In the wake of GROUPON.

Day three. Yesterday was definitely better in terms of feeling jittery. I didn’t have any of those feelings at all in fact- I only felt a little energized about an hour after taking the pill. It helped me to get up and get ready for the day a couple of hours before I had to be to work (I usually sleep or lay in bed until I absolutely HAVE TO get up) and I felt GREAT by the time I got there (I was early rather than late and the sun was shining- it was gearing up to be a beautiful day).

Have you heard of Groupon? It’s an online site where you enter in your zipcode and e-mail address and get a daily local coupon that you have 24 hours to purchase. And the discounts are deep. For example, I paid $50 for a month of unlimited bootcamp classes- that package usually sells for $200ish. I also paid $10/piece for pilates classes that usually cost $50/piece.

Anyway, the owner of my restaurant decided a few months back that she wanted to do a groupon. After contacting the site she decided on $20 for $45 worth of sushi and drinks at our restaurant. People could buy up to two for themselves and as many as they’d like to give away as gifts. The offer couldn’t be used during happy hour or in conjunction with our lunch specials, but it could be used on anything else. She was really gung-ho about the whole ordeal and decided to sell our groupon on a Friday, which means that instead of having the sale go on for only 24 hours, ours was to sell for 72- from Friday to Sunday.

Of course all of that changed the day that it actually went on sale three weeks ago. Our restaurant set a record for the most groupons sold before noon on the first day of sales. By 7pm that evening we’d sold 5000 (most businesses generally sell 1000-2000 in the whole 24 hour period that it’s on sale). Our owner panicked and for good reason- we’re a tiny restaurant with a tiny staff- we were in no way prepared for that kind of a sudden influx of people. She called groupon and told them to stop selling the coupons.

The first few days were a total, utter nightmare. Our restaurant seats 119 people (four two-tops, three six-tops, six four-tops, and an extensive in-the-round sushi bar that spans the whole restaurant) and on a normal weeknight we can cover that with two servers and a manager/bartender without any issues. On a Friday night we’d usually have three or four servers on staff, a manager/bartender, and a host.

Anyway, that first weekend we learned our lesson. We did more than double the sales that we’d normally do. I had two very experienced, very awesome veteran servers almost walk out the door because the pressure was too great and customers were getting so mad. There was a line out the door and people were waiting an hour to sit in our tiny, quiet little restaurant that previously had almost never been on a wait. Our sushi chefs were overwhelmed and people were waiting upwards of an hour for their sushi once seated. Our kitchen ran out of food- no more udon soup, no more seaweed salad, no more tofu for the miso soup- we almost ran out of sushi rice. We had to call another owner to go buy more because we were so low.

We got smart fast. We hired on a new server and made one of our veterans full time. We hired people to work solely as bussers and we double staffed the kitchen. We hired another sushi chef to come in during our busiest nights. We’ve been staffing double every night. Both myself and the other manager have been pulling many long nights (we close at 10 and there have been nights that I haven’t gotten out of there until well after 2) in attempt to get the restaurant ready for the next day because it is impossible to get anything done during the hours that we’re actually open. Every night for the last three weeks we have sold more than double what we’d normally sell. Last Friday I bartended and walked with $450 after tipping $100 out to the dishwashers. It’s been insane. I haven’t made money like that since working New Years Eve at Stella’s (a popular uptown eatery and bar with an aaammmaaazing outdoor patio). It’s been uncommon to walk with less than $200 cash in my pocket at the end of a weeknight- even on Mondays- and that’s not even including the money that I’ve been making in my normal salary.

Anyway, last night was no exception. Work was loooong (started at 11am and didn’t get out of there until 10pm). The last three weeks have been looong (I’ve averaged 60 hours). And I wasn’t even the scheduled closer last night- Aubrey was. Tonight will be a replay of last night.

I’m appreciative of the money that this groupon has brought in- I am!- but part of me really, really misses the way things were. We have all just been working so, so, sooooo hard. We’re all very overworked. Getting any time off has been a bit of a nightmare. At last check less than 1/5 of the groupons have been redeemed. They don’t expire until October. That means that we still have a lot a lot a lot a looooot of work ahead of us.

That’s enough about that for now. I need to start getting ready for work if I’m going to have time to stop for coffee!