Goodbye Wholesale Bakery

For those of you who didn't know, Our Daily Bread Restaurant has been supplying several coffee carts both here in Veneta and in Eugene, with assorted bakery products and, until recently, our breakfast burritos. Well . . . no more! As of March 31st, the only place you will be able to find our popular Pumpkin-Gingerbread Muffins is here at the restaurant. We have been supplying some of these carts for over a year now, so we've committed to meeting the demand in-house with a larger array of pastries in the morning. This, along with the espresso we offer here, might just be enough for the disappointed regulars of our local coffee carts.

BACKGROUND
Like many aspects of the ODB that have come and gone over the last three years, the wholesale bakery idea was one of those that just fell into our laps and we decided to give it a try. We were approached by a local coffee cart about our bakery products. Because of them, we developed a rather extensive wholesale menu and decided to pursue other coffee carts. We even went so far as to hire a salesperson on a commission basis to pursue coffee carts farther abroad in Eugene and Junction City. At its height, we served upwards of 10 different coffee carts several times a week.


NOT SO GOOD NEIGHBORS
The wholesale business is a cut-throat one! Someone is always trying to get THEIR product in over yours. It was a constant haggling process with the coffee carts to get our items at lower prices. Our prices were often under-cut which required us to come back and make a better offer. Both my parents and I, come from 'let's work together' community mentality. We appreciate business relationships and expect them to be honored. We do not operate with a 'dog eat dog' mentality. We were incredibly disappointed by the underhanded actions of fellow business owners to take away our business with the coffee carts. Indeed, our entire breakfast burrito wholesale business was under cut by another local restaurant. While we were disappointed with the restaurant owner (and will never eat at his establishment again), the coffee cart owner is not blameless in this either. The coffee cart owner never communicated what was going on or gave us a chance to make a better offer. She just dropped the burritos. We'd created the wholesale menu and pricing for her and she's just threw away any semblance of a business relationship without notice.

THE DECISION
The decision to discontinue wholesale sales came about quickly based on the above circumstances and a few other reason . . .

1) Profit Margin.
Wholesale is what comes before retail as far as pricing goes. We make significantly less percentage of profit per a bakery item than if we sold it in our own restaurant. In order to make money in the wholesale business, you have to have volume. We don't have the time to grow the business fast enough to accommodate the need for volume.

2) Restaurant Image
From the beginning, we have struggled with the image of being a bakery not a restaurant. Too often, a bakery is all people think of us as. And here we are putting our name out there on a bakery item! It doesn't make much sense and gives potential customers a false impression of who we are. We are much more than a bakery.

3) Labor
The wholesale bakery orders required a delivery driver. Whether it was three items or twenty, the delivery driver (our baker) had to drive the route three times a week. The carts also need their items early so this meant that the baker had to be scheduled at a time that was appropriate for deliveries. This was rarely an efficient use of labor in a time when we were making cuts across the board to accommodate the economic challenge of the day.

All in all, we found the wholesale business to be the wrong fit for us. It took away from the restaurant and gave very little back. Our energies can be spent better elsewhere. We haven't eliminated it entirely. Instead, we set a hire minimum order for wholesale products. This summer will be supplying several local farms with bakery items for resale, but no more of this little stuff.

Valentine Mayhem

Like every other restaurant in the USA, this holiday is one our biggest nights of the year. Baring special events, this IS our biggest grossing night of the year mainly due to customer volume and higher overall ticket prices. After months of slower dinner business, it was quite a shock to serve over 130 people in a single night!

This very busy night was proceeded by our first wedding! We've hosted several wedding receptions in the past year, including my own. And while there may have been people married at the ODB in the past, this was the first wedding WE have hosted. It was a small wedding of about 40 that fit perfectly in our banquet room. I plan to post a full length article at my wedding blog once I receive the pictures from the bride and groom at www.oregonweddings.blogspot.com. Anyway, back to Valentine's Day dinner service . . .

The menu for the night consisted of many of our customer favorites like Prime Rib and Scampi, but also include a few entrees available just for the night like the romantic classics Lobster and Chateaubriand - roasted tenderloin for two. Along with specialty desserts, I always include a few select food and wine pairings. or as I like to call them, "Lover's Pairings." I don't think we sold a single package, but they sure are fun to do.

While we do put on considerably more staff for an event of this magnitude, we still weren't quite prepared for the multiple rushes we experienced that night. For events of this size, we open up seating in the chapel and our banquet room as well as the main dining room. Since a high percentage of reservations are for two, we are able to double our seating capacity with 14 tables placed in those two additional dining areas. Atmosphere varied considerably from dining area to dining area. The upstairs with its larger tables of 3 and 4 had a very boisterous feel to it. The chapel has an intimate feel while the banquet room is always a struggle to change into an intimate atmosphere. While a beautiful dining area for groups, the banquet room is a little too open for smaller tables. Using trellises and partitions, I was able to create private spaces around our smaller tables.

Mayhem didn't quite hit until 7:15 when we filled every table in the house for the second time that night. At this point, we started running out of things. Food, plates, silverware, etc. . . New tables were coming faster than servers could keep up and dinner tickets poured into the kitchen. Unlike your normal dinner hour, these dinner tickets - aside from the sheer number of them - were more complex than normal. On this special night, most of the tables splurged on appetizers and dessert in addition to an entree, salad and beverage service of some kind. It was more of what we call a 'full service' dinner. More thinking and time is required for this kind of service.

