Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for August 05, 2021

If you don’t do what works, you go out of business.

Family secrets! ;^ )

Art’ll bring you down unless you develop conquest into an artform!!

BWA-HA-HAAAA!

In other words have a sustainable size restaurant with a precious little bistro wing using a shared kitchen to satisfy desire and reality.

I’m afraid he’s right.

Sorry folks, I don’t know any “creative ****” jokes. If I did they’d be ****ing funny ones.

I hope the Bistro turns back into the The Dock!

Creative crap. There, I said it. Nothing wrong with a little alliteration.

Considering they can barely run the bistro as is, how would expanding it help?!!? I see many businesses, locally, expand and then poof they’re gone. If he means the food is too fancy, I can understand that. Takes more time to prep and cook and profit is slimmer than usual. That only works for that Novelle Cuisine stuff where some famous chef whips up mini snacks and charges a fortune for them.

All the back-story we need …

An awful lot of little unsustainable businesses (bistros, antique stores, and any other quaint little shops) exist to sustain the spouse or child of a very successful business or professional person who can afford the cost and write-off the losses on their tax returns. Not all, mind you. My kid tried running a second hand shop for a couple of years all on his own, and survived, but not much more.

Enjoy your retirement without resentment!

As a pet owner, I’m wondering if Luddy is okay on his own this long. Just sayin’….

I planned on opening a used bookstore since 1982 but practically speaking, I had to make a living first. Now that I’m retired and ready, I’ve been delayed by covid and high rental rates. Not giving up though! It will happen!

So what are the options? Expand? Or move to a new business plan?

Bear with me — Mary Lou is the daughter of Janis right? And the old gent is Mary Lou’s grandfather? Then doesn’t that make him Janis’ dad who he is cursing about?

I gotta tell ya, Gus: A high school friend of my youngest opened a small (maybe 40 seats) place doing classic diner fare as interpreted by a Cordon-Bleu-trained chef; it was actually a rousing success. Well, until the ’vid came along.

He, being an intelligent & decent person, followed the rules – and lost his business. The a-holes who ignored them and helped spread the plague are all up & running (probably because the state didn’t have the spine to put teeth in the rules; the fourth time you were caught, you might get letter saying you were naughty. Thus intelligence & decency were the only impetus for doing the right thing; should have been a one-strike-and-yer-out immediate & permanent loss of your business license. )

But, I digress. My point is, yes, that business plan can work, if you’re good at it – and G&ML certainly seem to be good at it. Gus is just grumpy because they’re not doing it the way he did.

Maybe they’re deep in MAGA country – open the Comb Over Cafe – presidential fare at proletariat prices

Good to see Gus! He’s one of my favorite side characters because he is no nonsense and practical. Plus, I like the sunglasses he’s wearing…even if it’s supposed to be night time.

As I remember it Gus never forgave Mary Lou for getting him to stop working because it was killing him, and for not taking over his big restaurant because she had come to hate it over the years. She also wanted to do something without her dad hanging over her shoulder telling her what to do.

She is not you. She wants small and intimate not large and noisyLet her live her own dreams, not yours.

I sense a move back to “The Dock.”

Husband always wanted to do weaving. We have worked at and sold crafts for decades – never really making any money. I came across a small loom I knew he would love, we bought it and he started weaving. Craft shows around here are not good quality and we knew the pieces would not sell at them (“craft” means buy junk and sell it at craft shows here and cannot compete with items purchased from China).

He was getting very frustrated – I told him "I don’t care if you ever sell any of the weaving – it makes you happy to work on it (he actually whistles while he is doing weaving).

As long as “the kids” are getting by and enjoying what they do – that is all that matters.

(Husband found finally 2 events which were not craft shows to demonstrate and sell – and finally figured he was on his way – this was October and December 2019 – and of course the events did not exist last year and may or may not this year.)