Schedulefly Blog

Restaurant Industry Professionals Tell Us Why They Love Schedulefly

2010-09-03T11:27:00.006-04:00

Yesterday we stuck a note in the Schedulefly app asking people for a minute of their time to tell us how we are making their lives easier. It's really helpful for us to share comments like these with owners and managers that are thinking about trying Schedulefly - so thanks a bunch y'all! We intended to leave the note up for a few days - but after just 3 hours we had over 200 really amazing responses from all different types of restaurant industry professionals. People from both the front and back of house too. I've added a few below. Here are a few more.

Deseret (D&D/ Cocktail server) at Bex Grill in Lancaster, CA
"I love the fact that I can check my schedule from pretty much anywhere! I really like the text message alerts. Schedule fly makes it so easy to pick up or give up shifts! I also like being able to see who I'm working with before I go in! I LOVE SCHEDULEFLY.COM!!!!"

Billy (Server) at The Beehive in Boston, MA
"It just allows us to rearrange our schedules that much easier. It's great because there's often a lot of shift switching amongst us here at the Beehive, and this really streamlines all that."

Lauren (Hostess) at Arch Rock Fish in Santa Barbara, CA
"Yes because it alerts me via email about any schedule changes or messages from my manager. Also, it's easy to look up my schedule online as well as everyone else's schedule for the week, and also for requesting time off, which is nice."

Rob (Kitchen Manager) at Boston Pizza Morrison in Niagara Falls, ON
"Schedulefly is by far the best possible tool a manager can have. It allows my employees easy access to schedules and time off requests and allows me to plan and organize carefully according to budgets. I recommend schedulefly to all my friends in the restaraunt industry. It most defintely makes my life and job alot easier!!!"

Rachel (Hostess) at Boston Pizza Uxbridge in Uxbridge, ON
"Schedulefly makes my life easier, because i can pick up or give up a shift with a click of my mouse. I don't waste time calling people and asking around. Plain and simple i love Schedulefly and i think all business's should use this scheduling tool."

Nicole (Runner) at Bex Grill in Lancaster, CA
"Schedulefly is very efficient so that there is no mistake on what days you are suppose to work. And its nice when you want to pick up an extra shift or need to give one up. You can also confirm total hours you have worked."

Cory (Owner) at Pumphouse in Wichita, KS
"This program has given me an extra hour a day to work on other important issues! I love schedulefly!"

Alison (Assistant Manager) at Thaifoon in Salt Lake City, UT
"I love having all staff phone numbers and emails in one central location that I can access at home, at the office, or on my cell phone. Always comes in handy!!"

Daniel (Bus Boy) at Jose O'Shea's in Lakewood, CO
"I can check my schedule anywhere anytime where I have internet connection and it all can be done on my own time."

Laci (Cocktail/Server) at Arch Rock Fish in Santa Barbara, CA
"I can check it whenever I like, and the schedule is always updated instantly as well as changes. And it is very convenient to just go online!"

Joe (General Manager) at Hooters of Cocowalk in Miami, FL
"Schedulefly makes it easier to communicate with all of your employees at one time. It is a fun and exciting way to keep up on all current events going on in your business."

Elizabeth (Server) at Boathouse Restaurant in St. Louis, MO
"I love schedulefly because it makes it so easy and quick to pick up, switch or give up shifts. Without it all online, things would be much more difficult and take longer to get management approval, see my schedule, and get messages from any employee."

Jessica (Server) at Blackhorse in Clarksville, TN
"Schedulefly makes my life much easier by taking away the stress of exchanging shifts. As soon as a shift is up for grabs, a text is sent to employees(who use this feature)- making it much more likely to be picked up."

Lisa (Server) at Buku in Raleigh, NC
"I love having my schedule emailed and texted to my phone. I always have it with me and it's much easier to make plans."

Lisann (Server) at Romano's Macaroni Grill in Honolulu, HI
"First, SF is my homepage. For instant action when I need to pick up a shift.There are alot of fast fingers out there and it is so easy when I can just be two clicks away from making some extra cash!!!I like how SF has the info relayed to you as soon as it is available. When I need to give one up, it is so easy. Its easier because I do not need to "call" the mgrs to ask them. I let SF ask them. Oh and i can change my availability and request off way in advance!! My life is manageable now with SF.. Thank you!!"

