Weathering The Storm

Sometimes when it comes to challenges in business, when it rains, it pours! 

But instead of going under, staying calm and thinking on my feet didn’t just keep me afloat, it turned a potential opening-night disaster into lifelong business relationships. 

Transcript

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- Good morning, guys and welcome to the podcast I am Rami. You know, today, we're just heading into Christmas when I'm doing this podcast and I'm thinking of crisis management. And it takes me back to 2001. 2001 at this stage, I am three years into my business into my first restaurant. I own a couple of (mumbles) which is Domino's delivery business. I think I have three of them at this stage. And I'll get a little bit fancy. At this stage, I'm sort of, I'm getting involved in the business world, all the rest of it, so I start learning more and more about fine dining. And I wanna get involved in the fine dining scene. I see myself as an entrepreneur now, ready to spread my wings. I've got my Rashays Restaurant Cafe, I've got one of them. I've got my three Domino's I say, and now I explore. I open my first fine dining restaurant and I call it the Euro Restaurant. Now, I opened the Euro Restaurant just in time for the Christmas period for the peak, for the peak of the season where you make money. So we rush the building site, by the way, the restaurant is built in Liverpool. So it's built in the outskirts of Sydney, outside of the CBD. Fine dining restaurants outside the CB... Anyway, I'll get into it a little bit more. Yeah, so we rush the building and we get it open. We get it open in November. We get the restaurant open in November, during this time, you know, I'm building a restaurant and who people have built restaurants know and you'll know when you do your project, whether you're renovating your home or whatever you're doing, you always run out of money. You always get to a point where money gets, you know, it shrinks, it's not enough. You always, I guess underestimate what something is gonna cost. And that's something that we all face a lot. Nevertheless, we continue building this restaurant and I'll build the restaurant to a satisfactory standard and everything else. Now I'm gonna explain one part of the restaurant, there's an indoor part of the restaurant, and what's still very popular and especially back then, what really became popular at that time back in 2000, 2001 was the alfresco dining. So that was very, very important. And alfresco dining, which is an outdoor dining coat yeah that we built, it was beautiful, you know, we had the water tank in the middle. We went above and beyond, it was all about really the whole restaurant was, the focus of it was this alfresco dining area. And what it had was for the ceiling or for the roof, we put a sail, a sail shade, so you see it down on the water, you see all these sail shades down on the Coronella beaches and whatever beaches, it's a very beachy sort of look. Mind you, I'll go back this is Liverpool, Western Sydney. So I don't know if it's the right design. But anyway, nevertheless, it was really hard to find somebody that could put a shade sail on a roof. It took a lot of engineering, something I did not anticipate. The area was about 150 square meters. And to put it in perspective, you've seen about 100 people in here. 100 people fitted in that courtyard. It was amazing. For the western suburbs really, we ever achieved in my eyes there was a sail, there was everything. So we open this restaurant in time, and we're heading into, like I said, the Christmas period and people wanna book out that area. Everyone locally who knew me from Rashays you know, I was going around talking about this year a restaurant, it was the biggest talk, it was a big talk in town. There's a fine dining restaurant opening up at Liverpool everybody knew about it. Back then there was no Instagram, no Facebook, none of that. It was just all word of mouth. Anyhow, the very first weekend, we're opening, which was like November. And mind you, we were booked out, booked out, booked out. Now people were booking because it's Christmas parties. And yeah, so people are booking us. The very first weekend we booked a Christmas party, and we booked a Christmas party for a school, it was a Catholic school and I don't recall where it