And then, a few weeks ago, I go to the opening of their store on Sarasota’s Tamiami Trail. It’s a civic occasion because IHOP (and McDonald’s and Outback) seem to be the only new businesses opening up on our bit of suburban strip in this shut-down year, and everyone in town is wishing them well. They hired 125 folks when they opened the store. If this is to be a long recession, every job is precious.

The store, a franchise, explains the run-up in share price the chain has seen in recent months. IHOP is actually DineEquity (NYSE: DIN); it renamed itself after its merger with Applebee’s.

Having been at IHOP restaurants that were no better than a Lum’s, the turnaround I saw inside was a revelation. The place was packed, and the store nailed it on every single count. I thought it might be instructive to list what went right:

• Location: They opened it in some of the best real estate in town, in an outparcel of a shopping center anchored by a Barnes & Noble and Best Buy. The location was previously a Village Inn that closed last year.
• Hiring: The hostess outside, Roberta, was easily able to deflect annoying customers who wanted to grump about the wait. Our waitress was equally friendly. While you don’t have to be a genius to wait tables, it does require a certain stamina, and many restaurant chains do not try to hire friendly folks.
• The Look: The decor is perfect for its market, clever but not edgy. Silkscreens of old IHOP restaurants, sketches kitchen whisks and the like are on the wall, giving a hip but homey feel to the store. It is obvious that the Glendale headquarters staff knows what it is doing. While the whole idea of IHOP is kitsch, it is no longer kitschy but now classic.
• Nostalgia: They have  sense of the nostalgia of the IHOP brand without living in the past. Old photos are done in collages, to keep them from being backwards feeling.
• Accountability: The manager, a polished Patrick Welenc, had his name emblazoned on the front door of the restaurant. It was obvious that the restaurant was his, as he walked from table to table to check in on patrons.
• The customers were upper middle class. While it is Sarasota where there is lots of money, I wasn’t expecting the crowd I saw. For instance, the grandfather heading up the table next to us wore a Berkshire Hathaway polo shirt, and he had long discussions with his sons about municipal unions and bottlers while waitresses served up Rooty Tooty breakfasts.

IHOP’s success proves that the full-service family restaurant isn’t dead, by a long shot. The shakedown Americans have felt in this pullback have put people back in reality, and I feel quite certain that IHOP will be a part of that reality for a long time. If a chain can’t perform in this sector, it isn’t because of consumer trends. It’s because they can’t do the simple things that are needed to run a restaurant.

The success also bodes well for other full-service, mid-market restaurant chains that might attempt revivals in this economy. If they are done well, they can succeed.

You dare not tell that to the bank, or you will get laughed at.

But after seeing an idea down the street, we think the opposite. Namely, in this time of unemployment, the market is in a period of enormous turmoil. Yes, it is a hard time to get things started, but in such a time as this, people are eager for new ideas, especially bottom-feeding, low overhead ones.

Yesterday, we saw a fascinating idea, namely a dinner restaurant opening inside another restaurant. More about that great idea in a second. But it got us thinking. If someone were to open a restaurant or start an eatery with no capital, how could it be done? Here are some ideas from some of the start-ups we have seen recently (our tips for running an existing restaurant are here).
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Have a Sam’s Club or COSCO card? Have fun and start a business. Ideas:

