Awake.

When you are running your own business , especially a bar/restaurant, you really need to keep tabs on who is running who.  For most of 2010 I’d say The One Horse Tavern was doing the driving and I was just along for the ride, and I hated it.  I was working 5-6 days a week behind the bar and in the ‘off times’ trying to get the bills paid, keep up with the ridiculous amounts of paper work, navigate a divorce that was dragging on and on, sell my house that was headed towards foreclosure, look for a new home, and, oh yeah, be mommy. 

2010 was one long night that seemed to have no dawn and the stress was and has taken its toll.  But when your trapped in that never ending darkness you learn a few things, like, what you are capable of, what is important to you, who are your real friends and who is just plain your enemy.  For all the times I just wanted to drop everything and run the other direction I never could because I have a little boy that is depending on me to provide him with a home and a future. 

And just about one short month ago I finally did it.  I woke up.  I’d been coasting, not caring, not putting much effort into The One Horse aside from the mechanical motions of doing what needed to be done. I awoke to the realization that as awesome as my bar is – it needed help bringing in customers, pushing it upwards to a new level of success that it wasn’t attaining just by being there with its doors unlocked and the open sign on.  

After four years of being open, four years of new people coming in and exclaiming what a great little place this is, or how great the food is, I have to ask myself ‘why aren’t we doing better than this?’  The economy? Maybe. The Ace? (that’s the old-school watering hole at the other end of town, literally) But The Ace really is the old school Gaston crowd and they aren’t really our target market so I can’t blame them.  The food?  Not possible – our food is great! The service?  The temperature regulation in the bar while people are eating? Is the music too loud? Are the tables too rickety? And on and on I pick and pick in my mind ‘what is it?’

And one day, after my emotional side was done venting and I was feeling personally slighted for another slow afternoon, I decided it was time to stop whining and do something.  Take charge. Be in control.  Do not let the beast control you.  DRIVE.