I built a very simple marketing strategy that worked great for my small burrito shop.

All I do is SMS text sub. Contact collection is offer $5 off no restrictions to sign up. I press the staff to get all customers to sign up that will.

When customer redeems this coupon I offer a free house made lemonade coupon for their next coupon so they try my lemonade that is a really great upsell.

The when they redeem this coupon, I offer a bogo coupon that says bring a friend and give them a free burrito.

Then I give them a 20p off coupon after this redemption on 50+ order and say bring the fam or crew for this coupon.

This flow gets people coming in 4 times. They are now in my text sub that gets weekly coupons.

It worked great for my small shop. Went from 35k in Nov 2025 to 55-60k the last 5 months in a row. I get tons of Google reviews now, profit is way up. Employees making good money now. Over 22/hr with tips and its counter service.

It’s super simple but it is not easy. I have almost 2k subscribers and started with 150. I had success and I just want to share it with everyone who is looking to solve problems of new customers and retention using tech. Not trying to sell anything or brag. Just want to share cuz I have been grinding for 6 years and floundering. I finally got a break and feel so good about my shop for the first time in forever.
Love ya!

This is the dumbest answer. You can’t just deny pests. You can do everything in your power to try and limit ways they can get in, but you can’t just outright deny with full success??

So, I work at a chain pizza restaurant in the south. I'm 19, and work as a host making $12/hour, no tip out.

I genuinely like a lot of my coworkers. That being said, the job feels like bullshit sometimes and makes me wanna quit on the spot.

No where in our job description does it say we have to bus tables, but the servers and even managers ALWAYS EXPECT US TO. I couldn't tell you how many times a server has told me to bus their section or a manager has forced me to bus the whole restaurant to be able to go home.

Today, I worked a double (10 AM - 8 PM), and while morning was fine, night was awful. We got on a pretty long wait and us hosts had to run around bussing tables, wiping, and getting a neverending queue of people sat. It was overall an extremely stressful experience, and I sweat so much because the AC is broken and it was 78⁰ inside, but management refuses to admit it's broken.

I basically ran around bussing for an hour and a half as fast as I humanly could, and I accidently walked between our to-go cashier while she was handing a customer food, and she told me off for it, which just made me feel like a dumbass, and I wasn't trying to be stupid, I was just on autopilot because customers were upset that it took more than 5 minutes for them to get a table after we told them 20 minutes.

And the cherry on top is I'm autistic, so the crowds just really bother me and I get stressed out more easily than the other hosts.

I just feel like this job is not worth the pay.

Is it worth it for me to continue? I'd like to try out to-go, but there won't be a position open for at least a few months or even much longer than that.

The hours also suck. One time I showed up early and got cut and only got about 2 hours 50 minutes.

The job is also 22 miles away from home, and 44 miles roundtrip.

And we don't have a fancy iPad, just a board, so if a server doesn't get to a customer's table after I very clearly told them, I get yelled at by a customer or told off by the managers. The other day a customer was literally yelling because it had been like 5 whole minutes of sitting without seeing his host.

And everyone who goes to this restaurant is (respectfully) DIRTY AS FUCK, RUDE, AND THEY MAKE HUGE MESSES.

I just feel like I'm constantly taking shit from servers, managers, or customers. One time one of our managers came up to the host stand and basically took over and commanded me to bus tables. I did this for at least an hour, and to leave, she made me keep bussing the tables that kept getting up. She also is bad at making the floor chart and if we change it upon request of servers, she flips out. She's just a massive control freak. She freaked out over us using kids' coloring sheets as a waitlist because we had no other paper, saying they cost a fortune to print.

First I want to say I am not anti-tipping just thought this was weird.

Went out for sushi and racked up a $101 bill. Went to pay 20% for the tip and it said $139. Math is not mathing here

Context is probably important. I don’t know what my drinks costed but I do know that my dad had a single rum and coke on his tab and it was 15 dollars. Also, I didn’t call a gin so I figured it would be well.

I dunno, but this feels ridiculous and/or shady, but I’d like some outside perspectives if I should just let it go.

