Some of you may know that I've been in the restaurant business as well as running a web dev business. I have been a Subway franchisee for 32 years. I built the fifth one in my whole state back then and owned five over the years. I sold the last one and today is the last day of ownership.
All five, at one time or another, were in the top 10 in sales for the region. My greatest accomplishment was buying one from someone else, one that was floundering and not making any money, and doubling sales within two months and, eventually, tripling sales within six months. All while decreasing prices posted by the previous owner.
While restaurant turnover is high, most of my people stay an average of 10 years or more. My longest tenured personnel are between 12 and 15 years.
But getting quality people to work in this business is hard. It goes through cycles. Every so many years, we get shorthanded and have to find someone to fill that spot but get no one good enough for us. We won't hire just anyone like most places do. You have to have all 10 fingers and those fingers have to bend. You have to care about who you work with and take care of each other. That spills out into caring for the customer, too. It's why customers notice when someone isn't working that day and we notice when certain customers haven't come in for a while. It's about seeing a regular pull into the parking lot and we start making their sandwich so it's ready when they walk in the door cause he's been ordering the same thing for years. But I don't want to go through another struggle to find good people again.
All that said, I don't want to give the impression that I work in the store on any regular basis. Yes, I've had to fill in at times but it's not my full-time job.
So why am I writing all this? At 1:30 today, the new owner is meeting with my manager who will then tell the rest of the employees. I will be there to hand him my keys. The new owner has been around almost as long as I have and I consider him a friend. I've had something to do with Subway every week but, for the past few weeks, I've felt an emptiness and I haven't figured out how I'm going to fill it. A few months ago, my wife and I were in the neighborhood of that original store we built 32 years ago and found out those owners had closed it a couple of months before. She said it felt like a punch to the stomach and I felt the same. So I guess I'm just rambling and reminiscing cause I can't tell anyone else about this for a few more hours at least.
All five, at one time or another, were in the top 10 in sales for the region. My greatest accomplishment was buying one from someone else, one that was floundering and not making any money, and doubling sales within two months and, eventually, tripling sales within six months. All while decreasing prices posted by the previous owner.
While restaurant turnover is high, most of my people stay an average of 10 years or more. My longest tenured personnel are between 12 and 15 years.
But getting quality people to work in this business is hard. It goes through cycles. Every so many years, we get shorthanded and have to find someone to fill that spot but get no one good enough for us. We won't hire just anyone like most places do. You have to have all 10 fingers and those fingers have to bend. You have to care about who you work with and take care of each other. That spills out into caring for the customer, too. It's why customers notice when someone isn't working that day and we notice when certain customers haven't come in for a while. It's about seeing a regular pull into the parking lot and we start making their sandwich so it's ready when they walk in the door cause he's been ordering the same thing for years. But I don't want to go through another struggle to find good people again.
All that said, I don't want to give the impression that I work in the store on any regular basis. Yes, I've had to fill in at times but it's not my full-time job.
So why am I writing all this? At 1:30 today, the new owner is meeting with my manager who will then tell the rest of the employees. I will be there to hand him my keys. The new owner has been around almost as long as I have and I consider him a friend. I've had something to do with Subway every week but, for the past few weeks, I've felt an emptiness and I haven't figured out how I'm going to fill it. A few months ago, my wife and I were in the neighborhood of that original store we built 32 years ago and found out those owners had closed it a couple of months before. She said it felt like a punch to the stomach and I felt the same. So I guess I'm just rambling and reminiscing cause I can't tell anyone else about this for a few more hours at least.