Jennifer (Server) at Hooters in Anaheim, CA
"I am able to plan events and run errands according to my schedulefly set-up and I am able to quickly access my schedule through my iPhone application, which is amazing and a life saver :)"

Tuscan Kitchen Is Opening Soon and They're Kicking Off Their Staff Scheduling with Schedulefly

2010-08-30T09:42:00.003-04:00

An exciting artisan Italian restaurant is about to open in Salem, NH. They've got a big staff (100+), a cool location, and a passion for bringing artisan Italian to main street.

Good luck and we'll look forward to making your restaurant staff scheduling and communication easy, simple, and fun!

The Schedulefly Crew

Killarney's Publick House Is In the House...

2010-08-29T16:13:00.003-04:00

Check out this cool Irish Pub in Hamilton, NJ. They're passionate about their food and beer and about showing their guests a good, fun time. Here's a cool page on their site, with Polaroid images of smiling, happy customers hanging out and having fun. They've also got a great Facebook page and a cool simple mobile web site.

We're excited that this fun 25-person crew joined the Schedulefly movement, and we hope we're making their lives a little easier.

The Schedulefly Crew

Thank You Schedulefly Users. You Started a Movement!

2010-08-28T09:33:00.005-04:00

Schedulefly users, watch this fun 3-minute video clip when you have a chance, because you've started a movement just like this...

You are all the equivalents of the "first follower." As the moderator points out, there is no movement without the first follower. We were the "lone nuts" dancing around in the field, waving our arms and trying to convince people that we have a simple restaurant staff scheduling solution that can make their lives easier. All of you were ahead of the curve and you believed we might be right, so you had the courage to follow us. It's because of you that we are not lone nuts any longer, but rather we are part of a movement that was started and is being lead by all of you!

The cool thing is that the movement is still in its early stages. Right now it's just two of us (we're "shirtless guy" and you are the "first follower"). Because while over 50,000 individuals have joined the movement, we believe that millions will in the coming years. That's why our web site is full of pictures and videos of YOU. You are the most important part of the movement - the spark to our flint. And you are the one that others will follow.

So thank you for being brave enough to walk down the hill and join us. We know it's going to be a fun movement to be a part of for many years!

The Schedulefly Crew

New Feature: Get Your Daily Crib Sheet Delivered To Your Inbox

2010-08-26T07:45:00.006-04:00

We've added a feature that allows managers to get their daily crib sheet as an email each morning. The crib sheet is a handy list of everyone scheduled for the day - including their in/out times, contact information and any descriptive shift notes like "Open", "Patio" etc. We also include any events or notes that have been posted on that day as well...like reservations. The name of each scheduled staff member is a link to their email address - clicking it on a computer or touching it on a mobile device will open a new email message to them. Their cell number on most mobile devices will be linked for an easy one touch phone call.

The daily crib sheet is often printed by our customers and left at the hostess stand or somewhere where managers can quickly double check coverage for the day. Our mobile site allows managers to view the crib sheet on the go - and now they can opt-in to have it sitting in their inbox when they wake up.

Admins: this new check box is on the My Account page - in the system alert section

Here is a crib sheet I got this morning...

Keepin' It Simple and Useful,
The Schedulefly Crew

Arch Rock Fish - A Neighborhood Joint....And A Schedulefly Customer

2010-08-25T08:36:00.005-04:00

We are really excited to have this fun loving team from Santa Barbara CA in the Schedulefly family. Arch Rock Fish just opened this month and came running out of the gate with a fantastic looking concept and company culture. They are also making great use of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook to help kick off their journey. Clearly that is helping get a buzz going in Santa Barbara...

Check out this great promotional video they put together...

They've also created some funny web commericals. The simple, creative delivery of these messages is great.

Welcome!
The Schedulefly Crew

A Very, Very Cool Book Is Born

2010-08-24T12:08:00.005-04:00

We are working on a book called Awesome Indie Owners (or something catchy like that), which tells the stories of twenty highly successful independent restaurant owners. It's going to be an absolute must-have for anybody who wants to own a restaurant. I can confidently tell you it's going to be an incredible book. And I'm not being arrogant.

You see, the book is simply a compilation of interviews with these owners. They have all kinds of wisdom and knowledge and experience, and they have offered to share it. My role is simply to ask them questions, collect their answers, and share it all with you.