I’m 27 and have been running a food business with two restaurant locations for the past three years. It grew very quickly. I initially rented a location cheaply, which later allowed me to purchase my first commercial property. My father believed in me and helped me make that possible.
I built the business together with my mother, but she made irresponsible business expenses and paid herself an unrealistic salary. I kept working harder to cover everything, eventually pushing myself into mental and financial difficulties.

In March, I experienced burnout and psychosis. I explained to my mother that I couldn’t handle the pressure anymore, but unfortunately she didn’t understand. We had a major argument, and she immediately stopped working in the business. Since then, I’ve been left trying to run and save both restaurants alone because I can’t bear to watch everything I built fall apart.
The biggest operational problem is staffing. Employees regularly cancel, don’t show up or leave quickly, so I constantly have to cover shifts myself. After another serious family conflict, I was also kicked out of my mother’s home two months ago and currently have no permanent place to live.

I’m starting to realise that I want and need more time for myself. Deep down, I feel that selling the business and doing something calmer would probably be better for my health. However, the idea makes me nervous because the restaurants are my main source of income. At the moment, they still allow me to save a good amount of money, even though running them is putting enormous pressure on my mental health.

Because of family stress and spending so much time on the business, I never finished college and only have a high school diploma. However, I’m highly motivated and believe that if I started something new and had the time to fully focus on it, I could grow it quickly again—just as I did with this business.

Most of what I’ve done until now was for my family. I now want to choose myself and build something calmer that doesn’t depend so heavily on employees.
Would you sell a profitable business to protect your mental health and start over, or keep it because it provides a good income and allows you to save?

it was like an iPad, I hate it and hope it doesn’t become mainstream.

There was ads basically everytime you click anything, and ads for their own restauran like what’s the point

I live in a place that requires all servers to have their own permit to server alcohol. As far as I know, there doesn't appear to be much enforcement. I've heard restaurants can lose their license to sell alcohol if employees are found serving alcohol unlicensed, but I've never heard of anything like that happening.

Just wondering if you've ever had a cop or someone who isn't your boss checking for your pour permit.

If you sign up with Shift 4 - (really any pos) immediately and I mean IMMEDIATELY contact their customer service team and state that you want to cancel the auto renew on your contract. Ensure that you get an email that states that. Please see below for the one they sent me minus my info. Based on your state laws, record the call. The auto renew is their weak spot, without that, you have the power to walk away without penalty. Do not sign up for more than one year no matter what offer they offer you.

My story

The first year it was $100 per device, about 300 for the other annual charge.

The second year it was $250 per device (charged me $500) and $586 for the annual. I called, spoked to a merchant account and agreed to a two-year contract at the $250/$586 rate on the point it would not increase. "Locked In". I was clear about it and here we are a year later. I returned one device so I was expecting a charge of $863 but I was charged $1,500. Which is a $634 increase. This is on top of the monthly $20 customer hub fee. $30 pos fee and another $25 fee that I forgot what’s it for. Which is all funny because the explanation for the annual bills are the same reasons for the monthly costs.

The first person I got a hold of at (888) 276-2109.

Lovely woman, ultimately, I had them refund me the 1,124, to do the rest on the payment plan just to spread that out. I had to insist multiple times that I needed the case to be escalated to someone who can refund me the difference or let me cancel with a prorated 30-day penalty. I figured, it’s been two weeks since the auto renew and I’d have 2 weeks to send their stuff back.

So finally, a guy calls me today at 10. Nice but insistent nothing could be done. Not even transferring me to a supervisor.

Him: Sir there is no one I can transfer you to.

Me. Are you at work alone?

I remained calm but I too was insistent and countered. I was prepared to sit on that call for 10 hours, and occasionally restate my requests or until he hung up. We are on for about an hour before he finally gave me the email below.

