Area Restaurants Are Feeling the Pinch of Rising Costs

There are a lot of ways that you can lose money operating a restaurant. Employee theft can really put a ding in the bottom line. Sometimes it's as simple as a manager letting other employees eat for free. Or you might have an employee who is under ringing on the cash register. For each order not rung up it's like giving the stuff away for free. A good sign that one of your operators is skimming the drawer is if you find different kinds of change mixed together. Some dishonest cashiers will drop pennies in the nickel slot so they can keep track of how much they are taking. The last thing that they want is to have their drawer come up "over" in cash, which is a sure giveaway. Other times it's more direct. Employees may not bring food in off of the truck or hide it in a trashcan and then put it in their car when they take out the trash.

The cleverest way I was ripped off was when I ran a restaurant out near Six Flags amusement park. There was an old fellow named Termite that I had hired to pick up trash on the parking lot in the morning. Termite was an alcoholic ex-cop from a small rural town a few miles down the road from the park. He also had a part-time lawn mowing business but he didn't drive, instead going around town soliciting business on his riding mower. Each morning I would pick Termite up and take him to work with me. He would clean the lot for about three hours and then either walk or hitch a ride back home. Unbeknownst to me he had one of his cronies follow us in his car every morning. When we got to the store and I went into the office to call in the numbers, Termite would signal him to come up to the drive through window. Then he would hand him case of meat or chicken through the window. They only way that I caught him was when another employee said he saw Termite cooking food with the restaurant's logo on it at a wedding reception.