[Blarg]

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Immediately leaping as quickly through the chain of command as you can isn't necessarily helpful. It can actually just make things more confusing and amp up something small into something big.

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One thing you keep assuming for some reason is that the owner isn't readily accessible and/or very hands-on.

A friend's father ran a very high-end Italian joint here in town for upwards of thirty years and he was the host on average of six nights a week.

Another friend of mine was a bartender here in town who bought a sports bar with a friend and fellow bartender. It was a busy place but they would put themselves on shifts behind the bar several nights a week.


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Wow, a whole several nights a week? Pretty impressive. A business as big as a bar, you say. Whew!

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I can't tell by your tone what you mean by this. I'm just talking about when they put themselves on the schedule. In both restaurant instances the owners would usually come in at 9AM or 10AM or whatever to manage the books, deliveries, payroll, back-office type stuff. Then they would often work the evening.

We're on a bit of a tangent, but a lot of very successful bar/restaurant managers are control freaks who invest huge amounts of time in their businesses. Whether they're also successful outside of their work who knows, but I don't think it's at all unusual for an owner to be so hands-on in a floor level situation at a moderately sized restaurant.

EDIT: Basically, what guids said upthread about owners either being very hands-on or very hands-off.

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blarg, normally in business I would agree but restaurants are different, unless its a chain, a lot of succesful restaurants (not high profile ones, just your normal corner joint), are the ones who have an owner who is there all the time.

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There's a difference between having one there and needing one there, and a very important one. Asking the owner doesn't necessarily give you a reliable idea on how much the owner's presence is worth, either, because most people's valuation of themselves is pretty much infinite and a lot of people have no lives whatever, so where else would they be?

Lots of owners hire managers, too. Or empower their employees to make decisions.

Also, my reading is this place is not that high end.

And, the owner can be there every night, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's going to be there every day, too. When he's not, who is going to make the decisions?

A place that falls apart as soon as the owner has flu or takes a weekend off or is for whatever reason temporarily unavailable is a business in peril. At least, in peril of not making the money it should. Restaurant or bar, too.