Beyond The Pass | What's A Guy Got To Do To Get A Holiday Around Here?

Hello everybody. Did you miss me?

Yeah, me neither.

I have to apologise for leaving such a long time between drinks here, but I was indulging myself in something that was so foreign to me—so unachievable in my hospo days that the mere thought of it was enough to bring a wry smile to these moustachioed lips:

I went on a holiday.

Now, with the exception of the big operators out there, holidays for owner/operators are few and far between (if at all). They’re something to be shoehorned into your schedule, almost always firmly within the bracket of off-peak season and never for longer than a day or two.

My holidays were either hasty getaways on a Sunday afternoon, taking advantage of being closed on a Monday (more on that later), or the most ill-advised trip overseas in the history of business ownership and commercial travel in general.

I’ll start with the little trips and they were made possible by one of the greatest business decisions I’ve ever made:

I closed on Mondays.

Why did I choose to close on Mondays, you ask? Partly because I needed a day to catch up on admin, partly because I needed a day off but mostly because Mondays were, historically, the quietest days in cafes.

Many a time did a customer lament my Monday closures. They’d complain that their week couldn’t truly begin without their morning coffee and I’d nod and smile at them and then tell them that I’d never open on a Monday for as long as I lived.In cafes, the trade pattern is a straight line, starting from the bottom left and, in my case, finishing slightly higher up on the right. Monday was and always will be the least-profitable day to trade. So I just didn’t.

I figured that with its low yield and the fact that I worked all weekend, I deserved a day off on a Monday.

This lead to opportunities for little getaways. I can’t call them holidays because they were almost always to places within a couple of hour’s drive that I’d done day trips to in the past. Places like the South Coast or the Blue Mountains. Staying the night in these places just meant that I could really go for it in the local pub, rather than have a schooey with my lunch before driving back home.

My staff, on the other hand, would go on actual holidays.

I can’t describe the jealousy in seeing them take trips to Europe, Asia or the States for amounts of time that would see my business crumble in my absence. For every Instagram of a Mediterranean sunset, I’d shed another tear.

I knew that it would be financial suicide to take a trip of my own. I worked every day and covering those staffing costs would add another grand onto my wage bill each week.

So I did what any idiot prone to knee jerk reactions would do. I booked a trip to visit my family in the UK and didn’t tell anyone.

Pro tip: always tell your family you’ll be visiting, otherwise you could end up accidentally arriving the same weekend they’re away on holiday and have nowhere to stay, sitting on a cold doorstep in Anfield with a duffle bag and a full bladder.

You’ll also spend 3 weeks sitting around with nobody to hang with because none of your friends or family have any time off work booked and my local area has a very limited selection of activities beyond fighting with the local teenagers or petty crime.

Another pro tip: don’t go overseas for 3 weeks without saving up every penny you have and relying on the EFTPOS takings from your cafe (which usually just cover your weekly expenses) to provide spending money.

You see, that money that has only just been covering your overheads cannot, all of a sudden, accommodate the spending habits of a dumb, hometown tourist.

Many an important cafe bill was late as a result.The only other holiday I took in my hospo life taught me another very important lesson.

This was when I was an area manager for an unnamed, multi-location cafe business. When I’d taken on the role, I’d been very adamant that my pay be a certain amount each week (which it was) and, crucially, that I get some paid time off to go on holiday (which I thought I did).

As with most cafe jobs, there was no employment contract, only trust that people stick to their word.

It was with this trust that I booked a trip to America with my wife as a delayed honeymoon. We were to undertake the classic, romance-laden American road trip so we’d be gone for a couple of weeks.

Everything was great, until pay day came and went without so much as a cent being deposited into my bank account. I emailed my boss (because as if I had the money to call) and he flat out denied any knowledge of our agreed holiday pay.

At least this time I’d saved enough to get me by, but money was still very tight. Thank god my wife had a real, grown up job with amazing things like a contract and legally-binding agreements.

I didn’t last long in my area manager job after I returned.

And I’m not saying you can’t take a break if you’re an owner. I did it (stupid as it was) and I’d do it again (I never learn because learning is for nerds). I guess if you’re going to take a holiday after you start a hospo business, you’d better make sure you’re prepared for a financial hit and please, for the love of all that is holy, let them know you’re coming at the other end!