Restaurant Rookies

My wife and I have both worked in food service at points in our lives.  So, why do we think we can make a go of it in an industry with one of the highest failure rates around?  I am not entirely certain.  We are probably insane, but life is about taking chances.  We find ourselves in an interesting position of not having much to lose.  I had spent the better part of a decade with a multi-national corporation that is consistently listed as one of the top 100 companies to work for.  Due to budget constraints (translation: we would rather put your yearly salary into our pockets instead of yours), I was summarily discharged.  To be honest I had seen this coming, and had wondered what on earth I would do when the day finally arrived that I found myself amongst the growing ranks of the unemployed.

To say that we immediately arrived at the decision to start our own business would be incorrect.  Although we have spent years fantasizing about being our own boss, I took the normal path of looking through the classifieds, firing out resumes, and piling up rejections.  All the time I was thinking to myself, "Am I just setting myself up?  Do I really want to stay under the jackboot of corporate America, only to end up unemployed in another 10 years?"

From there the idea really started to take hold, and I began looking at the classifieds from a different perspective.  Soon enough our local Craigslist turned up an ad that seemed like a good opportunity to take over an existing restaurant in an up-and-coming area on the far North side of Madison.  More importantly, the price was actually within our reach.

To date we have been in talks with the owner to work out an agreement on price and the transition of ownership.  Although it isn't official, it would appear that as of July 1 we are about to become restaurateurs.  Our feelings are mixture of excitement, apprehension, and fear.  If I had to associate a smell with it, I would probably describe it as the way the tilt-a-whirl at the state fair smells after you hurl the questionable funnel cake you just consumed.