So far we have spoken to Joe Johnston and Tad Peelen of Joe's Real BBQ, Rich Taubin of Friends Coastal Restaurant, Jeff Gigante of the Ciccio Restaurant Group and Scott Maitland of Top of the Hill Restaurant and Brewery. I will follow this post with summaries of those interviews, and with summaries of every interview I conduct.

And by the way, each person I have interviewed has taught me something valuable about running a business. So I've already learned that while this book will be mostly about owning restaurants, it will also contain tons of general business wisdom.

Twenty successful restaurant owners. Tons of wisdom. One fun and educational book. Stay tuned...

Wil

Awesome Indie The Office Drinks & Nosh Is Open for Biz and In the Schedulefly Family

2010-08-23T11:03:00.004-04:00

The Office Drinks & Nosh, a really cool place just opened in Oklahoma City, and we are looking forward to keeping up with what's happening out there. Welcome to the 30 staff members - we hope ya'll have fun using Schedulefly to check your work schedules online.

Check them out on Facebook...

The Schedulefly Crew

Hey All You Servers, I've Got A Question...

2010-08-21T14:45:00.005-04:00

This week I've tipped one server 25% and one server 10%. At the same restaurant. The guy who got the 25% tip was just so much more attentive, genuine, and helpful. The guy who got the 10% seemed like he couldn't have cared less that I was there. I don't even know why I gave have him 10%. Habit I guess.

So I'm curious, what do all of you do to try to maximize your tips and earn yourself the most income you can on each shift? Fire away in the Comments box, and I'll write a follow up post on some of the best ideas.

Wil Brawley
Schedulefly

Pretend You Are Broke And You'll Be More Creative Than You Could Imagine

2010-08-20T15:17:00.003-04:00

I recently sent this email to Wes and Tyler:

"Guys I guess this is stating the obvious, but it's so clear to me that when you don't have any money to spend you are forced to be creative, and that's how you innovate and come up with cool new ideas and elegant solutions. Let's always always always take that approach, no matter how much revenue we are driving, so that we always force ourselves to innovate."

Needless to say, they agreed. But you know what, it's easy to lose site of this philosophy once you start growing quickly and turn profitable. It's easy in business to think that since you have money, you should find creative ways to spend it. But if you pretend you don't have money, you force yourself to figure out creative ways to do things as well (or often better) than you could with money. And you reap the additional benefits of enjoying the challenge of dreaming up creative solutions, and simply having more fun.

There's a cool quote in a book called Founders At Work from Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple: "All the best things that I did at Apple came from (a) not having money and (b) not having done it before, ever. Every single thing that we came out with that was really great, I'd never once done that thing in my life." I couldn't agree more!

Keepin' It Creative,

Wil

Big Chow Grill Joins the Schedulefly Movement to Big Applause

2010-08-19T20:28:00.004-04:00

This cool American Stir-Fry place in Atlanta just jumped on board with our simple restaurant employee scheduling and communication app. The lives of 50 more folks just got a little easier! Check out Big Chow the next time you are in Atlanta.

The Schedulefly Crew

Awesome Indie Restaurant Bananas Diner Jumps on the Schedulefly Train

2010-08-19T17:32:00.003-04:00

Bananas Diner opened recently in Orlando, and they've got a cool, fun concept and a GREAT philosophy. Check out this quote from co-owner Eddie Nickell: "We envision the wait staff getting to know people on a personal level, how they like their coffee and what their favorite dish is. This is the place that you can always count on for excellent comfort food and a relaxing atmosphere early in the morning, for lunch, or even late at night. It’s all the best food and sense of community that a good diner can provide. This is the kind of place where you can see yourself becoming a ‘regular’.”

We're excited the fun, personable team at Bananas is using our restaurant staff scheduling app to help make their lives easier. And we wish them a very successful first year!

The Schedulefly Crew

Flat Out Awesome Indie Coffee Shop Joins the Schedulefly Family

2010-08-18T12:49:00.005-04:00

I love this place. Visit Cafe Kubal's web site and tell me you don't feel the passion pouring through your screen. I love coffee and I am stoked to see this cool crew using Schedulefly's restaurant staff scheduling app to make their lives easier, and have a little fun while they communicate and stay connected at work. And by the way, you can order some of their coffee to make at home. I know I will be!

Oh, also, Cafe Kubal is doing an outstanding job with their Twitter page. In addition to sharing what's going on behind the scenes at their shop - they are showing a little personality and letting people easily engage with them. Great job guys...Twitter for business is much more fun and useful that way.

