and how many stores do you have? Let’s do the numbers.
My wife and I have 2 shops and she works about 20 hours a week and I out in 15 or so.
It’s been a long time coming though, there were many years of 7 days a week 12-14 hours a day, with maybe 2 days off a month
One store (was two for 10 years until we sold the 2nd location 5 years ago). I put in about 1-2 hours per week at the store to pay bills, look at numbers, talk with the GM etc etc generally about 15-30 minutes at a time several times a week. I stop in almost every day at one time or another. Used to be a bit more, but with so many of our bills paid by CC now the bill paying is down to twice a month for 30-40 minutes.
I work about 50-60 hrs a week. 1 Shop
normally i work a little over 70 hrs a week…sometimes closer to 90…feeew hurts to say it out loud lol. i dream of the days when i work 15 hours a week. but that also includes some down time lurking on the think tank!
55-60 in the off-season, 80+ in our summer season.
My place requires me to come in very late at night to load our BBQ pit for the next days meats, each load is typically 800-1,200 pounds.
About 10 hours a week slinging pies, helping customers day to day stuff
About 30 hours a week talking, training and pumping everyone up.
And then 128 hours a week plotting, planning and worrying.
I shoot for 50 hours a week in the store. And another 10 hours a week at home/store working on bills, advertising, accounting, etc. etc.
Sometime i can get away with as few as 40 hours a week, and bad weeks can be easily 100.
We have 1 store, my wife and I average 70 each I would say, the days we get out at about 8pm almost feels like days off. We could take time off but one of us would have to work and we don’t want to have off without each other. I’ve been meaning to look for a GM but I’ve been dragging my feet because the pay is really good without one, but after buying a house and a car this year, looking at the budget, it’s time to get some of our life back and spend some money on labor. The store will be open for 3 years in March… It’s time we figured something out.
1 store got it down to 55hrs…closed sundays
Right at about 100hrs. it’s getting old. my wife also works 40+.
Between me and my husband we put in 70 hours/week lucky for us we get sundays off.
1 shop, 45 hrs per week off season, 70 + hrs busy season. I am a glutton for punishment!!! LOL 
My wife works about 35-40 hrs per week. I dream of getting it together like Bodega someday!
1 store and I am down to 50-60 hours a week. I haven’t figured my hours in years, maybe I have time to work a part time job.
John, I don’t earn a living from owning the store. It is kind of apples to oranges to compare our model to an operator that earns a living from the store. If I needed to support my family just from the store I would be there 50 hours a week. If we wanted a six figure income from the business my wife would need to work there too (she does not work there at all). My focus has been on having the people and systems in place to have the business run well from day to day without my presence. We have been doing this way for over 15 years. For 10 of those years we had two stores. In those days we did occasionally hit 6 figures income for us without working there day to day.
Running the business with a GM so I do not need to be there is not inexpensive in a small store like mine. The business is profitable and I do take a nice income from it, but I would need to add my managers comp to our profit call it a living.
We own and operate two other businesses which also require attention. I spend about 30 hours a week on our retail business and my wife spends about 30-40 hours there. My business brokerage work also takes up my time.
1 store my brother and I each work 65 hours
1 store 70 hour weeks, don’t trust anyone else to do it yet
If you LOVE what you do is it really work? Yep! 1 store 40-50 hours per week 1/2 of that I’m working on my business not in it.
I own 1 store and I am there at least 45 minutes every day. I work three shifts a week that total 17 hrs per week. I work about 20 hrs a week on paperwork and running another business (fundraiser with our Stromboli).
1 store. During summer months (since our college kids are on summer break and have open availability) I average about 30 hours a week and not during summer months usually around 45/50 a week. There have been weeks during the summer which I only work about 23 hours and that in my mind is a vacation!