Discovery session, 28 Sep

Thanks for having the three of us in before service, Mel. Before anything else, you heard the recording note and you are happy for us to record this?

Yep, all good. Record away.

Great. Quick intros so you know who is asking what. I will keep us on track. Chris is our numbers person, he will turn everything you say into dollars and hours. Jonathan builds things, so if he asks you to open an app on your phone halfway through, that is why.

Guilty.

And the screen beside us will start sketching ideas as we talk. Ignore it for now. We will look at it together at the end.

That is a bit spooky, but fine.

Start me at the top. In a sentence or two, what is Dish and Ladle?

All-day brunch on Burke Road, just up from the Junction. Seven till three, seven days. About seventy seats inside and twenty out the front when the weather is decent. Good coffee, big plates, and on Sundays the queue goes out the door.

Roughly what does it turn over in a year?

Last financial year about one point six million. The year before was a bit less.

How long have you had it?

Six years in November. I bought it just before everything shut down, which was great timing.

And the team?

Twenty-four on the books. Two full-time chefs, Tomas is head chef, then me, and everyone else is casual. Uni students mostly, a couple of mums who do school hours, two backpackers at the moment.

You said staff when we booked this, so let us start there. Walk me through how the roster gets made.

Sunday night, after close, at my kitchen table. I have a spreadsheet of who can work when, I build the week in that, and then I type it into Deputy so everyone gets it on their phone.

How long does that take?

Three, four hours. Longer if someone has dropped their availability on me.

Why the spreadsheet first, rather than straight into Deputy?

Because I need to see the whole week at once with my notes. Who cannot work with who, who is slow on the machine, who needs hours because of their visa. Deputy does not show me that the way I need it.

Can I see the spreadsheet? Not to judge it. I want to see what you are actually tracking that the software is not.

Sure, hang on. There. Colours mean things. Red is cannot do weekends. That little star means good on the machine.

This is great. This is basically a skills matrix and a set of rules that only lives in your head and this file. That is the bit worth keeping.

How do you decide how many people to put on a given day?

Gut. Last year's same week, roughly. Long weekend, I go heavier. Footy final, lighter.

Do you look at the weather?

Sunday night, but a forecast six days out is useless. A wet Saturday we can be down a third, and I still have nine on the floor with nothing to do.

What happens on a day like that?

I send a couple home if they want to go. Most do not, they want the hours. So I eat it.

And the opposite? A day busier than you rostered for?

That is worse. The kitchen gets slammed, tickets go to forty minutes, people walk out. Last Saturday it was meant to rain and it was sunny, and we were turning people away at the door. Forty people maybe. I did not count.

What is a typical spend per head on a weekend?

Around thirty-five, thirty-eight with coffee.

So forty people at about thirty-six dollars is around fourteen hundred dollars that walked out on one Saturday. Even if it happens once a month, that is real money.

I have never put a number on it. That is annoying.

Tell me about the last time someone called in sick. A specific one.

Sunday just gone. Ten past six in the morning, my head barista texts me she is sick. We open at seven. Sunday is our biggest day.

What happened next, step by step?

I put it in the staff group chat. Nothing, everyone is asleep. Then I start ringing down the list. The third person picks up but she can only come at eight. So I was on the machine from seven till she got in, and nobody was running the floor.

How long were you on the phone?

Forty-five minutes. In my pyjamas.

How often does that happen?

Constantly.

A range is fine. In a normal week, how many call-ins?

Two or three. Mostly weekends. More in winter. More around uni exams, funnily enough.

When you ring down the list, how do you decide the order?

In my head. I know who will say yes and who never answers before nine.

So the order is something like: can do that role, is not already near their hours, has said yes early before, lives close. If that were written down, a message could go to the top three the moment the sick text arrives, and the first yes gets the shift.

With me approving it.

With you approving it. One tap. You would see who said yes and press confirm.

If that worked at six in the morning I would cry.

And when nobody can cover?

Then it is me. I already do sixty-five, seventy hours a week, so that is where it comes from.

How long does a casual usually stay?

A year if I am lucky. Students go when semester ends, or they graduate, or they get a job in their actual field. I hired eleven people last year just to keep twenty-four.

What does one new person cost you?

An ad on Seek is a few hundred. Interviews, which is me. Then three paid training shifts where they shadow and break things.

Three six-hour shifts at a casual rate is around four hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars, before your time. Eleven of those is five, six thousand dollars a year just in training wages.

Plus my time, which nobody pays.

And the kitchen?