Wil

Famous N.C. BBQ & Seafood House Trashes Paper Schedules After 25 Years

2010-08-18T12:45:00.003-04:00

We take our BBQ and seafood pretty seriously here in N.C. So we couldn't be more excited to have Captain Bob's in the small town of Hertford move their restaurant staff scheduling and communication online.

Serving Cool Indie Restaurants All Over the World,

The Schedulefly Crew

Awesome Indie Burger & Ice Cream Joint Adds New Location to Schedulefly

2010-08-18T12:38:00.004-04:00

Bub's Burgers & Ice Cream in Carmel, IN has been a great customer since 2008. These folks serve up famous burgers with the best, freshest ingredients they can find. And you won't find better ice cream.

They do tons of business and need a huge staff to keep things hoppin'. So when they opened their new location in Bloomington, they were glad to already know and love Schedulefly for their restaurant staff scheduling and communication. Their 75 employees and managers never had to deal with all of the inevitable scheduling snafus and errors when restaurants open. Nope. Their lives were made easy from the very start.

The Schedulefly Crew

Another Awesome Indie Joins the Schedulefly Family

2010-08-17T09:00:00.003-04:00

Chad's Grill in Lakewood, CO has been successful for 28 years without Schedulefly. But like any business that has endured as long as Chad's, they are always making changes and tweaks to improve their business. They recently decided to make the lives of their 45 staff members and managers easier, by taking their restaurant employee scheduling and communication online.

Locally owned and operated neighborhood restaurant/bar since 1982. Known in Lakewood for eating, drinking and gathering, Chad's offers a varied menu featuring rotisserie meats, certified Angus beef, pasta, pizza and seafood. Full bar service with 16 micro brews, specialty martinis and wine selection. Join the crew at Chad's for any occasion: lunch, dinner, brunch, happy hour and late night.

Making Life Easier for Restaurant Folks Every Day,

The Schedulefly Crew

Independent Restaurant Owner Interview - Richard Taubin at Friends Coastal Restaurant in Madisonville, LA

2010-08-17T08:20:00.003-04:00

Here is a transcript of Wil's conversation with Richard Taubin, owner at Friends Coastal Restaurant in Madisonville, Louisiana. It's fantastic.

[WIL BRAWLEY:] Good afternoon. It’s Wil with Schedulefly and today I’m talking to Richard Taubin. Richard is the owner of Friends Coastal Restaurant down in Madisonville, Louisiana. This place is awesome. It’s sort of a Key West meets New Orleans fusion. It’s a fun place. They’ve got a really fun crew. A great team. And I’m really excited to talk to Richard today. So Richard, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got involved in the restaurant business, and tell us about Friends.

[RICHARD TAUBIN:] Yeah sure thing. I appreciate it. Well you know it’s kind of funny. If you were to ask me a month before I actually got into the restaurant business, which was around 2006, I would have called you crazy. I actually had zero restaurant experience. One of my best friends growing up Chris Binnings, he worked in restaurants growing up. So I went off into the IT world and he was helping people build restaurants and so forth and learning concepts. He’s been in New Orleans there for his entire life except for about maybe a two or three or four year stint over in Colorado and Key West. Any rate, when he was in Key West he saw a lot of New Orleans in Key West. He thought it would be a great fusion. He initially wanted to call his concept Hurricane, which you know obviously after a year later into the story, you’ll see why we didn’t do that. He worked for this restaurant called Friends on the Tchefuncta in Madisonville in high school. And after Hurricane Katrina came through and essentially brought it to its knees and the owners were older in life and they more or less wanted to do a lease out on the property and have someone else run the business. And it just so happened Chris had this concept in his head. And when he came back to visit his family from Key West he ran into them and pitched his idea and they said “Let’s do it” because he spent four years of high school at the restaurant. He knows the owners very well and they like him a lot and everything. So here he is. He’s going to be a new restaurant owner after helping other people open restaurants and manage them and cook at them. He’s done everything, managing and so forth. So now he’s going to implement his concepts into what was Friends on the Tchefuncta. We renamed it to Friends Coastal Restaurant. So we kept the Friends name. Obviously calling it “Hurricanes” after opening a place after Katrina was not necessarily the best idea. The name Friends I think is a really great name for the kind of restaurant we are. And it really kind of ties in to the fact that we grew up together as best friends. All of our friends and family helped us kind of put it together and brought it to fruition after a long six month stint after the hurricane of rebuilding the place. So the hurricane was August. We opened up the following May. So we didn’t really get started until January because it was just sitting there for awhile. We didn’t even know about it, it was available.

