Tomorrow my favourite local restaurant (also owned by a client of mine, in the interest of full disclosure) is moving to a new location.
The move is bold and risky. After twenty years of holding a prominent downtown location, they’ve packed up to move to a new location. For over twenty years, this restaurant has gone through various transformations and succeeded during all of them. This is their biggest transformation to-date.
This past Sunday, they closed at their current location of over twenty-years, and have been working around-the-clock to ensure a smooth transition to the new location.
Tomorrow night, they open for business.
Rumour has it that another restaurant will open in their old space almost immediately. Naturally, this new restaurant will attract some foot traffic. It will also get the handful of stragglers looking for the old place. They’ll think maybe they changed their format or, perhaps they went out of business. For some, it won’t matter. People are always looking for a new place to eat.
Everyone wants to own a restaurant. The building, however, is just a building now. From a few sneak peaks at their new location, it’s obvious that everything that matters in a restaurant, like a great atmosphere, has also packed up and moved.
I really like the owners taking this bold step.
When you look at the success of this restaurant over the past twenty plus years, you see something interesting.
There was no pressure or external motivator forcing them to make this move. Instead, what they saw was an opportunity to better themselves and they’re jumping on it.
99 out of 100 businesses would have stayed in the same location.
99 out of 100 businesses would have accepted the current level of success as “good enough.”
99 out of 100 businesses would have made the safe decision, to not make any decision at all.
This morning, I had a chance to talk to one of the owners about the move.
He said,
“We saw an opportunity where we could not only grow as a business, but we could also create an overall better experience for all of our customers who’ve supported us over the past twenty years.”
I then asked if he was worried or concerned about making such a big move, and he said this…
“We’ve always made business decisions based on looking forward instead of looking back. Sure, we could continue to second guess ourselves, but what’s the point? When you make business decisions with your customers best interests in mind, you really can’t go wrong.”
He continued, “And when you’re betting on such a strong hand, there’s no reason to not go all-in.”
Do you have such a strong relationship with your customers and clients that you’d be willing to go all-in and put all your chips on the table?
If not, that is something to strive for.
They have been video blogging about the entire process. From first announcing the move, to keeping their customers informed of each and every step of the process. You can check out all of the videos on Facebook if you’d like.
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Noah
