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Both of my managers get 4 weeks of paid vacation a year. My partner and I cover for them with our assistant managers. I deal with this whole “problem” by simply having more people than I need. Every shift has at least 1 to 3 extra people on, depending on the day. My employees get unlimited time...

My defeatist way of dealing with employees is by having far more hired and scheduled than I actually need. On any given night I have at least 3 more people than I need. This past Saturday it was 8 (usually in the summer I have many people on vacation at any given time, not this year). Yes it...

A couple of days before you plan to open have a big party and invite all your friends and family. Have them come all at once and let them order off the menu. Call it a dress rehearsal, and treat them like customers. You will be surprised at the small things you have forgotten. For my second...

I’m almost embarrassed to admit this but, I only spend about 20 hours a week in my stores. I wish I could say that I spend the rest of the time marketing or otherwise building the business, but that really isn’t the case. I have 2 full time managers who run the business for me. Even when I am at...

I own several commercial properties that I lease out. If I were to sell one I wouldn’t have access to the financials of any of my tenants, and no competent commercial broker would even ask for them. On more than one occasion I have had tenants walk away and leave the equipment behind in lieu of...

I had one particular manager who called me for every possible reason, and another who never called me no matter what (and never told me about any problems he had, I think to make me feel confident in him, which ironically made me less confident, like he was hiding stuff from me). I dealt with...

Assuming this is an unpaid vacation, think of the extra money in your pocket at the end of the month, and how sweet having some time off will be 🙂 .

Is this your first time away from the store? I started out with baby steps. The first time I left someone in charge I ran out to do some errands for about 20 minutes, then sat out in the parking lot watching them for about an hour. They did fine so the next time it was a bit longer, I think...

It stinks when a trusted, and good, employee leaves; but I always look at it as one step backwards, two steps forward. In this business, people have to leave or they end up making more than what the market warrants. Nobody should be so important to your business that they can’t be replaced. You...

Maybe I’m a jerk, but I would’ve quietly called the police when I first saw him. I don’t want my customers having to walk by that kind of stuff, especially if they have children with them. Plus with my luck, the outside of my place would become the crack-scene hangout.

Just a long shot here but, on my machine there is a “carbonation” switch right above the heads. Sometimes it gets shut off by someone cleaning the machine. Does yours have one that you can check? Like I said, its a long shot.

Another thing I do for my kids which they really like is to get them food from other businesses in town. I have developed a network of places to “trade” with. We pay each other with our own gift cards or gift certificates. So a couple of times a week we’ll get lunch from some place else. I used...

I give my employees “dinner” before the rush, as much as they want, plus food after the rush, as much as they want. They are allowed to bring home 1 free pizza a week for every year of employment (so 1 a week for the first year, 2 for the second, etc.), and 50% off when they are not working...

A couple of years back I was contacted by a licensing company that informed me that I was breaking the law and that I was facing a hefty fine. He told me that I was playing songs that are licensed by them and to stop immediately. I told him that I use the radio. He came down to investigate/sell...

Re: Do I have a legal leg to stand on, or should I just give Unfortunately this is becoming standard practice. I needed all this for my last 3 stores. I was told that you need the structural stability reports if you plan on putting anything on the roof. You didn’t mention anything about the...

I had someone complain that we sent him to the hospital. Him, his wife and their two small children all ate from the same pizza. He gets so sick a few hours later that he had to be hospitalized, but everyone else is fine. Of course, they called 3 days later to complain and had thrown out the 2...

I don’t think she was throwing it away. My dad used to own a deli a long time ago, he had an old lady working for him who always volunteered to throw out the trash as she ended her shift. One day he found out why; she would wrap lunch meats up really good and put them in the trash. Then out by...

We do this every year. We keep track of every customer who comes in on a weekly basis and give them an order as a gift. We stagger it over the course of a few weeks, as it ends up being well over a hundred pizzas. Unfortunately, I don’t think we could ever stop doing it, some of our long term...

We close Easter, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, and the Fourth of July. To us, business is important, but family is far more important. It seems like our customers just come in on different days those weeks, because at the end of the week it is usually pretty...

Not many of my employees are hungry enough to get fired for intentionally (or unintentionally) making mistakes. Especially since we start every shift by feeding them. We average less than 2 mistakes a week, so we are doing ok. Back to the topic, I also don’t give paid breaks as most employees...