The first six weeks of restaurant ownership taught me that a handover can explain the business, but it cannot prepare you to carry it.
About ten months before the 2015 Cricket World Cup, I bought tickets to four matches. One was in Sydney. The others were in Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide. I had plenty of time to plan the trips, and I expected to attend every match. But by the time the tournament arrived, I had taken over a restaurant, and I couldn’t go to a single one.
I gave two tickets away. The other two went unused.
At the time, I was desperately trying to recruit a new head chef while keeping the restaurant operating. Travelling interstate to watch cricket was no longer realistic.
Those four tickets became an early lesson in what restaurant ownership actually meant.
The handover looked comprehensive
Before taking over the business, I received a handover from the previous owner. It included supplier information, ordering schedules, garbage collection arrangements and the other practical details needed to operate the restaurant.
I also knew some staff would leave because of the change in management. I expected to recruit replacements, and I knew I would need an accountant to help manage the financial side of the business.
I wasn’t expecting ownership to be easy. But knowing that you will have many responsibilities is different from understanding how they will occupy every hour of your day.
The owner becomes the solution to every gap
The supplier list did not mean everything the restaurant needed would arrive through one organised system.
Some spirits and wines on our list were unavailable from our regular supplier, so I had to visit Dan Murphy’s two or three times a week. Certain ingredients had to be collected from markets because our suppliers did not carry them. If the napkins weren’t delivered on time, I collected them myself. If the paper for the tables did not arrive, I drove to the warehouse. There were also items we needed from a specialist hospitality store, and I had to set up a trade account before I could buy them.
None of these tasks sounded dramatic on its own. That was the problem. Each job seemed small: buy a few bottles, collect some napkins, find an ingredient, open an account, drive to a warehouse. But they accumulated quickly, and every task took time.
No matter what happened during the day, the restaurant still had to be ready for service by 5pm. Customers didn’t know the owner had spent the afternoon moving between bottle shops, markets, warehouses and interviews. They expected the wine to be available, the tables properly set and the doors open on time. And they were right to expect that.
Then more staff resigned
I already knew some employees planned to leave following the change of ownership. What I hadn’t expected was for another two staff members to resign during my first week.
Recruitment became urgent. I placed ads on Gumtree and began interviewing applicants, while still dealing with suppliers, collecting missing products, learning the financial side of the business and preparing for service every evening. I was trying to do too much in too little time, without yet having a strong hospitality network in Sydney to call on for help.
Then, during my second week, the head chef asked for a pay rise. Our working relationship was already difficult. He behaved as though he, rather than I, owned the business, and we did not work well together.
A head chef has enormous influence over a restaurant. The kitchen depends on that person’s leadership, consistency and knowledge. When that relationship isn’t functioning, the instability spreads well beyond the two people involved. I knew I needed to find someone else. Knowing that and finding the right person were two very different things.
Six weeks searching for stability
For the next six weeks, I searched for a new head chef. I didn’t know many people in the local hospitality industry I could approach, and there was no established network of chefs, recruiters or operators ready to help.
Meanwhile, the restaurant still had to trade. That was why the Cricket World Cup tickets became impossible to use. Going to a match in Sydney was difficult enough. Travelling to Canberra, Melbourne or Adelaide was out of the question. I couldn’t leave the business while the kitchen leadership was uncertain and I was still learning how everything fitted together.
Eventually, six weeks after taking over, I found a new head chef. I agreed to pay him $10,000 more annually than the previous head chef. At that stage, stability mattered more than cost. Once he joined, the operation became considerably more stable.
But even that transition exposed another gap.
Recipes were not the whole product
The new head chef worked through all the existing recipes. That part was manageable; he was experienced and understood the ingredients, quantities and methods.
But we didn’t have photographs of every dish. A written recipe could explain how to prepare the food. It couldn’t always show how the finished dish should be plated and presented. Without that visual record, reproducing some dishes involved a degree of guesswork.
That taught me a restaurant’s knowledge exists in many forms. Some of it is written down in recipes, supplier lists and ordering schedules. Some exists in photographs, routines and relationships. And some lives only in the memories of the people doing the work. When those people leave, that knowledge can leave with them.
What a handover cannot give you
The information the previous owner provided was useful and necessary. But documents cannot transfer staff loyalty. They cannot give a new owner established relationships with suppliers and chefs. They cannot record every emergency purchase, every unusual ingredient or every small task the former owner handled without mentioning it. They cannot prepare you for how quickly several minor problems become one operational crisis.
Before taking over, I understood that I would be running the restaurant. What I didn’t yet understand was that the owner becomes responsible for every gap between what should happen and what actually happens. If a delivery fails, the owner finds another way. If an employee resigns, the owner recruits. If knowledge hasn’t been documented, the owner helps reconstruct it. And after all of that, the doors still have to open by 5pm.
By the time the 2015 Cricket World Cup arrived, I had four tickets and no realistic chance of using them. I gave two away, and the other two went unused.
I missed every match. But by then, I had begun learning what it really meant to own a restaurant.