But I did attend a few district meetings in the back dining room.
District meetings were always fun. At district meetings, the District Manager would point out in stark, resounding and grotesque terms how completely the attending General Mangers sucked. And then we'd have some lunch.
While once attending one of these necessary annoyances at the Hazleton unit, I was repeatedly raked over the coals for something or other than escapes me now. All the while, I purposely had my fingertip pressing down on a profit and loss statement illustrating the fact that I had just turned a 26.9% pure profit during the previous month...January. That's "pure" profit.
And if you're a current or former restaurateur, you know that a 26.9% pure profit in any given January is pretty much unattainable. And especially in those days, when operators such as ourselves were not publicly traded and reduced to cutthroat practices to assuage the whims of the investors.
Christmas passed, everybody was tapped-out, and as a GM, your mission was to get through January and February without having too much of a profit-and-loss hole to dig yourself out of for months on end. Still, 26.9% in January, and there I was having to eat more needless bullspit.
And with that, you have yet another insight as to why I bolted from the hospitality industry.
What I remember is that the Hazleton Water Authority was facing some sort of serious dilemma. And as a result, the Franklin's in Hazleton was forced to reduce it's water usage by 25%, meaning it's dishwasher was put on standby.
And with that, the paper plates and plastic utensils first appeared.
Personally, I can't even imagine how such an unthinkable thing was even remotely possible. And I'm glad that Emil had to live and work through that, and not myself.
Managing a restaurant without an operable dishwasher?
Yeah, you can count me out.
Mark
I don't remember restaurants in Wilkes-Barre resorting to anything like that, but I do remember a time of water crisis when the complimentary glasses of water were eliminated - water was only provided on request. Come to think of it, I guess that's become the standard at restaurants these days.
ReplyDeletei was a busboy at the time.We were only washing silverware. made for long nights . i think they were using plates for breakfasts. I can go for a big ben.
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