1. Sublease a restaurant: Contact a breakfast and lunch eatery ad ask them if you can add a dinner menu. Or brand a “Tom’s Breakfast” at a dinner-only restaurant. Find a small eatery only open for one or two meals. Offer to run a dinner and lease out the restaurant. Share profits, or offer to be the overnight cleaning crew that just happens to give the restaurant owner a cut of the business. Start small, only a few nights a week, with great food, and see if you can build the traffic. REMEMBER, Fox television didn’t start programming every night of the week. Instead, they built a business on Sunday night, and then added nights. They still only program from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
2. Do an illegal home restaurant or legal B&B. Do a meal tasting at home. Come up with a clever dinner menu, and try it out on family first. Make the unpaid guests be the victim. And then try some more menus. And then,  you can see if you can make it work with some paying guests. How you find them is up to you. This is easiest in rural areas; we recall a couple in Virginia that did “cooking classes” in their house. They also had “cooking camps” for children, as well as a bed and breakfast. Brilliant and they actually stayed within the law and turned the farm into a tourist attraction. But you have to push the boundaries of the law. Find out the rules about home businesses and find ways around the law; talk to a good land use attorney if you have enough for a consultation. It’s civil disobedience, circa 2009 Recession! I need to make a living! Just don’t sell alcohol, don’t put out a sign, and don’t get the neighbors upset.
3. Start a delivery service. The story of Paul Deen is instructive. She made sandwiches at home, and delivered them. Only later did she open a restaurant. She was desperate for cash, and had boys to feed. The rest is history.
4. Work at another restaurant. The only way to really know if you can do it is to work at another restaurant first. Try it out part time, and see. Most restaurant folk worked somewhere else and opened up there own when an opportunity came. Sometimes, restaurant owners want to sell. You are there.
5. Start a push cart. These things are popping up everywhere. Be careful. The county licensing folks can get after you, so do check carefully at the rules. But they have a fairly low entry level cost, and enable you to test the waters. Talk to a retailer and ask if you can set up in a parking lot, off city property, just like the vendors do at Lowe’s.
6. Volunteer in your church kitchen. Many churches lease out kitchens for different cooking classes, canning or other efforts. These kitchens are licensed by the city our county, and so are official. Once you build up some menu items at home, offer to sell them at the church bazaar. Then, if it takes off, you can talk to the church about starting a jam or canning business and running it once a month from their kitchen for a small fee. Just keep the kitchen clean and make a donation and you will be golden.
7. Offer to sell menu items to places that need fresh food. Places like filling stations and convenience stores always want to have fresh goods, but don’t have the resources. A sandwich line, or some other special item, displayed carefully, might just do the trick in getting some cash coming in as you experiment.
8. Twitter takeout. This idea is taking off in other parts of the world. The idea is that the mobile food cart, with a Twitter account, goes around town. On Monday, it is at this corner. Tuesday at another corner. The owner posts menus and information and the day’s specials on Twitter. You get followers, and go where you sell the most.
9. Sublease in a hotel or bowling alley. Most aging 1970s hotels had large restaurants, but now only serve breakfast. That means that there is an unused restaurant. Go to the owner of the motel and ask if you can operate a lunch business, or even a special Sunday brunch. Or ask if you can contract with them to run the freebie continental breakfast. These things are a nuisance for hotels, and you can help a small motel out by starting such a service. Other places like bowling alleys, flea markets, movie theaters and the like have leased concessions. You might even be able to lease a lunch counter for a short amount of time, if it is not profitable for the owner of the bowling alley. All the equipment is there, and you just have to contribute your time and food.
10. Keep it exceptional. So, we’ve given you some advice on how to get into restaurants with no capital. Fine, but there is one important thing. Every excruciating detail of the food must be perfect, and must be completely to your satisfaction. While the goal is to start modestly, if you are uncompromising with the quality, your possibility of success is much larger.

That was the route of Savannah, Georgia based Leopold’s Ice Cream, which was restarted by Stratton Leopold, a movie producer. The original Leopold’s was a shop founded in 1919 by his father, and counted folks like Johnny Mercer as customers.

Leopold is a prominent film director, and restarted the shop in August of 2004. It has been a big success. Of course, ice cream is a food dripping in nostalgia, so an old ice cream brand is a really safe category of brand to revive. In fact, this is an excellent category for revival as many local dairies have shut down and the names are available. Leopold just happened to love his father’s business, and so naming it was a natural.

If you, like Leopold, want to consider re-opening up an old local brand name, here are seven considerations.