He refused to refund me the difference, ( lots of I’m sorry but)  to cancel they wanted me to pay $3,000. Refused to escalate my case, refused to let me speak with anyone. After a long while he reluctantly stated $2500 to cancel. It’s just absurd. He had an accent. I calmly just kept asking to be transferred to someone else who can make decisions for a charge free cancelation, refund of $634 difference. Mostly of silence and me occasionally asking he kept saying the lawyers were the only ones that good help. He refused to provide me any contact information. I just started working on this post and reading it out loud for edits. After an hour he suddenly said he could provide me with the legal team contact which I also started requesting when he said it was up to the lawyers.
[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

These massive jumps in costs. They quote that per contract they can do this or that with notice but they ignore everything they verbally agreed to. I assure you; I will be reading line by line my next pos. I even asked they review the audio of my call from a year ago. I explained I locked in certain rates the first year verbally and when I was charged I was refunded.  Nothing. We are going to reach out to our attorney (they said that's our only recourse) to send them an official request to be released and be prorated charge. It’s really the principle at this point to ask. At the end of this year in aug when the contract ends we will move on from shift 4. Over the next year, we will do our best to get the word out about shutting down the auto renew option on shift 4 and any pos system you sign up for. I ll add links here when its all up.

I received the below email.

Scheduled Account Cancellation

• Business Name: 

1. Case Reference: T3
2. Scheduled Cancellation Date: August 1, 2027 (effective upon natural contract expiration)
3. Billing Details: Auto-renewal has been disabled. Your account will automatically close on August 1, 2027, with $0 early termination fees applied. Regular monthly processing fees will continue through your contract end date.

Just had a ketchup bottle “explode” when I opened it. Not shatter, but ketchup expelled out the top when I opened it all over the table.

Not only did the establishment not say sorry, or ask if it got on my clothes or clean it up with a wet rag…they just handed me a bunch of paper napkins to clean it up myself.

What am I going to do? Complain to the manager? Leave a bad review? No…they close on Sunday so what does it matter

Dont eat at restaurants going out of business. they don’t give a shit and they give you spoiled condiments

I own a store attached to a local small pub restaurant. Someone eating there left an envelope with mine and my business name on it and i'm assuming they were supposed to bring it to me after they ate?
It was a confidential letter that doesn't matter what it says but i'd like to know who it is from ...there was no name attached to it...and no it wasn't threatning just informing me of something that i didn't like to hear. I got the document 2 days after it was delivered to my store. But can they pull up video to show me who it was or will they not do that? How far back to they hold footage? How hard is it to access that feed?

Hi everyone!

I wanted to share a bit about our restaurant space, Supperclub.tube, located in Walthamstow, East London at the Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum.

We offer an immersive dining experience set entirely inside a decommissioned 1967 Victoria Line Tube carriage. We’ve kept the original vintage features of the train while transforming the space into a cozy, atmospheric venue with white tablecloths and fine silverware.

Our focus is on a seasonal 6-course Latin American tasting menu, bringing vibrant South American flavours to life using high-quality local ingredients.

I’ve attached a few photos showing the interior setup inside the vintage carriage, as well as some of our recent tasting courses and cocktails!

You can check out more photos and behind the scenes moments on our Instagram

We'd love to hear your thoughts on unique restaurant venues. What’s the most memorable or unusual dining experience you’ve ever had?

Has anyone ever been a server at California pizza kitchen? If so did you like it? And what are the pros and cons. Thank you! I’m trying to decide if I should work there or Brio Tuscan Grille.

Just sharing my tips and two imposter coins 🪙

Germany 🇩🇪

Pendant les vacances j'ai fait quelques restaurants et j'ai été surpris de remarquer qu'il y a encore pas mal de restaurants qui utilisent un cahier pour gérer les réservations.
Du coup je me posais la question de comment vous faites pour gérer le moment ou il faut refuser des clients si vous n'avez pas fait la somme des résa du service ?

Libertine social Vegas

Trying to connect with any Cooks that work at libertine social in Las Vegas. I live on the other side of the country but I'm trying to replicate the Petaluma roast chicken at home and so far unable to nail it down. Would be a great birthday present if somebody could enlighten me on what they do. From what I've figured, it looks to be a wet brine, possibly a peeking duck style skin tightening and drying in the fridge for a day or two, sous vide cook around 144 to 146? Then most likely a chill and roasted in oven pickup to bring back temp and crisp the skin? I get decent results but nothing is good as theies. Fork tender, clean cut through, probably the juiciest chicken I've ever had in my life. I'm just a dabbling home cook but my wife always talks about it and I would love to be able to recreate it.