Kitchen is the real worry. My sous chef left in August for a hotel and I still have not replaced him. Tomas is doing six days. If Tomas leaves I do not have a business.

What would make the sous role easier to fill?

Money and hours. Everyone in Melbourne is short of chefs and I cannot outbid the hotels. So I need to offer something else. No nights, which we have. And a roster they can count on, which we do not, because I change it every week.

That is a useful link. Hold that thought, we will come back to it.

Once the roster is out, what happens to it during the week?

It falls apart. People swap in the group chat, they tell me, or they do not, and then two people turn up for one shift and nobody for the other.

How often is there a double-up or a gap?

Once a fortnight maybe. Not every week. But on a Saturday it is a mess.

Tell me how hours get from the floor into pay.

They clock on and off on the iPad in Deputy. Monday night I approve the timesheets, fix the ones where someone forgot to clock off and it says fourteen hours. It goes to Xero and pay goes out Tuesday.

How long is Monday night?

An hour and a half. Two if it was messy.

So that is five to six hours a week on rostering and timesheets, plus the phone calls. Call it seven hours a week of owner admin, every week of the year.

When you say it out loud, yeah.

Do you ever worry about getting pay wrong?

All the time. You read about cafes fined for underpaying. Deputy does the award stuff, but breaks, split shifts, the kid who turned eighteen mid pay period. I just hope it is right.

Has anyone checked it?

My accountant, once, two years ago. Said it looked fine.

Noted. That is a good one to sanity-check from the timesheet export, without changing anything. Not today, but it is cheap to look.

Let us move to money. When do you feel cash getting tight?

Tuesdays. Payroll goes out Tuesday. That is the number I watch.

What is a normal week's payroll?

About nineteen thousand, a bit more in summer. And since July the super goes out with every pay, so that is in there now. It used to be quarterly and I could sort of plan around it.

Same money overall, but you lost three months of float.

Exactly. The first few weeks of July were tight.

Sundays and public holidays, how do they show up?

Sundays cost me about a third more for the same shift, roughly. Public holidays more than double. I am not complaining about paying people, but a public holiday Monday can lose money even if we are full.

Is that worked out, or a feeling?

Feeling. My bookkeeper probably knows.

That is checkable. Square has sales by hour, Deputy has wages by hour. Put them side by side and you know exactly which hours make money.

How does money come in?

Square. Almost all card now. It lands the next day. Plus Uber Eats, which pays weekly.

And going out, apart from wages?

Rent monthly, about eleven thousand. Coffee from the roaster weekly, around eleven hundred. Produce weekly, meat fortnightly, bread and pastries daily from the bakery. Some want paying in seven days, the meat guy gives me fourteen.

Have supplier costs moved much this year?

Coffee went up twice. Eggs went up. Butter is ridiculous. I put coffee up fifty cents in March and people grumbled but stayed.

When did food prices last change?

March as well. I should do it again, but I do not know which dishes actually make money. The big brunch plates might be losing it for all I know.

Do you know the cost of each plate?

Tomas costed the menu when we launched it. Two menus ago.

If Tomas sent us a photo of the current recipes and you forwarded the last month of supplier invoices, we could cost every plate this week. That is a very doable job now.

He would love that. He hates the spreadsheet more than I do.

And the BAS?

Quarterly. October is always a shock. July and August are good, and then I owe on all of it right when spring is slow.

Tell me about the tightest moment in the last year.

January. Camberwell empties out, everyone goes to the coast. We were down maybe a quarter. I had rostered for a normal January because last year was busier. I put fifteen thousand on the Amex to make payroll two weeks running.

When did you know it was coming?

The Monday night before. I looked at the bank app and went, that is not going to cover it.

So you found out the night before payroll.

That is the bit I hate. Not that it was tight, every cafe is tight in January. That I did not see it coming.

Who else looks at the numbers?

My bookkeeper does Xero once a month, usually three weeks behind. The accountant sees it at BAS time. By then it is history.

If you could see one number every Monday morning, what would it be?

Will I make payroll next Tuesday, and the one after. Yes or no, and by how much.

That one is very buildable. Money in is mostly Square, which is predictable by day of week and season. Money out is payroll, rent and a handful of suppliers on known terms. A six-week view is a spreadsheet's worth of maths, kept up to date automatically.

Six weeks would have saved January.

Can I ask you to do something right now? Open Square on your phone and export daily sales for the last two years. It is under reports. Takes about thirty seconds.

Now?

Now. While Chris asks about the other bits.

Okay. Reports, sales summary. There. Sending it to you.

Meanwhile, catering. Do you do functions?