Its always disappointing to us when we can't provide 100% excellent service. Unfortunately, sheer numbers prevented 100% excellent service and seriously crunched the kitchen. We have our areas to work on, but we're gearing up for the next big events at the restaurant while learning from our mistakes. All-in-all, a successful night.

UPCOMING EVENTS
Our Blue Plate Special - Dinner and a Show - March 7th and 8th
St. Patrick's Day on March 17th

Blizzards, Holidays, and Customers

YES, the recent snow showers and icy roads have had their effect on our business.

In general, the month of December is a slower month for us at the ODB as far as regular Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner anyway. Since we are not located anywhere near a mall or shopping center, regular traffic tends to head to Eugene for a combination of shopping and eating. Instead, we rely on the addition of holiday parties to pick up the slack in our business. Well, we had TWO of those private Christmas parties cancel in ONE DAY as a result of weather complications! Even while we understand that driving from Eugene and Junction City to Veneta could be treacherous, it's hard to feel good about the situation.

Listening to other restaurant, retail, and lodging people I found that we were all in similar circumstances. The weather kept everyone home. In tourist areas that relied on incoming hotel guests to frequent the local businesses, I saw a much greater effect on those business than we experienced. All along the Oregon Coast, small town restaurants and gift shops that relied on holiday tourist stays at the local inns and hotels were sadly disappointed by the numerous cancellation that came through due to weather. I know there are areas of the country that have snow on the ground for a good four months of the year, but that's not us. One inch and the school buses stop running. Five inches and we don't leave the house unless we have to. I bet states like Maine or Wisconsin laugh when they hear about the closures and effect of the weather on our local economy. What can I say? We're Oregonians!

My Baby, My Business

What do you do with your days off? Do they end up being catch-up days? You know, where you catch up on everything around the house that you couldn't do during the workweek. Or do you make sure you do something out of the ordinary like go to the beach or a festival? For us, its always a mix of both. We always end up picking up around the house, but I find it impossible to not use this gift of time together better. (Sunday is my husband's and mine only day off together.) Every once in a while, a day off to just lie around the house is exactly what we need. This weekend was not one of those! What the business demands, the business gets.

Here's the deal when you own and run your own business. A day off is never sacred. You do what needs to be done no matter the day or time, because this is your baby. Yes, your business is a baby that you have to see is fed and rests regularly, cleaned up and dressed properly, held when it wakes up and cries, and taught new skills as it grows. Hopefully, after years of care and training, the 'baby' will grow up and not need so much hands-on care as it learns to take care of itself. This is how I think about it anyway. The end result of having a baby (owning your own business) is not to have a 20-year-old baby that still can't fend for itself without you. Rather you want a healthy and independent individual that you can be proud of and will go out on its own and be successful. Such is the goal of owning a business. Twenty years down the road you shouldn't have to be just as hands-on with the business as you were in the beginning (i.e. 75 hour weeks to keep it running). You want to be able to set back and enjoy the rewards. Well, we are in our third year of ownership here at the ODB. In keeping with the baby analogy, my 'baby' is potty trained, walking and talking on its own, and just learning its limits with authority. This is a time of great growth, tremendous challenges, and wonderful successes. All that to say, we're all still on-call when it comes to the needs of the business and there are no sacred days off.

Getting Started

Let me first start by introducing myself and giving you all the 'speal.' (For those of you who already know me, ignore this introduction.) My name is Tabitha Eck (new last name and still feels funny to see it after my name). I am part owner of Our Daily Bread Restaurant located in Veneta, Oregon which I own with my parents. Our restaurant serves all walks of life from the retired folks to wine tasting tourists. Located in a beautifully renovated country church, we have the perfect location in the middle of Southern Willamette Valley wine country as well as the atmosphere, service, and food to become a well-known destination spot for nearby Eugene residents and out-of-town guests as well.

OK! That's enough business for now. I want this blog to be much more than just yet another marketing scheme. This is a way for our guests (and future guests) to get to know us (mostly me) and our business a little bit better - to be a part of the ODB on a new level. The idea first came to me when I was searching out the owner of a local vineyard on the web and was directed to her personal blog. I felt like I got to know her and the vineyard on a more personal level than any profile I could have located. The more I thought about it, the more I saw a way to reach out to our guests.

Though business will always be a large part of the discussions here, family will be equally important. Our restaurant is the definition of a 'family-owned restaurant.' All four of my siblings have worked in the restaurant at one time or another with three of us still working here full-time. Our patriarch, Timothy, if our chef, while our matriarch, Catharine, splits her focus as much as I by taking on the finances and over seeing the bakery as well as the dining room on occassion. It was here that I met my husband, Marshall, whom I married this last December. I married into a ready-made family with a three year old daughter, Harmony, and a five year old son, Shane. These are the first grandkids and we are all enjoying (most of the time) the changes shifts in relationships like these bring to our business.

I think that is a good intro. Hopefully, you know where I am coming from and where I plan on going. I am sure there will times for venting a bit as well as opportunities for an inside look into our small, family business. I'll keep you posted!