1. If it is a family name, be careful. While Colonial Williamsburg restarted old eponymous taverns like Christiana Campbell’s and Chowning’s, it did so 150 years later, where there was no possibility of confusion with original owners or descendants. In the case of Leopold’s, he had a claim on the name because that was his name. Consult a good intellectual property lawyer for help; even if they don’t represent you, paying for some face time can save aggravation. The key idea is Likelihood of Confusion (also the name of a fine blog by attorney Ron Coleman); if the desired name is likely to be confused with a another entity, you need to consider carefully how you position it. Nevertheless, if a brand has been abandoned, that means it is available. Do a search online with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. While USPTO doesn’t have that many local brands registered (most relied on common law protections) you would do well to see what other variations of your name are out there. Also look to see if the URL is available; many are taken. If the family is prominent, offer them a nominal role for lending their support to the project.
2. Mine local history books and museums for ideas. In Richmond, entrepreneurs restarted the Commercial Cafe, which was an iconic restaurant in that Virginia city. The restaurant’s image an iconography was made relevant again in the 1970s, as a photo of the front of the restaurant appeared in a local history book, and everyone became familiar with the name again, as if it had never disappeared. Old City Directories, newspapers and the like are also good sources for ideas. And even if you don’t pick one, you can see some of the local history of your business category, and learn a bit as you position your own company.
3. Consider a variation on the name. If the original name was The Pines Restaurant, call it The New Pines Restaurant.
4. Take the name of the building. Restaurants do this with previous uses of buildings; in New York, I recall a restaurant that was called Mexico Next to Texaco. In Charlottesville, the C&O Restaurant is named after the railroad and is located near the tracks. In Richmond, the Miller & Rhoads department store is now condos and a Lucky Strike factory is apartments, each bearing the name of the brand.
5. Revive products that were beloved. If there was a restaurant with old recipes that were popular, consider using some of the old recipes at the new restaurant. For instance, if you see a crab cake recipe from an old restaurant in a local cookbook, put it on the menu of your new restaurant. Describe that the dish was “based on the beloved crab cakes of Sue’s Seafood Hut.” While some folks might recall the original, most who never tasted it at the original restaurant will want to try it for novelty’s sake. If it is good, then you have won them over, and your dish suddenly becomes a local institution.
6. Some categories work better with nostalgia than others. Retail, restaurants and consumer products seem to be the best candidates for reviving an old brand name, as the consumer naturally trusts things that have been around for a long time.
7. Education and institutional brands can be revived. Norfolk Academy, the prep school in Virginia, was originally founded in 1728, but the school lapsed for decades. It was revived as a new institution in the 20th century, and assumed the mantle of the original idea. The College of William and Mary also shut down for a time after the Civil War, and then re-opened in the 1880s. The buildings were still around, and they just restarted the school when the economy improved.

American Blue Ribbon Holdings, LLC will own and operate the Village Inn and Bakers Square restaurant brands as well as the company’s pie-making operation. “We are extremely pleased about the sale of Vicorp to these two well known and successful companies. Completing this deal in the midst of such a difficult financial and credit environment is a remarkable achievement and a testament to the strength of our brands,” said Vicorp president and CEO Hazem Ouf in a press release.

The motion to accept the sale of assets was submitted and approved on March 13, 2009 by Judge Kevin Gross of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. and the deal closed on Friday, March 27, 2009.

“We are excited to partner with the historically strong Village Inn and Bakers Square brands,” said FNF Chairman William P. Foley II. “Despite the difficult economic conditions, the newly reshaped operations have become profitable in a short period of time and the financial restructuring provides a significantly improved balance sheet and liquidity position.”

Founded in 1958, Vicorp has 267 restaurants in 25 states, consisting of 177 company-operated restaurants and 90 franchised restaurants. Both Village Inn and Bakers Square are synonymous with award-winning pies and offer distinct, high-quality menu items for breakfast, lunch and dinner. See www.vicorpinc.com or call 303-296-2121.

If you are curious about how to brand a regional restaurant, please read our post Tips to Save Your Casual Service Restaurant. It not only has survival tips, but a few points about how to make your local restaurant a true regional brand, a local institution. (At right, the Duck-In in Virginia Beach.)

