Lessons Learned

It’s hard to believe.

I never thought we’d make it.

Fox’s Pizza of Rayville is officially one year old!

Whew!  A lot of water under the bridge since this time last year.  If only the Tool Man and I knew then what we know now.  There’s nothing quite like experience!

I’ve learned quite a bit over the past year – about business, about the food industry, and about people in general.  So I thought I might write some of these things down to share with y’all.  Maybe you can glean something from my experiences.  Hopefully, you’ll get a laugh out of this.  It’s all in good fun, even if it is true.

1.  People are very particular (and peculiar) when it comes to their food.   “Cut this, add that.  Light on this, extra on that.  Cook it less, cook it more.”  You get the picture.  It’s amazing some of the requests you get from people regarding their food.  Just ask Patty C.  Of course, I’m right there in the middle of them.  I will only let the Tool Man make my pizza.

2.  The customer is not always right, you just have to let him think he is.  This often means you’ve just got to swallow your pride, bite your tongue, and do what you gotta do to make him or her happy.  Even if they are flat out wrong, or if you know they are flat out lying, just try to keep ‘em happy.

3.  You should never go into a restaurant within 15 minutes of closing time.  Those people are ready to go home!  I never really considered this until I was on the other side of the counter.

4.  People ask dumb unintelligent questions.  I have two pet peeve questions.

1.  “How many people does __ size pizza serve?”  First of all, our pizzas come by the inch.  You really should be able to envision how big a 6”  or a 12” pizza is, shouldn’t you?  Second, I’m gonna need a little more information to answer this question, e.g. how hungry are the people or how old are the people.  I mean two 16 year old boys are gonna eat a lot more than two 5 year old girls.

2.  “How many slices come in a __ size pizza?”  Well, I could cut a 6” pizza into 30 slices, but that doesn’t affect how much pizza you’re gonna get.

5.  It’s hard to get good help.  Don’t get me wrong.  The help we have is good.  Great, even!  We love our people!  It’s just not easy to find them.

6.  Pizza ovens are not just for pizza.  It hasn’t been easy, but I’m slowly perfecting the art of baking pies and cakes in the pizza oven.  Many a cake has come out of that oven about 2” taller on one end than the other. (Of course “Precious” doesn’t mind, because she likes to eat the extra crumbs I shave off the tops of the cakes.)

7.  People are creatures of habit.  I can’t tell you how many customers we have who order the exact same thing 90% of the time.  For example, we have a Mr. Whole Meatball Hoagie on wheat, a Miss Grilled Chicken Salad add jalapenos,  a Mr. & Mrs. Two Big Daddy Deluxe Pizzas, and a Mrs. 12 Hot Wings with honey mustard dressing, just to name a few.  Me?  I’m a Mrs. 6” Veggie Pizza on wheat, light cheese.  We have some very faithful customers who have yet to try our pizza because they are stuck on our other food.  They just don’t know what they’re missing!

8.  The restaurant business is tough work.

Extremely hard.

Extremely.

Although, not quite as demanding as child-rearing.

There are countless other lessons and experiences I could write about, but I’m getting tired, and you’re probably getting bored, so I’ll stop for now.

I’ve got a few other things to share with y’all, but I’ll save them for another day.  Things like monkeys and fish and cakes and dining rooms (yes, it’s finished, well, sort of.)  So be sure to pop in soon.

P.S.  I just want to say, “Thank You,” to any and all who leave comments.  I love hearing from y’all.  It’s amazing how one little comment can brighten a blogger’s day.