We are taking the leap and I am officially freaking out. Don't get me wrong my husband and I didn't bump into some random guy and decide to throw our hard earned $$ at them blindly...we have been talking about it for years...kind of... It has been my husbands dream to own a pizza restaurant so we have been saving up and paying off debt like crazy in the hopes of "one day" down the road owning our own. In my eyes that was YEARS down the road but apparently its in two days when escrow closes.
Ok enough freaking out, I will be using my income to pay all our bills and fully fund our 401k so I really don't have much to complain about. The books look good, if you are wondering BUT I do have a couple things I DO need to figure out and I thought you all can help. The Restaurant has been in business for 40 years May 1st! Everyone loves it but it lost its luster 35 years ago, when the interior was last updated... The carpet is disgusting, furniture is falling apart, the paint is dark, there are random large farm tools displayed throughout WTH?!? Actually if you want to have a fun read check out Eric A.'s yelp review ...
http://www.yelp.com/biz/angelos-pizza-parlor-redding ... OUCH! Everything he says is true unfortunately but Angelos (we are keeping the name) is a community favorite that has a very loyal local clientele.
Moving on to how YOU CAN HELP! We want to take out the nasty carpet and laminate...forty year old laminate....and polish the concrete beneath. Our dilemma is I want to do this ourselves but that means MUCH more time closed. I am having a hard time shelling out money so someone do something I can do! First quote came back $12,000!! You can bet your ass I burned that one. What do you all think, do I do it myself (I haven't ever done this type of thing but I am smart have a ton of family I can bribe with pizza AND I'm good looking so it should be fine... ;P ) We can at least take out the old material and save something! I have 3 other people coming in to quote us on the time and cost but I am a little frazzled after the first one.
Please talk me off the cliff and tell me what you would do. We will be open 7 days a week so its not something we can do while closed although if we contract it out they will do it at night. What do you think about a re-opening 3 months from now when I get a hold of the official books and will feel more comfortable shelling out some cash?
List of items to update
Hubby to fix tables with laminate glue - cost 20-50 DIY
Paint and update bathrooms - cost $200 DIY Paper towel dispensers are already up
Paint the resturant and ceiling - quote was $4000-5000 pizza place is 4000sf this would include all surfaces including doors and trim
Flooring - Ughh something HAS to be done with the carpet... 3000 to replace carpet plus monthly cleanings 12000.00 to get down to concrete
Salad bar update - Getting quote from local shop for cover ~600-1200 new refrigerated 4-6000
Chairs will be fixed by my husband
Lighting will have to wait I cant think about that or my brain will explode.
We have $10,000 cash we have set aside for updates and, dear god I can't believe Im saying this here (don't kill me!), we can finance another $30k if we need to with FIL for 3.99.
Any ideas? What would you do??
EDIT TO ORIGINAL POST with more details. Because obviously this post isn't long enough to scare off some very helpful people!
Thank you everyone for your replies I really appreciate them...even Gerard! Luckily we live in a small town with a very large support system. My mom and I are very involved in community functions so I think the support will be there for us.
Samburger:
We are working out the DIY cost of the floors but it looks like we can save several thousand dollars off the quote the problem would be that we would be closed longer. We are not marketing the ownership change until our re-launch which is more of a "Farewell Fred" (previously VERY loved owner of 40 years), so the plan is to move in quietly.
Dragoncar:
Yes we can section off the Rooms but the person that quoted us said it would take about 2 weeks doing it that way and I worry about serving food where you can have contaminates floating around. My husband is looking in to it with the HD. It is generally slow on Sundays but that is because there is not much marketing right now, since a few people are finding out we are taking over business its has picked up about 10%. If we have to close it will be sunday monday. Yeah we can keep the carpets for another couple months which is the current plan but every time I look at them it steals a little bit of my soul.
wtjbatman:
You nailed it Sunday and mondays are the slowest days on when reviewing the books.
Gerard:
Well nobody ever calls you sunshine do they? :) Nope I love the facepunch I am worried as hell about being the next big failure in my small town, but you don't make your dreams happen by sitting on your ass dreaming about it! My husb has been working the last month going in before the open and cleaning everything, Ive been going in too. Holy crap there is a lot of stuff to clean in that place! We are looking at used salad bars as well the problem is the warranty is almost always expired... I know I know that is what google is for but Angelos is known for its salad bar so that makes me nervous! My husband ran a pizza place for 3 years about 8 years ago, since then we have built and sold 2 successful businesses (how we paid for the pizza place). One of the reasons this is a dream of ours is because he previously owned a car hauler and drove for mercedes (dont worry I drive a camry with 95000 miles on it). He was gone 50% of the time which means he missed WAY too much of our 3 year olds first years. He now gets to drop our son off every morning and come home to put him down, before he runs back in to close. We are very aware of the time committment that is the one thing I am NOT worried about.
Yep been reading everything we can get our hands on for free I might even break down and buy a book a heard about called something like "how to drive your competition crazy" sounds like something I would enjoy!
socaso:
We aren't big TV watchers but I will check it out, thanks for the tip I appreciate it!