Part of pushing your restaurant brand is recipes. Write down a few, and post them on your website, with the help of a content creation company. Distribute them to regular customers, or actually bring customers into the kitchen to see how it is made. Don’t worry; no one will steal it. If they hear about the recipe from you first, you become the source, and while they might make it at home, we know it won’t be as good as the experience is being in the restaurant or eatery.

Recipes that are published ensure that your restaurant not only gets some attention, but you become a fixed element of the culinary scene. Each restaurant worth their salt ought to have at least a half dozen recipes that it publishes; in fact any named “dish” can be a potential recipe to publish. Remember, it’s about quality, so only a few proven recipes.

Below, an example, a recipe rescued from White’s, which was once Richmond’s famed ice cream parlor. It appeared in the cookbook Favorite Recipes of the Woman’s Club of Lancaster County, Virginia.

White’s Chocolate Fudge

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
3 oz. Baker’s Chocolate
1 pinch of salt
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt chocolate over low heat. Add sugar and milk. Turn heat up a little and stir to keep fro burning. Cook to soft-ball stage. Set pan in a large container of cold water. (Mrs. White said she sometimes used the sink.) Then add butter and vanilla. When fudge has cooled somewhat, beat it until ready to pour. Pour into buttered dish. Let harden and cut into squares.

It is stunning to see the number of restaurants closing, both chain and not chain. We can’t help but to think that commercial real estate brokers are going to have to make some really hard decisions. Do we sit with an empty storefront or out-parcel for three years, or do we give this tenant a break on the rent? We hope banks are letting companies do the latter, or they will suffer in the long run.

Back in October, we published some tips for struggling family restaurants; since it was published I have been surprised how many folks are putting in keywords such as “save my restaurant” or “restaurant management tips.”

Our local Sarasota Boston Market just closed this week. It was a bit of a surprise, as we thought that it was one of the locations that was a survivor, when most of the others have disappeared. We wonder about the negotiations between the real estate owner and the restaurant owner; just who is he going to think is going to fill that spot?

We also hope chain franchise restaurants are able to use this opportunity to unload some of its owned locations and spin them off too local managers. While it is a horrible time to go out on your own, perhaps some restaurant companies can use this trick to survive when they have few people in headquarters staff.

We came across  a new trick; in Michigan, a restaurant had an unpaid shift where workers worked only for tips. It was terribly successful, and when customers found out about it they actually tipped the waiters more. This follows the strategy of companies like Dell, Gannett and Honda, that are trying to avoid layoffs by cutting back on salary costs, with the theory that everyone would like a job more than a lower paid job.

The restaurant, Mrs. B.’s Pancake House, wasn’t about to close its doors, but it was doing poorly and needed some help.

With customer traffic down a bit at Mr. B’s Pancake House lately, lead server Mary VanDam asked co-workers if they might be willing to work one shift without wages to help out owner Dave Barham.

The 17 servers, cooks, busboys, dishwashers, cashiers and hostesses who worked the day shift on Jan. 18 received only tips for compensation. As it turns out, patrons got wind of the idea and left bigger tips.

We’re all in this together.

SARASOTA – Here in this retiree mecca, you can get a pretty good indication of the health of America’s restaurants as you drive down our highway strip, Tamiami Trail. Of the chains along U.S. 41, a newly opened Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) is packed, and all the fast food restaurants are equally busy. Steak & Ale, Waffle House and Village Inn (the latter part of VICORP Restaurants Inc. and in Chapter 11) are all closed, though a franchised Bennigan’s still survives, even as its Plano, Texas parent company Metromedia Steakhouses is bankrupt. Starbucks (SBUX) is less busy than before, but healthy. Denny’s (DENN) is busy at breakfast, and seems to be trying hard, but it just feels tired. Sadly, The “Waffle House Do Wop” no longer plays at our closed Waffle House.

But the olives are still ripe at Olive Garden, one of the handful of restaurant concepts of Orlando-based Darden Restaurants Inc. (NYSE: DRI). It’s risky researching the fundamentals of a consumer goods stock just on the experience you get as a customer, but you learn things first-hand that you could never find in an annual report. So I went in for lunch.