is but I know where it is exactly. I could visualize it right now, it's down on Elizabeth drive Liverpool, it's a private school, it's private Catholic school. And they booked the Friday night for the school teachers to have their Christmas party there. Everything's going well, they booked, they got a set menu. You know, the set menu is like $60 a head, it's unbelievable. You gotta put in perspective, this is fine dining. I'm usually running a Domino's Pizza which is selling $5 $6 pizza or selling, you know, a pizza at a chaise for 10 $15. And this is massive money, this is Rami Ykmour becoming hitting the big time. On the Wednesday, we get a massive storm. And I'll go back to the shadecloth. And I'll go back to running out of money. I couldn't get the best shadecloth, I couldn't get the best manufacturer in the country to put it up. I'll have to find someone on the cheap. And sure enough, what they did was a cheap job. And the evidence I have that it was a cheap job is for those people who know the site, Hume Highway Sydney's Liverpool, which is still a Rashays by the way, it's a Rashays now, but anyway, there's Rashay's and across the road directly, the Hume Highway has three lanes each way. So we're talking about six lanes plus an island in the middle. That shade cloth on a Wednesday through the storm was blind off and ended up this is we're talking about 150 meter square shape cloth. So we're talking 50 meters by 10 meters. This is massive, this shade cloth ends up in McDonald's. Okay, this is a stone that we had on a Wednesday. I've got 100 people booked for the Friday night. Now it's alfresco dining, there's no shade cloth. It looks good, you look up and is open air but if rain comes, we're in trouble, alright? The booking is Friday, seven o'clock. I get up the morning of that Friday, this is a massive thing there. It's really almost an opening of the restaurant, it's really if you wanna say, its a first big event. We're excited, I'm I'm excited, my wife Shannon is excited, Raymond is with me at this stage. We're all excited, the staff are excited you know, we've been peeling prawns all night and doing fancy stuff and trying you know, we're doing the fine dining stuff, which we're very poor at. But anyway, let's not go there now and it was our first go at it. We get up on the Friday, excited and then the first thing my wife says to me, Raymond says to me, is because they are a little bit more what can I say? They're a little bit they plan a little bit better than me. They go Rami we've seen the weather, and it says it's gonna rain tonight. I'm like it ain't gonna rain, Me being the optimist I am, it ain't gonna rain. They say it's gonna rain. Like the weather saying it's gonna rain. You seen the storm on Wednesday, what are we gonna do with 100 people? We have to call them and cancel them. You ain't canceling nothing. We out of money too but let's not worry about the financial state, you ain't canceling nothing here. Anyway, so me being the crisis manager I am, I start calling around and I'll find a company. And I can't remember what they are, they still like 20 years on, but what they did anyway, they they could come out and they could put out a marquee. So they could come out put a marquee over the 100 square meter box. And I said they come out anyway, their supervisor comes out'cause again, he's a local business. So I was able to get him out quickly. This is about 11 o'clock. 12 o'clock now. I'm getting him out, I said, "Listen, man,"can we do something here?" Sure, sure we put a marquee up, put some poles up here, we put a marquee if it rains, we'll at least they're inside, blah, blah. So what's it gonna cost? He goes $5,000. Okay, how much?$5,000, I haven't got$5000 that's the truth. I don't have $5000 I've just finished building a restaurant I don't have that sort of money. I look at the sky, I look down, I'm going look, I'm all in or have to gamble here. I'm gonna hope and pray it doesn't rain. Mind you this, the sky was blue. Yeah, it was a clear day. Only the forecast said it was gonna rain. How often does a forecast get it right? Quite often right? In my eyes being the optimist. Sure enough, six o'clock and sorry, let's go back.(mumbles) canceled him yeah, we're walking around, We're nervous, the team is nervous, in case it's gonna rain, but there is no sign of anything.

