08/13/2026
Yesterday was a long day.
I woke up to $10,000 missing from my bank account.
Thankfully, that one has a good ending. It turned out to be a mistake. We figured out what happened, found the money and got it rectified.
But that was how the day started.
Not long after that, I was dealing with DoorDash.
I decided to try them again for the first time in years to see if anything had changed. We specifically discussed keeping them off our Google listing and keeping DoorDash within their own app.
Somehow, there they were — attached to the Google listing of a restaurant we just bought.
For anyone who doesn’t understand why that matters, when someone Googles your restaurant to order food, they’re now being directed toward a DoorDash storefront that looks and feels like they’re ordering directly from you. Except the order is going through DoorDash instead of your own website, and DoorDash gets their fees.
So that became problem number two.
Then I met with a wholesaler about wings.
We’ve owned Wiggy’s for about four weeks now, and I’ve probably heard from six or eight people that the wings aren’t the same size they used to be.
So instead of arguing about it, we got the wings together, laid them all out and compared them.
Same size. Same specs.
And it reminded me of something I’ve learned over and over again:
Change is hard for people.
You can change absolutely nothing. You can even make something better. But once people know there’s a new owner or something is different, sometimes they perceive everything differently.
Then, somewhere in the middle of all of this, we realized we don’t have enough people to properly staff two food trucks, another outdoor event AND three restaurants this weekend.
And I’m not telling you any of this to complain.
I’m really not.
I’m telling you because this is what some days look like.
One thing after another.
You solve one problem and there’s another one standing there waiting for you.
But none of that is actually why I’m writing this.
It was about 10:00 last night.
It’s summer. It’s hot. And if you’ve ever worked in a restaurant kitchen in the middle of summer, you know what hot actually means.
I check our restaurant reviews probably five or six times a day.
There are fake reviews. There are real reviews. There are people who are legitimately unhappy and there are people who are just angry. After doing this long enough, you can usually tell the difference.
Last night I was scrolling through them.
Five stars.
Five stars.
Five stars.
Five stars.
And it wasn’t an ego thing.
It actually made me stop and think about how far we’ve come since last May.
I started watching our waitstaff.
Listening to how they talk to customers. Listening to the questions they’re asking. Watching them take the time to explain the food and drinks.
They know the menu now.
Not just what’s written on it. They actually understand it.
And they’ve come so far.
We’ve all come so far.
When we first started selling USDA Prime steaks, I can’t tell you how many people told us:
“Stop selling steaks.”
“You don’t know how to cook steaks.”
“Stick to what you know.”
Now they’re flying out of the kitchen and the compliments are incredible.
We’ve heard plenty of:
“What is this place?”
“What’s your identity?”
“Why don’t you just stick to one thing?”
Yesterday I think we sold 40 or 50 crab cakes alone between appetizers and dinners.
We kept learning.
We kept working.
We kept improving.
But none of that was the best part of my day.
Right before I left last night, we were talking about the weekend. How we’re going to get everything prepped. How we’re going to get the food trucks where they need to be. Who is responsible for what. How we’re going to somehow pull all of this off.
Then I walked into the kitchen.
Two of the guys who had already been there all day were still working.
They were scrubbing the hood.
Scrubbing the back wall.
Cleaning the flat top.
Cleaning the entire kitchen.
I looked at the floor.
No grease.
I looked underneath the make line.
No food laying everywhere.
The line had been flipped.
Everything was being taken apart, cleaned and put back the way it was supposed to be.
And they had no idea I was watching them.
They didn’t know I took the video.
They weren’t doing it because the owner walked into the kitchen.
They were already doing it.
And I just stood there for a minute.
Because as stupid as it might sound, I was really proud.
If you’ve never worked in a kitchen, maybe that seems trivial.
It’s not.
Kitchens are hard.
They’re physically hard and mentally hard.
It’s hot. You’re on your feet all day. You’re lifting 50-pound and 80-pound cases of food, potatoes and whatever else comes through that back door.
You’re prepping constantly because so much of our food is made from scratch and we sell a lot of food.
You’re trying to get better at the food.
Learn the food.
Improve the food.
Get tickets out.
Fix mistakes.
And then do it all over again.
So after you’ve already done all of that for an entire day, when it’s 10:00 at night and nobody is standing over you telling you what to do…
and you still care enough to scrub the hood and clean behind the equipment and make sure the kitchen is right before you leave…
that means something to me.
Because that’s what I’ve wanted from the beginning.
Not perfection.
People who care.
People who take ownership.
People who notice something that needs done and don’t wait for somebody to tell them to do it.
People who understand that the little things aren’t actually little.
I can’t tell you how many times since last May I’ve thought about quitting.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about walking away.
And I’m not going to pretend that thought won’t cross my mind again. It’ll probably cross my mind today.
But last night, after waking up to $10,000 missing, fighting with DoorDash, comparing chicken wings, trying to figure out how we’re going to staff three restaurants, two food trucks and another event…
the thing I went home thinking about was two guys cleaning a kitchen.
Because for a minute, I could actually see it.
All the fighting.
All the mistakes.
All the changes.
All the times we’ve gotten it wrong and tried again.
We’re getting better.
And more importantly, people are starting to care about this place the way I’ve always wanted them to care about it.
Last night I was really, really proud.
And more than anything…
I was grateful.