Anyway, Chris calls me up and says hey man, I’m going to own a restaurant. I said okay. And he said I want you to help me out. Him knowing that I was on the IT side. I’ve had a website company and I’ve been the director of IT for several companies and so forth, so I had a really good foundation that I can help them with. I helped design the logo. The marketing and advertising. The website. Actually built the website myself. Got him kicked off really fast in that regard. Helped design the menu. Not the actual items on the menu but the layout and so forth. And you know the restaurant business is not completely foreign to me. My mother was in two fine dining restaurants when I was growing up for a long time. So I’ve been around restaurants before. It wasn’t completely foreign. Certainly when you own a restaurant there’s a lot more to it than people think. It’s not just about cooking good food. It’s about running a tight ship and about controlling costs because that’s only way you’re going to make money in the restaurant business. So that’s more or less how I got started in the restaurant business. Chris gets to focus on the front of the house and the back of the house staff and it’s been a great partnership. We bought that restaurant. Before we took it over, the sales at that restaurant were probably between 800,000 to maybe 1.5 million at the peak, and they’d had it for ten years. The first year we’re open we’re at 2.1 million. And we’re probably about 2.5 right now. So every year we’ve gotten bigger and bigger and it’s due to a lot of hard work. It’s due to a lot of dedication. We’re just trying new things here and there. We’re trying to shave costs and look into how we can better the restaurant and give people a better experience, good food. Of course the atmosphere is there. This place is definitely a Key West feel to it with a New Orleans flair. It’s worked really really well for our community because it’s kind of like a “vacation destination in your own backyard” – that’s the phrase Chris uses all the time. So that’s kind of how we got started. We’re going on our fourth year this year.

As a matter of fact, we decided to do Friends Fest at the end of this month. Kind of celebrate our four years and do a yearly tradition with two non profit organizations. One is Art in Madisonville and Teachers for Guitars in the Classroom. So we have music and art. We’re going to have bands, we’re going to have art booths and everything. We have four live bands and we have fireworks show at 9:30 at night on a river on a barge which is going to be really cool. So we’ve promoted our restaurant through really cool functions to give back to the community and that’s really helped us out. Certainly we get a lot of support from that and it’s just a cycle of helping other people in the community. So that’s really been our philosophy is to be engaged in the community. Chris and I both have children and we think it’s good to give back and be a real big part of the community as opposed to just sitting idle and trudging along.

[WIL BRAWLEY:] Richard, it’s a really cool story how you guys got going. You started this place - or got it reinvigorated - after a terrible storm, as the community was rebuilding. You’ve been through a very severe economic downturn. But I just wrote down the numbers that you mentioned. You guys have, depending on what years maybe they have done in the past, I mean you somewhere around doubled sales just about. You talked about top line stuff. You’re growing your sales a lot. But you also mentioned a couple of times cost cutting and saving costs so you’re focused very much on your bottom line. So you guys are savvy businessmen. Tell me about that. Tell me about what you do to grow the top lineage to drive more sales. I mean a lot of it I know you mentioned things like Friends Fest and promoting the restaurant through doing cool things like that and cool functions. What else do you do to drive top line growth and what kinds of things do you do to shore up your bottom line?

[RICHARD TAUBIN:] Well you know, we’re all in it for profit. I mean certainly there’s a love of the game. The food, the industry, the hospitality industry…it’s almost like it’s hard to pull away from it. It is a very high and a very low kind of industry where you go through a lot of highs and lows. Usually it’s something new everyday and dealing with people and personalities. We have 80 people during our peak which is during the summer months. We spend eight months out of the year and then we kind of shave it down to about 40 people average in the wintertime. The main thing for us is just it was fun for me getting into this restaurant because it was… from the beginning, it was figuring out exactly what the look and feel is going to be like, and that was me being also a graphic designer and having an eye for art. My stepfather was an artist and his father was an artist, you know really kind of played into us having a really high energy going into this. I was more the support person. But I certainly shared his inspiration for it. One of the things that you quickly learn is that you’ve got to make money. You want to be able to feed the family and you want to send the kids to college. We’re not a chain restaurant. We’re a local restaurant. We have considered possibly taking it to other places. We know we have to fine tune our processes and fine tune our operations to get it to a point where it’s definitely a feasible thing. You can make millions of dollars in sales a year but still make no money if you don’t do it right. The industry standard is typically around 30 percent for both labor and food costs. If you’re at 40 percent labor and food costs, that’s 80 percent of all the money you bring in. You’ve got 20 percent to pay all the rest of the bills and put some money in your pocket. And typically that doesn’t happen if you’re doing those percentages. So one of the things that we’ve really struggled with is a little bit of both, a little bit of food and labor costs. We’re hovering around about between 30 and 45 percent. When the sales are coming in you can get away with it but that’s when you really should be making money. And when it’s really tough during the wintertime when sales are down, you don’t have a choice.

