Answer, Funding.
We were in the black in the first month operating with a small profit as we navigated through being a new business. What looked like a catastrophic error in judgement launched us into the public eye sooner than planned that created challenges of understaffing we weren’t ready for. Once we began hiring and training new employees and we started to regain financial stability, the government shut down and people stopped going out to eat. With the increase in payroll with new partially trained employees, we experienced a huge financial drain on our funding down to the point of not being able to keep up with replacing inventory that was literally being thrown away due to lack of sales. Small bursts of unexpected sales would cause us to run out of inventory which caused early closing. We would borrow funding in the short term to increase our inventory, and the sales would drop causing food to be discarded. The funding was repaid still leaving the company dangerously low on funding.
In December, sales began to grow as our reputation grew from unknown to 5-star status on google. The bouncing of unpredictable high to low sales made it impossible to know when and how to staff each day falling short during rushes then over staffed during what was supposed to be high sales that turned in to low sales.
Food waste was a major problem as we prepared every order fresh. During the month of November, we discarded over $1,600.00 in discarded food. December $900.00 in discarded food. We had to change how we stored and prepped food items to reduce the cost of food waste. In January the cost of food waste dropped to $38.00.
January, sales we improving as staffing was satisfying the needs of our sales then, winter weather brought us back to low sales with high payroll. A plan was developed to try and recover our financial status by opening sales of our shares to the public. The goals of $4,000.00 to $8,000.00 were set on January 28th. The $4,000.00 goal would be used to bring all financial rears up to date while the additional $4,000.00 would be used for training and as a financial cushion while the economy starts its growth in March as it has for the last 25 years. A $25.00 Mountaineer Breakfast Club membership was also created to raise funding as well a gift cards of $10.00 and $20.00 were placed on sale. The deadline to meet these goals was February 1, extended to February 7.
Out of 478 people who liked our Facebook© page and 517 followers of our Facebook© page, only one person jumped in to invest as well as purchased Club memberships.
February’s weather continued to keep us from bouncing back financially.
February 6 and February 7 were both financially bad days all around. Fully staff, fully stocked and less than $100.00 in sales for the two days combined. $531.00 in fresh perishable (Retail value of $2,680.00) in food inventory with a staff that included a dishwasher, two servers, a host, grill operator and a grill operator trainee ($43.00 per hour x 7 hours $306.00 net before taxes and withholding).
To prevent the company from becoming too far in debt to Country Club Shops, llc., the gas and electric company, the decision to close was made. Catching up and paying a little under $4,000.00 in rears is doable in a reasonable short period of time. Continuing not knowing when the up turn of sales will occur is just not a good plan.
The money that investors have paid in has been kept separate from our operation account and will be returned in full as promised on Tuesday, February 10th, after 11 am.
The money that customers have paid for the Mountaineer Breakfast Club has been kept separate from our operating account and will also be returned in full as a matter of principle and good will on Tuesday, February 10th, after 11 am.
Employees may pick up their final pay Tuesday, February 10, at 11 am. Our inventory of Safe Usable Food will also be distributed to our employees as our way to express our gratitude for their service.
Wild Wonderful Waffle Wagon isn’t gone, just regrouping, taking this chapter as an educational course in business and will return, better and ready to serve.
Those who wish to invest in us and be a part of the funding for our reorganization comeback are welcome. See our Investor Page for details.
https://www.wildwonderfulwafflewagon.com/investor-page.php
To all of you customers who honored us by visiting our table, I thank you for your patronage and I am looking forward to serving once again. I’ll be revealing our reorganizational plans here on our website within the next week. We will be back. Mean while,
What are you having for breakfast?
Thank you.
John T. Cassell Jr.
President/CEO
Wild Wonderful Waffle Wagon Corp.