The End Of A Semi-Era

Since everyone who SHOULD know first have already been told, I can say publicly that we decided to close the deli.

Monday, October 25th was the last day we were open.

There are a number of reasons why we felt like we had to do it .. but it's important to understand that WE didn't fail. The economy did.. the neighborhood did.. but we didn't.

Nothing could have been done differently .. nothing was done that shouldn't have been done.. it just came down to the numbers. And when it comes to numbers, red doesn't look good on anyone.

The economy tanking and unemployment sky rocketing didn't help any. When we first started, about 60% of our business was food stamps. Now, less then three years later, that number is up to about 90%. I wish we didn't have to bother with food stamps because it cost us around 65 cent every time we swiped that card. We also had to pay the tax on stuff like soda because you can't charge people on food stamps tax. God forbid!!

Our wholesale prices increased which cut into our profit margin. There's only so much a person will pay for a soda.. and if my cost went up about 30 cent, raising the price by 30 cent meant people would think I was crazy for trying to charge almost 2 bucks for a 20oz Pepsi.

Electric went up.. costs went up.. and the one thing that we thought would have eased the pressure is Tim's home made stuff. He's an uber-chef and low costs meant a better profit for a price that the majority of people would pay.. but even then, he was under charging. The catering was the same way. People were getting his food for a steal. They knew it.. they commented on it.. but they weren't going to pay anymore for it.

The only people who were really profiting from the deli was our vendors. We had to buy stuff weekly (some even by contract) .. sometimes daily.. and we were hard pressed the  last two months to make the rent. Or the phone bill for that matter. And so Monday when all the bills came in the mail, we were both like Algonon in a maze. The pressure was getting too much.. we were taking money from the house finances to support the store and since my unemployment just barely covers the house, it started to cause tensions where there shouldn't be tensions.

And so we made the decision to lock the door. Emotionally, it was devastating. Tim tried to be stoic about it but I could tell when he started getting misty about it. That was "our" store.. something he always wanted to own and one that we spent a lot of blood and sweat on.

But you know, when you own a store people automatically think that you live in a mansion, have have a private jet and a vacation home in Hawaii. Nothing could be further from the truth.. in fact, we sacrificed SO much to keep those doors opened and shelves stocked. Maybe too much.. time together.. time with the kids.. time getting away.

The one thing that really amazed me though is how selfish some people are. Both of us have big hearts.. kind hearts.. and there were many times people came in and asked us for credit because they couldn't feed their kids and we gladly extended it. But then one time became a habit and that meant that while they were putting food on their table for THEIR kids, we couldn't feed HIS kids and so we stopped. We explained as kindly as we could and as non-personally as we could what the situation was and guess what? They stopped coming in all together. It's not that what they owed would have made a difference between closing the store and staying open.. but it's the principle of it. We were there for you.. but you wouldn't be there for us.

Life Lesson 563 learned the hard way.

So what are we doing now?

Well.. he's still going to do catering and we're looking for another storefront in an area where people don't bicker over the price of a soda. Optimally, we'd like to find a house with a storefront so that we can move and have only one rent payment instead of two. We'd rather be in a little town where people still have values and morals so we spent the day yesterday up and around Lancaster County but what we're looking for is proving difficult to find.

So if y'all know of any place .. or see any place.. let me know!!

If worse comes to worse, Tim is prepared to get a job until the right thing comes along and I'll do the same after my unemployment runs out ( there's no way in hell 25.00+ hr jobs are out there anymore ) .. until then, we'll just put our nose to the grindstone.. tighten out belts even tighter.. and have faith that everything will work out the way it was suppose to.

Good think we're used to being poor, huh? LOL!!

So to any of you who were our customers, a great big hug and thank you. Same to those who've done nothing but wish us well (I have to stop now because I'm getting all teary) .. but we'll be fine. We have no choice but to be.