Darden’s founder was Bill Darden, an old school restaurateur. He was a Southern man of the same generation as my grandfather, who ran a seafood restaurant in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Through his actions, my grandfather taught me how to look at the elements of a well-run restaurant; his seemingly simple priorities were consistent food, clean surroundings, a friendly staff and a focus on pennies. Darden Restaurants started with a single Red Lobster in Georgia. Today, the company has 1,700 restaurants and concepts that include LongHorn Steakhouse, The Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze and Seasons 52.

So as not to turn this piece into a restaurant review, I won’t tell you what I ate at Olive Garden Number 1114. But I will tell you that the restaurant did the following things, things that far more expensive restaurants miss. It is hard to execute at 1,700 restaurants, but Darden does. The lunch made the stock worth a second look, namely:

The door was opened for us by a restaurant greeter. We were seated by hostess within 30 seconds. Wine was offered. Bread and salad came out quickly, accompanied by a hot bread plate and a cold salad plate, two things I thought had completely disappeared. Food was delivered within 10 minutes. Water was brought without asking, another throwback. Our waiter named “Scott B” was pleasant, but did not have an annoying “Hello, I’m Scott” script from corporate.

The restaurant was busy. All the tables were turning quickly, another good sign. Of the customers, it was a mix of business lunches, elderly couples and other middle-aged children taking elderly parents to lunch. This is proof that there is a market for good restaurants even in a downturn; both Olive Garden and Red Lobster cater to the retired. Our waiter, Scott B, said goodbye with a terribly smart greeting. “Thanks for coming in. We’ll see you in four or five days.” As we left, we were greeted again by the hostess. By the front door was a plaque with manager’s name, C.J. Johnson, carved in stone, just so you know who is accountable.

This was the same experience a month ago at a Red Lobster in Melbourne, Florida, where a quite sophisticated retiree that I took to lunch suggested Red Lobster. He felt the need to tell me why. He was simply hungry for the dish he had seen in an ad. And there was a second reason. The portions were large enough that he could take half of it home and make a second meal out if it. In a downturn, consumers are shopping price and value.

Darden’s stock price has understandably held up quite well compared to the rest of the sector, whose ills need no explanation. Struggling are Ruby Tuesday (RT) and Ruth’s Hospitality Group Inc (RUTH) which has a NASDAQ stock price just over $2. Ruth’s is so cheap that you wonder if they just offered each customer 50 shares over dinner with the dessert that they might actually be able to raise the stock to a reasonable place.

Says Stevens, “There used to be Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips all over the Indiana, where I live and I thought the were all gone years ago. As I remember, they were really good but Ohio is a little far for fish and chips. Of course, Arthur Treacher was a character actor and Merv Griffin’s sidekick for awhile. Just another blast from the past!”

The chain was named after the British actor, best known for playing Jeeves. Treacher was the sidekick on Merv Griffin’s 1969-1972 late night show that competed against Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, along with the Mort Lindsey Orchestra.

Apparently, the brand is owned by NF Treacher’s Corp, which is affiliated with Nathan’s Famous Systems. There are apparently two sets of franchise groups. One Treacher’s website is at www.treachers.com. There is another website at www.arthurtreachers.com with locations on the East Coast.

VIRGINIA BEACH – It could not be a worse time for the casual restaurant sector. Chains are going bankrupt, and the ones that aren’t are struggling. Hard times for chains like Steak & Ale and Bennigan’s. And struggles for others like Pizzeria Uno, Village Inn and Denny’s.

Even stalwarts like Friendly’s suffer with low share prices. And if you own a non-chain restaurant, you are probably hurting too.

But this is no time to whine. Recessions are where great companies are made. For it is during a downturn that companies find opportunity. In a recession, you have a chance to do things that would be impossible at any other time. Your competition is weaker. Suppliers are desperate, and everything from wholesale food to advertising is cheaper. Your customers are in need of cheer, and very often, a 1-hour meal, with decent food, served by a waitress, with the family all together, is just the break they need.