About four o'clock, I reckon 4: 8:57

30, you start seeing this dark cloud heading towards South towards Wollongong. And you start seeing this. And when I say dark cloud, there's nothing blacker than this, right? And I've got my wife, and Roman standing over me and the chef and the manager of the restaurant at a time going.(mumbling) it's gonna rain. Don't worry, don't worry, as I remember, you know, I sucked onto my finger and I'll put it up in the air to check which way the wind is blowing. And according to me, the black cloud was gonna go in the opposite direction to where our restaurant is. Long story short, the cloud is traveling slowly and it's heading towards six o'clock. And six o'clock, the customers arrive. I think six o'clock, quarter to six the first customer arrives and the people that first arrived are the organizers of the party if you like. And they look and they're going,"Where is your shadecloth?" I'm like, "Nay look, we had a bit of an incident"on Wednesday, you know, things flew out, blah, blah, blah." I don't think they were listening to me I'll get it now. They were saying, there's rain coming in their heads, what are you doing you little shade. How are you fixing it? Mind you, they're speaking into a 23 year old boy too who thinks he knows it all, you know. And the school teachers, and we know what school teachers are like. And they are thinking, and I'm going and again but it's gonna rain. I'm like, now so?(laughing) Blind Friday, you could see what's going on all right? It was, but I had to believe, I had to believe in what I was... And they were like, "Now this is gonna be a disaster,"this is gonna be that," you know, and I'm going,"Look guys just calm down, you know, will be all good." I had music for him that day. So that's how big the party was, I'll organize a couple of musicians and blah, blah, blah. Okay, look, there's gonna be music it's all good. We'll get used to move inside if anything happens. Fully knowing i promised them inside there, but fully knowing that the inside part of the restaurant was also fully booked out. So there's no it's not like, you know, and inside a restaurant carries about 60 people just to put into perspective. And around the restaurant, it's not like there's a shed or a roof they could go under there is nothing here, it is clearly all outdoor now okay? Apart from the part where there's 50 or 60 people that could sit which is inside the restaurant. And I guess the bar area, which you could fit another 10, 15 people in. Anyway, they come in and they sit down and as they arrive they see it and it's getting darker, and darker and darker. And I'm like, "Oh God," anyway, and here I am and my crisis management here I'm bragging about my crisis, my crisis management is, "Get the bloody food out now." So anyway, so we got them through. I think we got to the entrees that's right. So we get through the entrees we got breads yeah, Still no rain we got entrees yeah. And hurricane halfway through the entrees, the heavens opened up but when I say the heavens opened up, you've never seen the heavens opened up like that. It was, lucky it was a storm yeah, it wasn't rain. It was like torrential rain. It was unbelievable. It was like hot day, what we know what happens in Sydney. Torrential rain and I'm outside, right? And when it rained like it didn't start sprinkling it just went (mumbles) okay? So there's 100 people sitting out dressed up for a Christmas party, school teachers. They're not exactly and if we know teachers, we all went to school teachers aren't exactly relaxed, kicking back, you can imagine they fury human beings. And I look across and I swear to God, now even I could see it. I look around and all what I see is heads sitting down, I look around the courtyard that I'm in, there is no Roman, no my wife, no manager, no staff, no one but me and 100 people that's all there was. And I felt every eyeball only looking in one direction. And that was at me. And I swear to God right now, all what I've visualized right now at that moment, when everything was looking at me, I look and I see this calamari in a plate floating right? The calamari ring is floating. And at this stage is the calamari ring is floating the rain is so bad now people have run in the direction of inside the restaurant. So now they are on top of the people who have disappeared are on top of the diners who are booked in. So not only have I affected the 100 people outside, but the 50, 60 people inside, they've got people standing all around them going, rrrr freezing and all dressed up they make up running down their face, you can imagine it's a Christmas party, it's a Christmas party. Anyhow, I'll say this flight and honestly I'll never find I love telling that party of the story too. I see two teachers and I don't know what they were doing. But it was two of them I'll never forget that. We had napkins, right? So when I say fine dining restaurant, it's where you give them a white napkin. And two of the teachers had grabbed the white napkins that go on their lap and put it on the heads like umbrella. And because I'm in a panic state here, I'm thinking, What a great idea. Why doesn't everyone else come out and put the napkins on their head, what's wrong? Why can't they think like them? Anyway, it wasn't to be and yes, I'm gonna add this part of it too. Them muses who are getting paid by me, right? They're getting paid $100 each. They still stood there'cause as far as they thought they had to support me right? And they're playing the music and my crisis management again was play louder, louder. Look as if that's gonna fix the problem. I walk inside the restaurant. I'm looking for my wife looking for Roman, looking for the management. No one to be seen, I swear to God, there was no one except now another not only the 100 People but also another 60 customers who are completely pissed because they need to enjoy the Christmas function as well. But they got 100 people standing on top of it. I realize it's time now to fight or flight. Do I run away? Do I do the same thing that the others have done? Or do I stay there and face my challenge. And that's where I honestly believe the crisis management was born in me. It's taken a bad took a something that's unbelievable and quite funny today but for me to, I'd always look back at that moment, and I'll think okay, how did I react? How did I behave, how did I turn the situation around? And I'll tell you how I turned the situation around. It was quick thinking. And what made me, what's important is not what I did, and I'll tell you what I did. But that's not what's important. At the end of the day, the core of me is about the customer. It wasn't about, it was about how do I satisfy these 100 people that are there now. Because that's how instinctively that's how I behave, that's how I react. I focus on the customer. Now that's one thing. But now how do you focus on the customer and how do you fix the situation? But because in the forefront of my mind was how do I fix it for them? I grabbed the organizers, and even though there was a panic stations even say was panic I said,"Guys, what can we do?" I was able to bring them together, knowing they from a school down the road. I said, what if we grab your food? Yeah, what if we grab your food and take it down to your school and have the function in your school and take the muses with us to your school? Now, quite likely, they had no other choice. But the point of the story is, I didn't flee, I didn't run away. I stayed there, and I'll face more challenge. And I realized that to everything there's a solution. And that's the day when I realized that I had in me something special that I could react in a crisis moment. So it took something really bad for me to sort of step up and find that in me. We ended up getting the food and it would have been like, you know, there would have been things like chicken, steaks, you know, your normal alternate meals, and we grab the team, and we took them muses and we took the alcohol and we took everything down. We grabbed everything down, put them in the back of the cars and went down to the hall. And we had, I say we now, not them, I say we. We had the party of our life okay? Till about one o'clock in the morning. So we ended up turning customers who were potentially gonna walk out never come back to our restaurants say absolutely horrible thing to some of them are lifetime friends now. So I guess what I want you to take is from this is how you could learn and how we all have the inner crisis management skill inside of us. As long as we stay there and face it and not run away from it. I hope you've been able to enjoy my little story and you've been able to get something out of it. I've tried to make it a little bit entertainment. But hopefully I've also been able to give you a little bit of management skill out of it. Till next time Have a good one.