No bookings for weekend brunch, it is walk-in. But catering, platters for the school, the offices, a few christenings in the back room after close. Maybe forty, fifty thousand a year. Good money, because I know exactly what to make.

How do people pay?

Deposit sometimes, if I remember. The school takes sixty days. Once a christening just did not show and I had forty sandwiches.

So your most predictable work can sit on your cash for two months. Deposits by default would fix most of that.

I never thought of it like that.

What else catches you out?

Things breaking. The coffee machine pump went in May, two thousand eight hundred dollars on the spot. The cool room compressor last summer. Insurance. I had about twenty thousand put aside once. January took it.

Okay, I have the export. Very rough first pass, so do not hold me to it. Day of week and school holidays alone explain most of the swing in your daily sales. Your Saturdays run from about nine thousand dollars to over fifteen. Add the weather on the day and I would expect it to tighten up a lot more.

You did that just now?

It is a first look, not a product. But it says a forecast is realistic. And if you know Saturday is a fifteen-thousand-dollar day by Wednesday, you roster for it, Tomas orders for it, and Chris's payroll view knows it is coming.

Who does the ordering today?

Tomas for the kitchen, me for coffee and milk, the bakery order is whoever closes. All on gut, same as the roster.

How much gets thrown out?

Heaps.

A range is fine. In a normal week?

Pastries that do not sell by three go in the bin or to staff. Avocados go off. Smashed avo is our biggest seller and we still bin a box a week. I would guess four hundred dollars a week. Do not hold me to it.

I will mark it as your estimate. Four hundred a week is about twenty thousand a year, for what it is worth.

Do not tell me that.

Why over-order?

Same thing as the roster. I do not know how busy Saturday will be. If we run out of avo at eleven, that is a disaster. So we over-order.

So the roster, the ordering, and the January surprise are all the same missing piece: knowing how busy you will be.

Yeah. When you put it like that.

Can I ask about you for a minute? What does a week look like for you?

In at six, out at four, then admin at home. Weekends on the floor. One day off if nobody calls in. My partner says the cafe is the third person in the relationship.

If you got ten hours a week back, where would they go?

Half to my kid. Half to actually working on the business. New menu, more catering, maybe a second site one day. Not that I can think about a second site when I cannot cover a Sunday.

Is there anyone you would hand some of this to, if it were easier?

Ana, my senior barista. She would be a great floor manager. But I cannot hand her the roster spreadsheet, it only makes sense in my head. If it was in something she could use, I would give her the call-ins tomorrow.

Let me check the stack. Square for sales, Deputy for roster and timesheets, Xero with a bookkeeper, WhatsApp for staff, the availability spreadsheet, and your phone.

And a whiteboard in the kitchen for specials. That is it.

Good news is all of those have ways in. We would not replace any of them. We would sit across them.

Good, because I am not learning another system.

Where would you want to use anything we build?

My phone. I am never at a desk. And the staff live on their phones, so if it is a text or WhatsApp they will see it. Another app, they will not download.

Anything that should never happen automatically?

Nothing messages my staff without me seeing it first. Nothing pays anyone or moves money. I press the button.

Agreed. First version suggests, you approve.

If we could fix one thing by Christmas, what would you pick?

The Sunday morning phone calls.

And the second?

Knowing about January before January.

What would that be worth to you each month, if it worked?

If it got me ten hours a week back and stopped one Amex month a year, a couple of hundred a month, easy. More if it cut the waste.

Two hundred a month. I will not hold you to it.

Hold me to it if it works.

Here is what we will do this week, so it is not just talk. I will turn your export into a two-week forecast and put it next to what you have actually rostered, so you can see where it would have changed your mind. Chris will build the six-week payroll view from your Square and Xero numbers. Jeremy will send you the summary today.

This week?

This week. If it is wrong, we would rather find out on Friday than in January.

Let me play it back. Staffing: three to four hours of rostering on Sunday nights, built on gut, plus an hour and a half of timesheets on Monday. Two or three call-ins a week mean forty-five minutes on the phone or you working the gap. Eleven hires last year to hold twenty-four, about five hundred each to train, and a sous chef down. Cash: about nineteen thousand a week in payroll, with super every pay now, no early warning, which is how January ended up on the Amex. Underneath all of it, there is no forecast of how busy each day will be, so the roster, the ordering and the cash are all guesses, and you think around four hundred a week goes in the bin. Is that fair?

That is depressingly fair.

Okay. Let us look at the screen.

Oh. It has drawn the cover thing already. With the forecast. That is, yes, that is the one I want.