I grew up working at my grandfather (and then uncle’s) seafood restaurant, Duck-In. Duck-In was a medium-sized seafood restaurant in Virginia Beach. My grandfather ran it, as well as a group of unglamorous snack bars in bowling alleys and on state-owned ferries. He had to start the company out of necessity; there was little else to do after World War II, and his hopes for a nice WASP-y legal career were dashed by years in the Pacific. He was good at it, and ran his business with Naval efficiency, and thrived in the 1970s. (My uncle ran it with mostly the same rules for another 25 years, until he retired.) While the business landscape has changed, some elements of his philosophy are applicable today and could help independent and franchise chain restaurants survive this downturn.

Old School Tips:

1. His customers were close to his staff. He took care of the staff like a family, and the people who worked in the restaurant were dependent upon him. The old restaurant maxim is “slow to hire, slow to fire.” That means that yes, you do spend a lot of time bailing out employees from trouble, including drinking binges, jail and financial duress.

He loaned them money, gave them money, did whatever it took to make the restaurant work. What he got was loyalty from them, and their families. And he got something else. Entertainment value for the customers. When a person went into the restaurant, the customer stepped onto a stage set. As a child, I could not understand why one day, my grandfather had his nifty white VW Super Beetle, and the next day, he had given it to the manager. Now I know. You give away your car to keep the restaurant going.

2. Turn tables quickly. Reduce menu size. Ever-expanding menu choices have made menus too complex. Elaborate test kitchens in franchise departments try to cook up the next menu sensation. The problem is that menus that are too large make for extra time and equipment costs. Restaurant suppliers push the idea that special desserts might add revenue. What really adds to revenue is turning a table quickly. If your average meal is 45 minutes (vs. 90 minutes) and markup is 100 percent on a $13 entree, why are you content with customers lingering for 20 minutes over a $4 dessert? Get the food out fast, and hire a bus boy to take dishes away immediately. Keep the tables moving. Fast turnover also helps your wait staff, who get more tips.

3. Make sure the employees go to church. Involvement in the community makes a restaurant work. Ensure that your managers and staff, down to the cooks and dishwashers, have the time to be involved in local causes, including church. Give them the time they need on Sundays, and after school. They are your advertising, your best ambassadors. Authorize them to give out a fixed amount of gift certificates for local bowling leagues, soccer clubs and charity causes. It will come back to your business very quickly; they are an advertisement, and a boss who tells his employees that they have to make time for priorities will win great word of mouth. In addition, your staff turnover will diminish. Do NOT make schedules erratic. A person living paycheck to paycheck, above all, needs the certainty of a schedule to arrange babysitters and home-life.

4. Don’t coupon. You do not want to train your best customers to have to bring in coupons to eat at your restaurant. It might be a quick approach to bring in some traffic, but it will train people to only eat at your restaurant when they have a coupon. If they happen to be there when they don’t have a coupon, they know they are paying more. When you use Val-Pak, Entertainment Book or Sunday newspaper supplements,  you make your foot traffic dependent on ANOTHER company that you have to pay money to in order to win traffic. Advertise carefully. Run simple ROP or local cable advertising that reminds customers of your hours, menu and staff. And if you feel compelled to use coupons, offer the coupons to ALL at the checkout.

5. Give the cops free coffee. This goes also to the rescue squad and firemen, and those in uniform. They will stop by, often, and become your friends. The city administration will appreciate you, as will the staff and customers. It is better than having a bumbling rent-a-cop for security, and it reinforces your brand as part of the neighborhood and community. Plus, you get foot traffic, and activity. Potential thieves will not come when there is a cop car out front.

6. Hire the handicapped. Hiring the disabled works on so many levels. First, think of it selfishly. You have loyal employees who will work hard, and love it, and appreciate the opportunity. But not only does it help you, it helps them. For many of the handicapped, they cannot drive. That means relatives come by to pick them up, and order a Coke, or dinner. Customers also notice what you are doing. It sends a potent message about your business; that you are not in it just for the money.