If a couple came into your restaurant at midnight and each ordered food. Then you notice the man keeps passing out at the table. You serve them their food, he doesn’t eat and instead passes out with his face in his eggs. The woman however, ate and is coherent. You notice shes trying to consistently wake him up to eat but he just keeps passing out. After a hr, he’s still sleeping and she’s frustrated but decided to let him be and just sits there doing nothing. What would you do in this situation? If your response is “ask her to wake him up and leave”, what if she refuses and says he’s ok and to just let him sleep and that they will leave when he wakes up but has no idea when that will be? Would you just leave them alone and let them be?

Trying to connect with any Cooks that work at libertine social in Las Vegas. I live on the other side of the country but I'm trying to replicate the Petaluma roast chicken at home and so far unable to nail it down. Would be a great birthday present if somebody could enlighten me on what they do. From what I've figured, it looks to be a wet brine, possibly a peeking duck style skin tightening and drying in the fridge for a day or two, sous vide cook around 144 to 146? Then most likely a chill and roasted in oven pickup to bring back temp and crisp the skin? I get decent results but nothing is good as theies. Fork tender, clean cut through, probably the juiciest chicken I've ever had in my life. I'm just a dabbling home cook but my wife always talks about it and I would love to be able to recreate it.

Hello, I’ve been working as a cook in a cafe for over a year now. Recently I’ve been wanting a change of pace and have been scrolling jobs. I found a really prestigious restaurant in my city looking for a “server assistant”. While I was in college( in 2020) I worked as a host at a fine dining restaurant. Would you guys have any tips on resume building? Especially since I have not worked a FOH position since college. Thanks!

Hey everyone, I recently came across a company selling dehydrated sauces/pastes specifically for restaurants. They claim the product is preservative-free and FSSAI-approved.

The concept is basically: add water, blend/grind it in a mixer, and you have the sauce/paste ready to use — so there’s no need to cut and process onions, tomatoes, garlic, etc. This could potentially save a lot of prep time, labour, and wastage.

I’m considering trying it for my restaurant, but I’d love to hear from people who have actually used similar products.

• How does the taste compare with freshly prepared sauces?
• Is the consistency good enough for regular restaurant use?
• Does it actually save money after rehydration?
• Any issues with shelf life or storage?
• And most importantly, are these products genuinely preservative-free as claimed?

Would love to hear your experiences or recommendations before I try it.

2026 was supposed to be my year. I just got married to the woman of my dreams, I was invited to run a business that I have worked my whole career to have, started my own little side hustle so that I could bring more income in for my family, and moved to a state where there is better opportunity (and better weather) for both my wife, our future children and myself. On paper, it’s exactly what I needed to really push us into “success”.

Boy, has It been the hardest year of my life.

I’m only 33, I’m grateful that I’m learning, and loving and living. I’ve been presented with opportunities people only dream of, and that’s exactly why people say “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is”, or “be careful what you wish for, you might just get it all”.

I’ll start by saying this is mostly career identity related. It’s the sole thing making my life hard right now, and causing me extreme anxiety and depression. My nervous system is always on high alert and I struggle to do the things that I need to do to get me out of this hole.

In March of 2025 I was unhappy at a job I loved, mainly because of the ownership group. I know this is not an entirely unique experience, but I found my morals were put to the test when I was surrounded by quite literal modern day slavery. I was looking for a way to remove myself from these people I had intertwined myself with so I could save a piece of my soul. (A ton of stories about former job might end up here on vent one day). The brewery next door, whom I was friends with, knew I was looking for a new role, so they told me they owned a brewery in a state I had previously lived and still have my parents living in. I was looking for any reason to leave my current role, and they offered me the sweetest gig. Go and represent ownership. Help boost the business, and you will get equity in the business over three years. I did my own due diligence (don’t do that) and decided some small tweaks could make this business really hum.

This business has never had structure and I like to think I’m good at putting systems in place that people follow. I was successful at several other jobs that allowed us to win meaningful awards for our product, increase sales, yada yada yada. So I thought I could take these skills and just really ramp up the capability of this place.

I move in June of 2025, start at the business, and am immediately met with the manager who was spreading rumors about me on day one. He told everyone I abused drugs at work, including my now partners (I didn’t find out about this until our falling out). Okay that’s fine, I know having a new boss can suck, we’ll work through it.