So the biggest thing for us was to really stay consistent with the model that we have and realizing exactly what our costs are through the different times of the season. I mean we look at the weather everyday because we are a fair weather kind of place. And we tell people we’re not just your fair weather friend because we feel like we have great food and great cuisine and certainly the atmosphere. It’s hard when people associate being on the river on this big huge deck when with boats going by and it’s raining outside. So when it’s not nice outside we can just bet it’s going to be quiet. So we’ve gone through a few chefs and so forth who are managing the kitchen with inventory and so forth. We have somebody now named Travis Cabler. He’s been with us for almost running on two years. He’s done such a phenomenal job of tracking sales and tracking food cost. He puts them in all the time. He keeps the vendors on their toes with prices going up and down and so forth. It takes a little bit extra time to do those things but it pays off in the long run. And we’re able to compensate him accordingly with what he’s doing to help us save. We’ve been down to in the really good months around 26 percent food costs which is really good. Really really good. But it’s averaging probably between 20 to 30 percent. So we’re definitely in the ballgame on those.

As far as labor that fluctuates. It’s part of the daily grind of saying you know you keep people around and have bad service because you think it’s going to be slow and if you get a rush you’re going to have to deal with it. Or you keep people around and people pop in. So we have to play that game all the time and it is a daily decision. If you bring in a hostess making eight dollars an hour and they come in an hour early everyday. We don’t open until eleven, they come in at ten and they really don’t need to be there until about ten, 15 minutes before because they have a few small duties to do. I mean you’re talking about eight dollars. We’re open six days a week. So eight times six times 52 weeks. You’re talking about several thousand dollars that is right there in labor that you can save. Otherwise if you just bring in people at certain times and make sure they clock out at other times. There’s a whole management side to this. It’s just not about cooking great food or great recipes out there and great chefs and so forth. But you’ve got to have that management team behind you to make sure that you actually make money doing it. That’s one of the things that’s really tough is just to manage that.

Schedulefly has been an incredible tool for us to use because we can obviously see a list of what our salaries are. We can see a list of the schedule and create a template. During the summer months this is our template. We need one hostess, one mid hostess to kind of blend between the beginning shift and the evening shift and then bartenders and so forth. We’re able to kind of really get a good visual of what our labor is going to be and we start working accordingly. When a storm comes in and it starts raining we start letting people go. Certainly that parlays into our conversation with Schedulefly, I certainly enjoy the simplicity of it and the staff absolutely loves it. And they’re telling other people. A lot of people work at several other restaurants. They’re telling other restaurants, “Hey you’ve got to get this because they can check their schedule any time the want.” So using tools like that really helps us try to streamline our costs. On the food side we’re working closely with our vendors to streamline a certain cost structure so that we don’t have these fluctuations. With the oil spill in the Gulf, we’re working really really close with them right now to figure out plan B from getting seafood at different sources because we are a seafood restaurant. So that’s going to, we have to be concerned about pricing and so forth. We have a fixed menu. It’s not something that we just change arbitrarily. It’s going to be a big decision on us to try to figure out exactly we’re going to modify that and how it’s going to impact us and how it’s going to impact other people. We’re able to bring in more business because I think we have a neater concept. We have a great staff and we have great food and of course the location is the location. I mean everybody comes there for definitely the location. It really parlays into doing poker runs with the speedboats and doing festivals the whole time and things like that. That kind of helps drive our exposure and keeps Friends in the forethought of people when they think about going out to eat.

[WIL BRAWLEY:] You’ve got to be creative, you’ve got to be engaged in the community. You obviously have to have good food. That’s a non starter if you don’t. But the staff is something I always wonder about, Richard. How do you find and retain good staff? How do you get them as excited about Friends Coastal as you and your partner are?

