Learning the Restaurant Business the Hard Way

Blue Waters Restaurant & Lounge viewed from the sea

I didn't know a thing about the restaurant business when I got involved.  I did remember my childhood though. I must have been about 4 years old. my parents had a bakery, and I wandered into the bread shop and stole a penny, a big "Willie" penny out of the cash drawer.  The next day the shop manager, ms. Bailey came to me"Baby June," hey i was only 4. "Bay june did you take anything out of the cash drawer?" - "No, no I didn't take anything.'  Fiften minutes  later she reappeared '-Are you sure you didn't take a penny out of the drawer? -- and me 'how, how could you know that? there were hundreds of them in there, hundreds.' Welcome to your mother's inventory control system.

Tops of umbrellas at Blue Waters

So I knew the first thing to do was to find out where to buy the best stuff at the lowest price; and I knew my mothers way would be to track a chicken from its purchase through the freezer to the kitchen to the customers table and through the cash register. I'm just using the chicken as an example.She would have tracked everything.  So I created logs and forms and all sorts of fancy reporting systems.  Of course I'm operating in a country with low literacy so the forms were kept more by me than them. To be honest, there were those times when I just felt that I was just too old to keep up with all this accounting. Yes there were times when I couldn't bother to check the stock. But we probably were more controlled than most small business.

email: bluewaterswhitehouse@gmail.com

Blue Waters Birthday Party

Happy Birthday Andy

One of the great things about having a restaurant is being able to entertain friends and family, This was our Founder's birthday, and some 250 people came to Blue Waters to celebrate it with him.

It was a great party in a setting to die for,                                                                                                                            

And a good time was had by all!

email: bluewaterswhitehouse@gmail.com

Lifestyle on Jamaica's South Coast: Goodbye - See you on BlueWatersJamaica@blogspot.co...

Lifestyle on Jamaica's South Coast: Goodbye - See you on BlueWatersJamaica@blogspot.co...: You know the wonderful thing about the internet and websites, is that you can close it down and start over as someone else. This blog h...

Blue Waters Jamaica: Can You Retire to the Caribbean.& live a 'Cocktail...

Blue Waters Jamaica: Can You Retire to the Caribbean.& live a 'Cocktail...: Can you really retire to the Caribbean, start a business and  live a real live "Cocktails" with Tom Cruise; or if you haven&#39...

Moving to Jamaica

There is no Beauty like it!

The sun shall not smite you by day
Nor the moon by night

There's no place I've been that exceeds the beauty of this island Jamaica. It has the stereotypical tropical lushness and colour that we dream about.  And no place is so maddening, so aggravating, so bitter-sweet - leading my friend Patrick to say, "Jamaica is like the scotch bonnet pepper. Spicy, exciting, flavourful, then it burns you!".

Sunset & Evening Star &
One clear call for me

And may there be no moaning of the bar
When I put out to sea 
                                                      Tennyson

I walk the quiet sands; the sea ripples overmy toes 
sna i am at peace with the world

Yet I remember an old man from Tunisia who must have moved to Jamaica very long ago because it seems he was part of the background when I grew up as a child. Uncle Mike Azan, who at his 100th birthday party told Andy 'I have lived all over the world and Jamaica is the best plae to live - if you know how to live here'.

Andy & I love it! but then we are originally from here.  So now here I am, you say.I'm as grounded an individual as you're likely to find. I am culturally aware and as sensitive to the fact that I don't know; I am not the 'ugly American' - what next?  Well the depth of your pockets. 

email: bluewaterswhitehouse@gmail.com

Can You Retire to the Caribbean.& live a 'Cocktails' life a la Tom Cruise?

Can you really retire to the Caribbean, start a business and  live a real live "Cocktails" with Tom Cruise; or if you haven't seen that movie, let's say Casa Blanca.  Let me tell you like the old guy told my husband in Mexico when Andy (Horace, Horacio, Andy. He answers 'yes' to all the above).said he wanted to see the 'Real Mexican, under the tree with the sombrero". "Horacio" he said, you watch too much American movie. 

Same thing here. It is harder to own and operate a business here in Jamaica than it is in the US or Canada. 

                But it is a heck of a lot more fun!

Actually doing it depends first on 3 things. a) The state of your physical and mental health; b) your ability to juggle a lot of disparate things and keep it all in balance. 3) the state of your pocket. Everything costs more in the end than initially visualized.  Operating in a 3rd world (turd world says my sister) takes a lot of mental energy. This country doesn't have the amenities or the civil beauracracy to function efficiently. Just getting permits to do this or that is a hassle. Understanding the nuances of a different culture; wondering if you're paying the right price for things. You need a  mental toughness to keep you grounded, so you'll be able to cope with the differences.

            From this

The idea is to go                

To This

To This!

Patiently waiting on comments

email: bluewaterswhitehouse@gmail.com

Starting A Business In Your Senior Years

You know it all started in 2013.  We're 'retired", living in Jamaica on the South Coast, (I capitalize it because I think it is the place to be in Jamaica now). We live in Whitehouse, Westmoreland, a few minutes from the Sandals White House Hotel & Resort. In between them and us is

Blue Waters - a restaurant and lounge we have operated for the last 10 months.
                                                   

For me, the story started in early 2013 when I said,  "Congratulations, you have achieved the American Dream. Whether you get up and do anything tomorrow or not, our bills are paid. How do you feel?" This largely from not owing any money. We could almost live on our social security. But in order to do that, we would have to forego the house helper, the gardner, the dinner parties etc.  But with owing nothing on house car etc. you can live on social security.

"I feel thoroughly bored". he said. 'Hmmm' said I, 'well with your 79th birthday coming up, I would suggest that anything you want to do, do it now, or you'll never do it. Don't defer your dreams.'

By the next morning the man told me that he wanted to have a restaurant and lounge again. He's had 2 before. many years ago.  Now you know, even a fish wouldn't get caught if it kept its mouth shut. A restaurant and lounge was the last thing I wanted to do.   But I couldn't throw cold water on his dream. "Fine", said I "Do it, but you may have to find some partners because it's not my dream, it's yours.  So he did go out and got 3 partners, 2 foreigners, 1 Jamaican.

the original partners

The site is drop dead gorgeous! .

 I agreed to look about the food for Opening Day, June 29th (I must have been crazy).  Well the partner from Colorado came in with his wife (a really good looking couple) and they were terrrific as they got behind the bar with the bartender and served drinks like mad.  the other partners worked the room. I hired several waitresses for the nght, and sent down endless amounts of  first soup, then a little later Salmon pate with crackers, then hot wings.  By 4 pm we were ready to serve 139 dinners..

 We decided to open the folloing Thursday. From then on we would open the restaurant from 12 noon to  late night Thursday through Sunday.  but then, within a week, the beautiful couple headed back to Colorado, the other partner, also American lives here but went to Boston for 2 months; and the Jamaican partner headed back to his develoopment project on the other side of the island.  That leaves one 79 year young man to jump start and run a restaurant with 70 seat capacity, but space for even more.

So let me ask you. What woulod you do?

email: bluewaterswhitehouse@gmail.com