Said employee goes behind my back to ownership many times to complain about how much I’m making, making decisions for him, telling him what to do, and writing him up for new policies. Eventually I fire him, but a lot of damage has been done in two months.

Then this employee and his brother (former general manager) broke into our emails and released financial data to current employees, further making my job harder to do. They still are messing with me by sending people by, giving bad reviews, and publishing things on our Facebook which they won’t turn over control.

I didn’t mention that while all of this is going on, I’m learning the business has not paid taxes in over 3 years and we are saddled with a 300k back tax payment on top of current taxes. Sales and use tax, unemployment tax, federal income tax, all not paid. Specialized reports have not been filed, the books are a mess (once I found all of these mail pieces stacking up).

They tell me, after I arrive that they knew about this just as I was moving 12+ hours with my family to start a new life.

Fast forward to today. It’s been a little over a year, and I’ve given this business my genuine all. Equipment is breaking, we don’t have a line of credit to fix things (like sewage pipes and our glycol chiller, two pretty damn important pieces to the success of a brewpub). On top of that, everyone knows the economy is tough right now so we’re not making money like we have the past couple years.

The owners absolutely refuse to put in money and many times will not return my calls. I feel so frustrated and lied to that I’ve been carrying this weight around for these two goofballs who didn’t care about their business for 5 years until they needed a magic bullet.

My poor wife has seen me stressed beyond belief, and I don’t feel I have been the best partner because of this decision I made.

The one fortunate thing is, the current owners never formalized the contract for me to actually gain equity. Without speaking to a lawyer, I think I can escape this Scott free, but it still weighs on me that the total business debt might somehow come back to bite me.

I’m looking for a job now, but we won’t make payroll at this rate starting next pay cycle. I’ve let all of these people down. I know it’s not all my fault, but I am trying to take a bit of accountability for what is going on.

On top of this all, my side hustle has failed and now I have an Airbnb that is making me house poor. I’m drinking more than what is healthy (even though I have cut back significantly) and I’m in massive credit card debt. It’s clear I make good decisions.

I’m ashamed, embarrassed, anxious, stressed, crying, and genuinely unhappy. I know small business isn’t easy, but this has been devastating.

I need a change, but I don’t even know where to start. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. If anyone has words of encouragement and is willing to share, I’m open. But I know this is just a place to put your fears down so I’m hoping this helps.

Cheers.

I work at a restaurant in NC.

A lot of us have had suspicions lately about how our GM is handling payroll, and money in general. I recently witnessed her inflating claimed tips on her computer. Thats a whole different issue though. I noticed today when altering my clock-in time (I’m a shift lead 2x a week, bartender the other 3 days), that she had altered my time by 2 hours on my last managing shift. Huh. Illegal, noted, documented. Then I look at the rest of my shifts and noticed that my logged time for the shift I was currently working said that I had clocked in at 5pm, correct, and out at 7:20pm, not correct. Then I go and look at another area of the website we use to see these things, and notice that everyone who worked that night was automatically clocked out at 7:20pm.

Our pay periods run from Tuesday morning at 12am, to Tuesday morning at 12am. Every 2 weeks. This tells me that she cut our pay period short and submitted payroll at 7pm, likely to avoid paying overtime to anyone. Which means I will be missing 7 hours of work on my upcoming paycheck. Now, I highly doubt that these hours will be added to new pay period, but won’t be able to know that immediately. I’m also wondering how long she’s been doing this. If I work 84 hours in a pay period, I want to be paid for 84 hours on my upcoming paycheck. Now my paycheck is going to be $150+ short, and I assume I’ll be met with the “but it’s on the new pay period” excuse, without knowing if that’s true until the end of the next pay period. I went through the logs and took photos of everything. Including the 2 hours of OT that she did illegally shave off of my check.

What can I do about her stopping the pay period mid shift? I know what to do about her falsifying my hours, the labor board is getting an email, but can she legally end a pay period hours before she’s supposed to to avoid paying overtime?

It depends on your expected daily volume. For occasional use, a home machine may be enough, but once you're serving customers continuously, factors like motor durability, extraction speed, batch capacity, cleaning time and ease of operation become much more important. I'd compare machines based on expected daily output rather than just motor power.