaurant is one of the hardest businesses in the industry. I literally tip my hat to every successful restaurant owner out there.

It’s possible if I had more knowledge on running a business, it wouldn’t have been as stressful, but it still takes your time and your mind. So if you’re not ready and willing to give those things up, it is not for you.

You can’t take it easy and rely on others to be there to build your business in the first ten years. It takes every second you have. I watch other restaurant owners and they live there, every moment it’s open basically. They don’t take days off, they don’t take vacation. Their children are there, growing up into the business too. Turns out that’s not what I wanted at all.

I am too creative to be held down to a business like that. I don’t have the patience, and I would rather build my children into people who don’t need to recover from a childhood of anger because I was never there for them.

So here is to a year of being free from the best lesson I ever learned!

Because saying no to the things we don’t want, is making room for the things we do!