7. Serve a handful of good things. Have one good soup and a few good entrees that are perfection. These items should be inert enough so that guests will come back every week. You want customers to come frequently, for things they can eat often. Stick with the basics; don’t be Iron Chef. This will build your restaurant brand. Don’t take a chef approach and have specials. You want good things served dependably.

8. Make it funny, and filled with personality. Corporate staffs come up with all sorts of branding and marketing. And there is nothing wrong with that. But allow ideas to percolate back up from the individual restaurants to corporate. Filet-O-Fish and Egg McMuffin breakfasts came from McDonald’s franchisees, not from the top down. My grandfather even allowed his fishing buddies to mount citations on the wall. It gave the place identity. There is no right solution, but you have to be open to the lighting bolt of inspiration.

9. Host morning clubs. At Duck-In, they had a morning coffee club. Other groups came and met, and used the restaurant as a sort of second office. They didn’t charge expensive fees. Instead, they allowed the groups to pay, and pitch into the till for coffee. There are hundreds of these groups that need a place to meet, including bible studies, booster clubs, service clubs and the like. Make it easy for them.

10. Watch your suppliers. The route guys who bring bread, beer, soda, frozen food, fresh food and seafood will cheat you. Not always on purpose, but just because they are in a rush, and don’t count. When they deliver, check behind them before you sign an invoice. Not only are you checking the count, you are checking the quality. In addition, suppliers like Sysco have a large amount of control of what is sold in restaurants, and creates a sameness in approach in all chains. Look beyond Sysco and the like, and you will not only find price competition, but will also find more unique food to sell. Give a new supplier a chance, please!

11. Sell some crap by the register. One morning at home, my grandfather was taking a bottle of aspirin, and putting those aspirin, two by two,  in little wax envelopes. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was going to set them by the register to sell. At the register, he sold a few candies too. Sometimes, I think this was as much for the staff as for the customers, but it was extra revenue with a low opportunity cost. Ditto with things like a juke box; if he could get a nickel, he would. It was a family joke that the restaurant sold Rolaids, but no matter.

11. Have a good operations man. My grandfather had a first-rate person who knew all the workings of the restaurant, and could keep everything going. That doesn’t mean you don’t want or need to hire contractors, but it does mean you need someone on staff who can keep his eye on the small things. This person has the feel of a gatekeeper; he makes sure the parking lot is right, the freezer maintenance is done, and the roof doesn’t leak. Pay him well. It will not only save the restaurant in repair bills, but the customers will appreciate a place that is well maintained.

12. Call your staff Mr., Mrs. and Miss. I loved this. Everyone called each person by their last name, not their first. This practice went into the 1980s, until he died. He, as the leader, called his staff by their last names. That gave him first, a bit of distance. But mostly, it gave respect to the employees, whose names stay with me today. Mrs. Pipkin, Mrs. Stassi, Mr. Curry. In the South, most service help was called by their first name. To have a man of means address the staff by title and as equals gave the whole place a professional feel. In addition, the manager’s name was on a hanging sign by the register. This not only created accountability, but it made the managers local celebrities.

13. Keep it open. If you can, serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. The longer the restaurant is open, the more revenue you get from the capital. He kept the restaurant open 24 hours; the night shift cleaned the restaurant, and if a customer came in, they could fix a burger.

14. Clean, clean, clean. This goes without saying, but it needs to be said. Keep the place CLEAN. McDonald’s, Burger King and Hardee’s have turned around their operations by a singular focus on cleanliness. It works. Tip: use a bit of bleach in the bus station water, please. It cuts grease and customers know the smell means cleanliness.

In addition, Bennigan’s Franchising Company, L.P. and Steak & Ale Franchising Company, L.P., the owners of the Bennigan’s and Steak & Ale trademarks and franchise agreements, were not part of the Chapter 7 filing made by its parent company, S&A Restaurant Corp. The 138 domestic and international franchisee-owned restaurants remain open and fully operational. Bennigan’s Franchising Company, L.P. and Steak & Ale Franchising Company, L.P. will continue to provide high quality support services to its franchisees and remain focused on maintaining and maximizing the value of the franchise brands for its franchisees and their loyal customers, according to press statements.

Some advice: