Does anyone have experience running a small family business (retail and food) it’s a convenience store?
Trying to help an older family member we already helped them get a ppp loan but now they need help with inventory, POS, basic operations, simple accounting etc.
Any information, referrals, or messages would be greatly appreciated.
Hi @hungryhungryhippos -
So very considerate of you. This is not my area (biz mgmt yes & accounting but for a different type of biz). But what specific problems are they having in the areas you mentioned? You can pm if you like.
@TheCookie thanks for your response! I think number one probably is helping them find a good POS system that helps them track their inventory and cash flow.
Currently they have no idea how much money they have tied up in products, how old food and products are, how much things are turning over and what items are being sold. They are literally operating a business blind if anyone has any recommendations it would be appreciated!
Additionally if you have any good recommended business practices or consultation I’d be happy to discuss and would be willing to pay for such resources.
We are just trying to help them out so they can have some more peace of mind.
I’ll PM you.
The small businesses I know use Square.
I’m late (or behind) on this thread… but to get back on-topic, just wanted to reiterate that was a great post @beefnoguy. 
Thanks Robert will look into it!
Coinkydink, I was thinking about Liholiho Yacht Club and hoping they reopen. The owner is talking when not if, so that’s good. We still have a SF trip on our radar.
I guess you just have to think of the Gift Cards as a gesture of appreciation rather than something to be used later. And don’t spend more on them than you can afford to lose. But maybe restauranteurs who are worried about a crush of GC users when they re-open are not thinking about the fact that most people are probably not buying a GC for the total amount of a meal (or meal for two) and will likely spend above and beyond that amount when they redeem them. I’m trying to buy them for as many mom & pop places as possible, so I only spend a portion on each of what we’ll likely spend when and if we are able to redeem them.
Side bar: you have to applaud restauranteurs who instead of wringing their hands are working to come up with creative & innovative ways to retool their biz models. Bravo!
We recently ordered food & bought a gift card at Iki Ramen on Western. They had this link posted on their website.
Yes, restaurants are facing the ultimate existential plight: “Give me liberty, or give me death”. There’s no real middle ground. One-third occupancy max? Who can make the rent and payroll that way over time? And lines of people six feet apart outside who impatiently won’t wait to be seated – especially in bad weather?
The restaurant system will have to rely much more heavily on reservations with allocated times for each table to better be able to plan. Some countries in Europe discussing something similar even for beach places (which makes a lot of sense since social distancing (with a number of other things) will be critical) to keep the number of infections down. Unfortunately the US doesn’t prepare enough currently for many of the tools and as a consequence it will be either a disaster because we will have to shut down economy/society on a regular basis to not overwhelm the hospital system or we are ignoring the increasing number of deaths in the next 12-18 months and will have >1-2 million deaths until there will be a vaccine available => hopefully people will now understand how important are elections and capable governments to avoid unnecessary suffering and death.
They won’t need to worry about reservations until people feel safe going out to eat. In the SF Bay Area business was off maybe 80% before the March 16 lockdown orders.
I remember you or Honkman having made that point earlier. People were using common sense and their own level of concern in terms of choosing whether or not to go to sit-down restaurants, before March 16. If common sense, courtesy, and decency were to continue to prevail, perhaps allowing at least some kinds of restaurants to re-open without capacity constraints wouldn’t exacerbate the transmission problem. Maybe it would self-limit, in other words. Of course, you can’t eat and wear a mask, but spacing patrons might be adequate for safety (and I think people wouldn’t have to be told to do that, with sufficient publicity of guidelines).
A very interesting article. It’s easy to see how the people at table B could have been infected by A1, but harder to understand those at table C, which would seem to require the droplets to have remained airborne as they recirculated all the way from table A back to the a/c location (return).
In any case, I think that ventilation engineers have some homework to do and this information Is helpful!
I wonder if a diffuser of some sort over horizontal a/c outlets in restaurants (and elsewhere) would reduce the chance of transporting droplets between tables? Also, vertical overhead outlets would seem to blow the droplets to the floor.
And it won’t be only about ventilation in restaurants- similar issues with ventilation in every office building on a much larger scale
The recirculating air clearly carried virus particles, as was even more clearly the case in the Hunan bus cluster study. So far there have been few reports of clusters in offices, so go figure.
