California, Illinois, New York: Three Worst States For Business

[Wicked Jester]

Yes, they were needed.....Had they not been needed, I would have never hired them in the first place.

Since you obviously got by without them, that's obviously not true.

Look, I've run a business before as well. I never had any employees. I worked very long hours and was reasonably successful until I decided the hell with it. I would have liked to hire someone else to take over half of the shit I was doing, but I didn't NEED to -- obviously.

Actually, one of the distinctions between a struggling business and a successful one is that the successful business can engage in a little luxury, like hiring people it doesn't absolutely need. In your business, if the food could get cooked promptly and well, the tables waited on promptly and politely, and the place kept clean and stocked, you had all the people you needed. Maybe not all you would have liked, but that isn't the same thing.

Bullshit, it is fuckin' true....California USED to be very business friendly. That all changed. Taxes started going up. Regulatory fees started going up, which in turn caused everything required to do business went up. Suppliers started charging more. Utilities started going up. Equipment started going up......Instead of tacking on unreasonable costs to my customer base, which would have no doubt affected the success, I had to let a couple of much needed employees go........When I opened a second venture in Vegas, the difference in the environment to do business was night and day.

 

[Dragon]

WJ, you know as well as I do that Sacramento did not single out your business to levy taxes against or apply regulations to. You know as well as I do that the same laws applied to all restaurants. (Just out of curiosity, where was your restaurant and what restaurant was it? If it was any good and in the Bay Area maybe I'll check it out.)

If things were so competitive that you couldn't raise prices to compensate, then the market was obviously pretty tight. I note also that you say you worked 14 hour days. But there are usually only certain hours in a restaurant when things get really busy, for several hours around noon and again around dinnertime. In the off-hours, things usually get slow, and the restaurant relies on the lunch and dinner (and breakfast if you serve breakfast) rushes to generate most of its business. (I've never owned a restaurant btw, just worked in the restaurant business, but that gives me some idea of how it works.)

So the fact that you worked long hours suggests to me that you did this in order to keep your doors open for the full schedule, not because you didn't have the people you needed to serve the rush customers that represented the bulk of the business. You let go of someone who would have managed the restaurant for part of the day, letting you work a shorter shift yourself. And that in turn tells me that you didn't have enough customers coming in during the rushes to support hiring someone for that purpose, or to allow you to raise your prices so that the business you had could do so. I don't know when this was or what was happening in California at that time, but from the way you described it there wasn't enough demand for eating out then to keep you and all your competitors in business without scrambling. If there had been more diners, you would have been fine, no?

It's always a matter of the market.

 

[Wicked Jester]

WJ, you know as well as I do that Sacramento did not single out your business to levy taxes against or apply regulations to. You know as well as I do that the same laws applied to all restaurants. (Just out of curiosity, where was your restaurant and what restaurant was it? If it was any good and in the Bay Area maybe I'll check it out.)

If things were so competitive that you couldn't raise prices to compensate, then the market was obviously pretty tight. I note also that you say you worked 14 hour days. But there are usually only certain hours in a restaurant when things get really busy, for several hours around noon and again around dinnertime. In the off-hours, things usually get slow, and the restaurant relies on the lunch and dinner (and breakfast if you serve breakfast) rushes to generate most of its business. (I've never owned a restaurant btw, just worked in the restaurant business, but that gives me some idea of how it works.)

So the fact that you worked long hours suggests to me that you did this in order to keep your doors open for the full schedule, not because you didn't have the people you needed to serve the rush customers that represented the bulk of the business. You let go of someone who would have managed the restaurant for part of the day, letting you work a shorter shift yourself. And that in turn tells me that you didn't have enough customers coming in during the rushes to support hiring someone for that purpose, or to allow you to raise your prices so that the business you had could do so. I don't know when this was or what was happening in California at that time, but from the way you described it there wasn't enough demand for eating out then to keep you and all your competitors in business without scrambling. If there had been more diners, you would have been fine, no?

It's always a matter of the market.

It doesn't matter what they intended to do, the fact is they did it, and that is why this state is seeing business small and large fleeing to friendlier grounds.

My first place was in Santa Barbara/Montecito. I'm not giving the name, it would undoubtedly identify me through a quick google search.

Fact is, my place was very successful, consisitent two week reservation wait the entire 17 years it was open...We ran lunch and dinner 5 days a week, brunch and dinner on Sundays, closed Mondays...It was fine dining. Everything fresh, made to order. The daily prep alone was tremendous. We didn't deal in pre-packaged, pre-fabricated anything.....All beef was broken down and cut by hand. All seafood arrived fresh every morning except Sunday, and had to be completely fabricated. All sauces made fresh daily.......When Taxes and regulatory fees started going up, I still had to maintain that 35% profit margin, regardless. The bottom line still had to be maintained. That's business........I had two choices, hike up prices on an already expensive menu, and fully risk losing business to other great restaurants in the area, particularly the corporate owned establishments, or let go much needed staff.....I let go in the prep area, 'cause front of the house staffing had to stay at strength, and excellent line cooks are beyond valuable....Meaning, I had to come in running on four hours sleep 6 days a week, do as much as prep as possible, do the receiving, Deal with supplier fuck ups, do the books, create the days specials for both services, run the line and expedite during both services, and help clean up before going home around 1 AM......It took a toll, but allowed me to retire at a young age.

 

[Dragon]

It doesn't matter what they intended to do, the fact is they did it, and that is why this state is seeing business small and large fleeing to friendlier grounds.

If and when the economy picks up again, that will change. As long as things are tight we have a race to the bottom, but that won't always be so.

My first place was in Santa Barbara/Montecito. I'm not giving the name, it would undoubtedly identify me through a quick google search.

Fair enough. That's a bit out of my range anyway.

Sounds like you ran a great place, but let me point this out:

When Taxes and regulatory fees started going up, I still had to maintain that 35% profit margin, regardless. The bottom line still had to be maintained. That's business........I had two choices, hike up prices on an already expensive menu, and fully risk losing business to other great restaurants in the area, particularly the corporate owned establishments

All right, now here's where you lose me. Since taxes and regulatory fees were going up for all of your competitors at the same time as they did for you, wouldn't they have to raise their prices too? And if they had to raise their prices at the same time as you raised yours, why would that be a problem for you?

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

(And what state, perchance, bequeathed Barack Hussein Obama to the people of the United States?)

"By Ameet Sachdev

Tribune reporter

9:42 a.m. CDT, September 19, 2011
Illinois ranked among the three worst states for business, according to a survey of U.S. corporate executives released Monday.

Nearly one quarter of the survey's 322 respondents said Illinois had one of the least favorable business climates, according to Development Counsellors International, which specializes in economic development and tourism marketing.

Taxes and high costs were among the factors that contributed to the state's poor showing in the survey. California was deemed to have the worst business climate, followed by New York and Illinois."


Illinois among worst states to do business: Survey - chicagotribune.com

This is not surprising as all three of these states have been guided by failed leftist economic policies for decades.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

And no doubt their defined "Best states" for business will be?

Any State where the working classes have no expectations of making a decent living wage, any worker safety or right to collective bargaining, any that have or real pollution guidelines and the national leadership is easily bribed.

The economic policies you support are destructive to everyone over the long run. All three of those states have done exactly what you are complaining the others do not and the result is that they are swiftly turning into decaying wastelands which people fleeing faster than the Titanic. That's the harsh reality whether or not you want to man up and face it.