Pizza Today - September 2019 - 90

Mike's Monthly Tip
MIKE BAUSCH

Maximizing a
Delayed Opening

I

s your restaurant opening delayed?
Was everything that you thought
that would happen just not occurring? It's easy to be down in the
dumps, anxious and worried as you're
bleeding cash and you don't know the
day or maybe even month that you're
going to open. It could be a delay from
the city, or the contractor didn't get their
workload done on time, your funding
hasn't come through, or 50 other reasons. I've been there. It super sucks, and
it's infuriating to deal with, and all you
want is for it to be open. You want the
mad dash to the opening to be over so
you can start the marathon of running
a restaurant. However, there's another
way to look at it when everything isn't

9 0 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 9

going your way. Ideally, the delay can be
a mess of opportunity to maximize your
new restaurant opening.
During the filming of Mission:
Impossible - Fallout, Tom Cruise did
a jump between two buildings, landed
awkwardly on the fall and broke his
ankle. They captured the shot, but filming stopped for months as their star
recuperated. A multi-million-dollar
film completely halted over an ankle,
schedules changed, and the budget
ballooned. The enormity of a movie this
big, taking such a long delay, was a lot
for the studio to deal with. How did
they handle it?
Director Christopher McQuarrie
rallied the writers to rewrite things he

thought needed improving. Along
with that, he took the time to organize and coordinate one of the most
excellent stunt-driving scenes in the
history of film. They used that downtime to make it better.
When I was opening my second
store, a snowstorm made the brick
production of our exterior building
completely pause. What was supposed to be a two-month build out
turned into a five-month build out.
We were scared we would run out
of money before we even opened.
We feared this would be a colossal
failure and we would lose our homes
to the bank. In that time, we refined
everything. We went back over the
menu, went back over the prices,
we added fun little touches all over
the restaurant. We didn't do this
out of boredom, but rather out of a
need to keep pushing and pursuing
something better. What we got was a
finished product that was unique and
launched to much fanfare in Tulsa.
We were able to be profitable day one
and turned into one of the most profitable per seat pizzerias in America.
Mission Impossible - Fallout
went on to be the best-reviewed and
highest-grossing Mission Impossible
film of all time. Using the downtime
to get "IT" right is essential to any
new concept or venture.
You might be in that crunch time
right now. You might be months
away from considering a new opening, fearful of the delays and the
unknown. All of that is normal and
good. I highly suggest you stop now
and evaluate all the cool stuff you can
do while you're still not open. How
much better your training could be,
how much tighter you can make your
processes. Any free minute is a new
opportunity to be great if you choose
to take it. ■
MIKE BAUSCH is the owner of Andolini's
Pizzeria in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM
Pizza Today - September 2019

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