The Dark Side of Hospitality

This morning I received a text message from a current Big Shoulders Coffee customer who was also a former student of mine from my days teaching at Washburne Culinary Institute. He’s a talented chef, a genuinely good person, and someone I’ve always liked.

His message was hard to read.

He told me he’d gotten himself into a difficult situation. He’s going to have to close his restaurant and is trying to figure out how to exit as gracefully as possible. I’ve been there.

Patricia and I owned and operated a couple of restaurants over the years. We were fortunate enough to avoid bankruptcy or catastrophic financial hardship, but I know firsthand just how difficult it is to open, run, and sustain a restaurant. It demands everything you’ve got.

There’s a dark side to the hospitality industry that people rarely see. The irony is that hospitality is all about caring for others. We create places where people gather, celebrate milestones, reconnect with friends, enjoy a great meal, or simply take a break from the pressures of everyday life. We nourish people physically, emotionally, and socially.

But behind that experience is an incredible amount of pressure. Even in the best of times, restaurant margins are razor thin. Every day is a balancing act between food costs, labor, rent, utilities, equipment repairs, insurance, taxes, and countless other expenses. Since COVID, those pressures have only intensified. Costs continue to rise across the board while consumer expectations remain high.

It’s an exhausting business and I miss restaurants almost every day. There was something deeply satisfying about the energy of service, the creativity of the kitchen, and the relationships built around a dining room. But I don’t miss the constant financial anxiety that comes with operating one.

The reality is that even exceptionally talented chefs often struggle, not because they aren’t great cooks or inspiring leaders, but because they’re expected to master an entirely different set of skills.

Today’s chef has to understand leases, accounting, cash flow, labor management, food costing, financing, taxes, vendor negotiations, and legal agreements. That’s a lot to ask of someone whose passion has always been creating memorable food and building a great kitchen culture.

Many chefs end up relying on business partners or investors to handle those responsibilities. Sometimes those partnerships work beautifully. Sometimes they don’t. When they don’t, the consequences can be devastating.

Most chefs I know care deeply. They care about the food they serve. They care about the people who work beside them. They care about creating a culture where hospitality means something. They pour themselves into those things and often trust that someone else is taking care of the business side.

Sometimes that trust is well placed. Sometimes it isn’t.

Reading my former student’s message this morning reminded me that behind every restaurant closing is more than a failed business. It’s years of sacrifice, dreams, relationships, late nights, early mornings, and countless acts of generosity that most guests never see.

Restaurants don’t just disappear because someone didn’t work hard enough. More often than not, they close despite extraordinary effort.

To my friend, and to every chef and restaurateur carrying an impossible weight right now, know that those of us who’ve lived it understand what you’re going through. Closing a chapter is painful, but it doesn’t define your talent, your character, or your future.

Hospitality has a way of finding its people again. Sometimes the hardest thing you’ll ever do is also the thing that allows the next chapter to begin.