TAXING! CHILI? WINTER BLAHS!

It is getting darker earlier. It comes with the season. The sun sets earlier and earlier every day. It sucks for me especially because I have Seasonal Affective Disorder. It is a mild depression which is caused by vitamin deficiencies when there is not as much sunlight. So come winter, I get down in the dumps. That with the uncertainty of life, and the future of the restaurant's success. I get to that funny feeling now and again like, not so much energy pumping through my veins as just the "winter blahs." It leaves me once the spring hits and the sun starts coming up earlier again, and staying later. And once again, I have a new "spring" in my step.

A couple days ago, I went to the accountant's office to pick up my payroll and find out how much was due on my taxes this month. It came to about $2,700 and I was flat broke. My mom TOTALLY helped me out this month. But she is also helping my brother out with the down payment on his new house. And I am happy she helped me out (AGAIN) and all. But I would like to get this restaurant to be self sufficient. This was the first quarter, and the first quarter is always the hardest. And the bad thing was this quarter was only through September. So now the next quarter taxes due will be in January for the months of October - December. I have some time and stuff, but then again, the next 4-5 months are going to be slower than usual. I need to pace myself and get my sales up.

We are going to be open starting October 31, until 3 am to cover the after bar rush. That is exciting! I also went over to the county jail trying to get a contract for one or two days a week of feeding inmates! That would be like an extra $300 - $700 a week in sales just from the JAIL! But those inmates would eat really good! Right now they get pizza, McDonald's, and other local restaurants. So we would be like a weekly or a twice a week treat for them.

We make our soups fresh, and the other day, I had my soup chef's wife drive them around town to the office buildings to give out, to advertise our daily soups. We also have a chili cook-off this Sunday! So hopefully I will win the people's choice for chili! Next month we have a cup of chili and an order of fries for $4.00 including tax! What a deal!

The other thing is we are getting more and more delivery orders, which is REALLY good! It is just a word of mouth right now with the advertising. We have tried radio, and news paper ads, but those just don't seem to work. And our telephone book ad looks really nice. So I hope that will work a bit for us. Deliveries and the whole variety we have on our menu should help us survive over the winter. But it is all just a long forecast that I hope will bring us over the top by next summer. When we are doing over $35,000 per month! I will be HAPPY! We need some hooks! If anyone has any ideas for marketing strategies that I may try, send them to me in a comment or something.

Until next time, love you all!