[RICHARD TAUBIN:] Well one of the things…it’s kind of an easy sell because the place does high volume. They’re going to make a lot of money during the summer. So we can more or less hire who we like to because we have a really neat restaurant that does high volume. I mean it’s a really cool place to work because you have such a beautiful view. Obviously you have to deal with managing a lot of people at your table and so forth and a lot of issues. One of the things that Chris and I both…as kids we were really good friends. We kind of separated for a while. I was in Texas, he was in Louisiana. Then he went to Key West for a while. We kept in touch but, you know, people grow up, they have different personalities and so forth. They have different philosophies about treating people at work and so forth. When Chris and I really touched base again on this whole project. I asked a lot of questions about how he managed people and how he felt about that and how he was treated growing up in the restaurant business.

One of the philosophies that we both have kind of taken hold of is that the employees come first, even before the customers, because if your employees are taken care of, if they’re compensated correctly, if they’re given the right tools and they’re treated professionally, that shines on the customers. So those customers are going to be taken care of. We have an open door policy. I’m not going to sit here and say there aren’t temper flares and here and there and stuff like that. For the most part we really keep it professional. We try and treat everybody with respect. You don’t necessarily get the best of people if you don’t give them the opportunities to excel. And so we try and implement a lot of training and we try to implement a lot of fair play with shifts and schedules and so forth and have an open door policy. If there’s issues you can talk directly to the owners and the managers and we’ll have to process to help you all out. And we’re very family oriented. I mean I’ll give you an example. During Gustav and Ike, which are another two storms that really put us under the weather, we paid our employees. Here we are a restaurant going to be closed for several months and all our employees have to work so they’re going to look for other jobs. So what we did is we actually paid them to stay around and help clean up and get the restaurant back on its feet. We retained our employees that way and they really loved us for that because they really didn’t have any other place to go. We certainly know a lot of them didn’t. So they were part of rebuilding a place which instills a lot of pride and so forth of, “Hey we all brought this back together.” So we are family oriented kind of people. We have helped out people that needed their paycheck right away. When their other check came in we voided it or whatever. We take care of them if we had to. And doing those kinds of things builds trust. It builds camaraderie. It builds retention. And we have some employees that started with us four years ago. I mean it’s a very transient industry. You have a lot of people in school, high school, college, so forth. Then you have some career people and that’s what they do. We’ve had some people who go thorough their entire college career at Friends. Here we are going on four years and we still have a few of those employees. I think that speaks well for us and it speaks well for how we run our operations. We’re not perfect by any means but we definitely strive to do the right thing and to make it a place to want to work. And then of course you get extra effort out of people when you treat them right. Theft is a big thing in the hospitality industry and we have to keep an eye on those kinds of things. I think you start to see less of it when you try to get a feeling that the owners are there to be with you and go through this thing together. If you go through tough times we give you more shifts or try to help you out other ways. That’s kind of our philosophy. It’s not a perfect science but it definitely works for us.

[WIL BRAWLEY:] Well you guys are doing a lot of things right, Richard. I congratulate you on your success. You have just given some really awesome perspective and great philosophies and just really wonderful insight to anybody that is interested in what restaurant owners are thinking and, more importantly, tp people that are wanting to start restaurants. I thought this was awesome. I really appreciate it. I appreciate your time. I know you’re a busy guy. So thank you. Thank you very much. This is really cool and I look forward to putting this into our series. It’s a really good one.

[RICHARD TAUBIN:] You’re quite welcome. I have to say when you asked me to do this for what you do for us and for me what kind of business you’re running there, it was a no brainer for me to help you out with doing this and certainly share our knowledge with what we have. It’s no problem at all to take some time to do that. So we definitely appreciate you and what you provide for us.

[WIL BRAWLEY:] Awesome man. Well thank you. I’ll let you get back to it. I appreciate it and I’m sure we’ll talk again soon.

Your Business Is Not Too Small, I Promise

2010-08-16T08:27:00.009-04:00

It's a nice sunny morning here in Wilmington NC today and a typical Monday morning for me. Wake up and have coffee with my wife and watch the news, while our 3yr old son performs surgery on his stuffed animals. You know - the kiddie doctor kit with the shot, stethoscope and blood pressure monitor.

