Tips for closing a place that “almost worked”

As every restaurant owner knows, reckless optimism is required to open one. The statistics of success or failure are brutal, and missteps very quickly get very expensive. Naysayers are everywhere, and you learn to tune them out. But what nobody warns you about at the outset is that closing a restaurant requires a completely different muscle. A very elusive one, the one you need to admit to yourself that “we got that wrong”.

We discovered how out of shape ours was with Rodizio Brazil Phuket. It was our second restaurant, a proper Brazilian churrascaria, with waiters carrying skewers of grilled beef and carving it straight onto your plate until you finally begged for mercy. We’re committed carnivores, so naturally we loved it. Who wouldn’t want unlimited grilled meat brought to the table by someone holding a big sword?

As it turned out, quite a lot of people. One of the rules we’ve repeated over the years is never to confuse what you like with what your customer wants. It’s good advice, we just forgot to apply it to ourselves. The moment it should have clicked was almost funny. People would stop outside our Rodizio and ask what kind of restaurant we were. We’d explain the system enthusiastically – one price, plenty of great cuts, meat coming off the grill until you couldn’t move.

We learned the downside very quickly when many of them listened politely and then said, “But I only want one steak.” So we’d send them around the corner to our flagship Churrasco Phuket Steakhouse, which had been doing amazingly since we opened in 2012. There, they’d order their one steak, perhaps a starter, a couple of sides and maybe dessert. By the time the bill arrived they’d spent at least as much as the Rodizio they’d just rejected, but frequently more.

Economically, it made little sense, but psychologically it perfectly did. Everyone understands ordering a steak, but we were asking people to buy into an entire and largely unfamiliar concept before they’d even sat down. With guests coming from more than 100 countries, we badly overestimated how many knew and loved that system as much as we did.

Rodizio wasn’t a spectacular disaster, which would have made the closing decision easier. It made some money, it had regulars, and we had some very good nights. But as we found out, a little money can get very expensive. Running two restaurants came close to tripling our workload. We were too small to justify a separate back office, so suddenly the same people were dealing with two kitchens, two teams, two inventories and two sets of problems. The numbers never screamed “close”, but our calendars, sleep and patience were starting to make a persuasive case.

That’s the danger with a restaurant that almost works. There’s always a reason to give it another six months. High season is coming, or the new promotion might work. Perhaps the menu needs one more tweak, because isn’t there always one more to try? Meanwhile, the decline arrives quietly. Maintenance gets postponed, staffing becomes tighter, training less thorough and good people eventually leave. Shortcuts that once seemed unacceptable start looking reasonable. Morale slips, service follows, reviews soften and management responds by cutting costs again.

A restaurant can slowly eat itself, a particularly cruel fate for a business built around feeding people. Eventually you have to ignore what you’ve already spent. Sunk costs teach you something, but they don’t serve a vote on what you spend next. Neither should pride.

Once we decided to close, we also learned that hesitation makes the process even harder. It’s tough to set a date, tell your people honestly, wind down purchasing, and settle suppliers properly. To work through the lease, all contracts, and then decide what to to do with every piece of redundant equipment. If you get to this point, our advice is to do it as quickly as you possibly can. As someone famous once said “when going through hell, keep going”.

Closing Rodizio Brazil Phuket wasn’t about leaving the business, but about stopping splitting ourselves in half. Churrasco Phuket Steakhouse got its owners back, and has gone from strength to strength ever since. Some Rodizio regulars still tell us they miss it, and occasionally we wonder whether another location, another year or another approach might have changed things. We’ve made peace with that, because this crazy business is very personal.

But yes, we still miss the old place.

Image Credit: https://www.churrascophuket.com

_ _ _

© CHURRASCO PHUKET STEAKHOUSE / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Reprinting, reposting & sharing allowed, in exchange for a backlink and credits

Churrasco Phuket Steakhouse serves affordable Wagyu and Black Angus steaks and burgers. We are open daily from 12noon to 11pm at Jungceylon Shopping Center in Patong / Phuket.

We are family-friendly and offer free parking and Wi-Fi for guests. See our menus, reserve your table, find our location, and check all guest reviews here:

https://ChurrascoPhuket.com/

#Churrascophuket #jungceylon #phuketsteakhouse #affordablewagyu #wagyu