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I frequent restaurants, bars, and breweries. Tonight I stopped into three locally owned establishments.
Stop 1 is a restaurant through the week that doubles as a dance club (large open floor area) on Friday and Saturday nights after 10 or so. The owners are local - they are a brother/sister pair. The brother is often seen cooking and waiting tables - the sister does too, though less often. Everyone in the community likes Jack and Amy. They operated until the state shut them down, and were the first local restaurant to reopen on the first day they legally could do so back in April. They did carryout and delivery the whole time. The restaurant has been seeing a boom in business that Jack said was better than this time last year.
The second place I stopped was a local brewery. The owners are twin brothers from outside the region. They are never there - the bartender had nothing in his tip jar, and there were no other customers for about the 45 minutes I was there. The owners are nice guys (they have their own careers in IT supported by a dad who was a C level officer at an F500 company), but they are never there to meet with and engage in the community. I only know them from when they showed up when the brewery start.
They have a huge spot where just the overhead has to be a massive expense. They have no retail distribution. They couldn't pay the bartender's minimum wage tonight based on what they sold, much less their overhead. The place never got off the ground right off of a failed soft opening.
Across the street is a taproom opened on a shoestring budget by a guy without a lot of money. He had the correct idea for what the community wanted, and the bar is shoulder to shoulder at popular times. He's always working. If you walk in, you equate the experience with the owner. He's a nice, likeable guy, and a visible face to the business.
How would you rate your "face presence" as important to a customer facing, retail type business?
It's important. People build relationships with owners because they will always be there. My wife came in the back quietly when she'd asked me to man the counter for her Dry Cleaning and Alteration place. She heard me explain to a customer that I was just filling in for her while she ran an errand. Apparently she'd heard it a couple times and asked if I was embarrassed about working in the store. I could sense she was a bit hurt. I the truthfully explained that no, I didn't do it because I was embarrassed, but I did it because this is her store and those are her customers...and if I don't do it, people think you sold the store and immediately retreat. They want their stylish cute fast talking lady to do their clothes, not some old dude. I then hand her the inevitable list of people that would like a call when she's back. They don't want to deal with me, they want to deal with her.
She later asked some of them if they truly walked in/out when they saw me and they said they had. She began to appreciate the bond even more. She has skill and language I don't possess. Those are her connections. That is her corner. There may be a name on the signage, but the store is hers.
My husband and I run a specialty retail store plus a slightly different focused online store. Whether it's face to face at the store or emails over the years from customers all over the country, they do like buying from us and we want to do a good job for them. Some have our cell numbers and will text us if they need something.
Just on Facebook last night, one of the comments replying to our new product post stated how she loved the product and loves the owners. People actually come in just to talk and we sometimes feel like bartenders.
We purchased another business earlier this year and had to overcome the hurdle of all the customer loving the previous owner. We have done a good job of winning them over to us by being just as nice and even better with their projects.
But it's hard, we work 6 days a week, no one is as devoted as we are, obviously. We have our entire life savings at stake. It's been so nice to have customers truly concerned about how we're doing during Covid, they are wishing us well and we appreciate their business.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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It does depend some on the business, and in mine for 16 years, I advertised “family owned and operated.” I was there every day, except for vacations, though I did leave early some days. According to many of my customers, it means a lot to deal with an owner, and they came to me because of that, instead of the many competitors in the area. In fact, within about 5 years 3 new franchises with absentee owners came in within a mile of my shop, and all failed in just 4-6 months.
Critical to be there as owner. As owner, I know the in's and out's of many of the regulars. My daughters are great fill ins though. For me, it is 7 days a week, 12+ hours a day. It isn't sustainable for too many more years. I don't entirely trust that things would go too well if I or my daughters weren't steering the ship, other employees don't have what it would take for things to run smoothly.
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