Anyway, I just hopped on the laptop to knock out a few small changes to our little website and as usual I got sucked into watching the really cool map of live restaurant customer activity on our homepage. It's a google map that pans to the location of a customer when they do something like check their schedule, trade a shift or approve a schedule change. It was bouncing around venues on the east coast since it's way too early for most people to be up on the west coast...and then the map zipped across the Atlantic Ocean and across Africa and Saudi Arabia to Dubai - because our new customer there was logged in doing some work. For a second I thought there was a bug making the map flip out...but no...the owner of a restaurant there was approving a schedule change online.

As I sat there, still in my pajamas, and watched that map zip across the globe to show a customer on the other side of the earth logging in...a feeling of amazement came over me. Seriously, Schedulefly is a simple system, with a simple team and a simple business model. We've not taken any investment, we are not working on a global marketing campaign - yet a really great restaurant in Dubai heard about us, tried us for 30 days and is now a happy customer. Amazing.

I felt an urge to blog this and let people how we are reaching the other side of the planet with our service. Wait - I really have no idea! We are 3 guys with a laser focus on keeping our software simple and serving restaurants. 10 years ago, a software company run by 3 guys in North Carolina would have had a hard time serving customers in places they did not actually visit. Heck - finding new customers in South Carolina would probably have cost us some money - someone on the other side of Africa? Forget it.

Today is a different story...the internet has changed everything for small businesses. What an incredibly fun ride it is...

Keepin' It Simple and Fun,
The Schedulefly Crew

Dubai's Wild Peeta Is In The House

2010-08-15T14:55:00.005-04:00

Wild Peeta, in Dubai, is the world's first fusion Shawarma restaurant. The founders are two ex-corporate Emirati brothers who've decided to follow their dream. That's really cool and we are thrilled to be a small part of helping them get there by helping ease the pain of restaurant staff scheduling and communication.

Follow them on Twitter - twitter.com/wildpeeta. They are a good example of a restaurant using Twitter to not only promote their restaurant but also to engage and listen to their audience.

The Scheduelfly Crew

Another Tropical Smoothie Joins the Schedulefly Family

2010-08-14T13:39:00.004-04:00

This time it's the fun folks in the Little Rock, AK Tropical Smoothie location that have moved their restaurant staff scheduling and communication online to Schedulefly. 25 more people's lives just got a little bit easier.

The Schedulefly Crew

Cool Way To Use Schedulefly

2010-08-13T07:36:00.003-04:00

Tad Peelen at Joe's Real BBQ in Gilbert, AZ posted this awesome pic of his employee of the week, with a very nice comment about her. It took him a few seconds to post the pic and write the post. But it undoubtedly made his employee, Alex, very happy for the recognition.

Here is a screen grab from their Schedulefly Message Wall...

The Schedulefly Crew

Awesome New Indie Customer

2010-08-12T12:50:00.003-04:00

Check out our cool new customer, Sushi Omakase in Gilroy, CA, where you'll dine on a culinary artistic performance. They scrapped their paper and pencil and took their restaurant staff scheduling and communication online with Schedulefly.

Wish I were in Gilroy for lunch today!

Proudly Serving Indie Restaurants All Over the World,

The Schedulefly Crew

Welcome to Another Member of the Schedulefly 19th Hole Club...

2010-08-12T08:22:00.003-04:00

We're stoked that the fine crew at Eagle's Bluff Country Club dining room are now using Schedulefly for their restaurant staff scheduling and communication. If you ever happen to play 18 at Eagle's Bluff, make sure to stop in and ask the crew how much easier their lives are with Schedulefly at their fingertips.

The Schedulefly Crew

Another Cold Stone Jumps on the Schedulefly Train...

2010-08-12T08:15:00.004-04:00

As we mentioned in a recent post, we focus on serving indie restaurants, but we get our share of franchisees. And another just joined the family. Welcome to the folks from Cold Stone Creamery in Clarksville, TN. They're now using our easy restaurant staff scheduling app, and the lives of the owner, managers, and staff just got easier!

The Schedulefly Crew

Another Pita Pit Joins the Schedulefly Family

2010-08-11T10:33:00.003-04:00

We mostly serve indie restaurants, but we get our share of franchisees as well. Today we welcome another Pita Pit to the Schedulefly family. All the managers and staff in this Grand Forks, ND location now have easier lives with our restaurant staff scheduling and communication app at their fingertips.

Making the lives of restaurant owners, managers, and staff members easier every day,

The Schedulefly Crew