My brother’s life long dream has been to own his own restaurant. A year ago an investor found out about him and wanted to bring him on board for a restaurant venture he was undertaking. In this venture the investor would pay the expenses but the restaurant plan, design, and menu would be done by the chef they hired. They hired Brett and the Bluefrog Cafe’ was born. A big part of the original plan was that in 3 years the investor would move on but would give the chef first choice of purchasing the restaurant. So Brett went into this deal thinking that in 3 years he could buy the restaurant and his dreams would come true.
Not long after the Bluefrog got up and running the investor pulled out. He was going to shut the Bluefrog down completely. Instead another investor popped up and negotiated a deal to buy the place. The business manager learned that this new owner was stealing from the restaurant in substantial amounts that affected her and Brett’s bonus payouts. Of course they got real mad about this and started making steps to buy the Bluefrog themselves. After giving the new owner enough time to sufficiently hang himself with this deal and some others they were able to buy the restaurant out from under him for a lot less than they would have had to pay if the original deal were still in play.
Tonight the Bluefrog Cafe’ in downtown Marshall, Texas is celebrating it’s one year anniversary and the transfer of ownership to Brett, Deon, and Shawn. Brett, my brother, is the executive chef and now 1/3rd owner. Deon, my sister-in-law, is the Soux or Pastry chef and 1/3rd owner. Shawn is the business manager that has been with the restaurant from the beginning and she absolutely loves my brother and sister-in-law, she is the final 1/3rd owner. This team will be amazing in the food business. They have already won over Marshall in the one year they have been there. Just you wait, more amazing things are coming I can just feel it.
I am so proud of Brett right now I can hardly stand it!!!!!!! Way to go big Bro!!!!!!!!!
In other news, the company I work for has officially been sold. The closing happened on Tuesday just like it was scheduled. The amount paid was the amount decided on early on. We celebrated briefly Tuesday afternoon with cake and ice cream congratulating each other on our secure futures. In case you haven’t read any previous posts on this transaction let me fill you in. My company was an employee owned company. Each employee has stock allocated to them in the form of retirement funds. When we were bought out the sale goes to the employees. This means the stock I owned in the company is being bought from me at a nice price. This money, being earmarked as retirement funds, will be reinvested in an IRA account which will effectively set my retirement at a comfortable level that I could not have dreamed of before.
It is kind of surreal at this point because my day-to-day living hasn’t changed any. Like today I will be eating a ready to go Tuna pack for lunch and drinking water because it is 4 days before pay day and I have no money. But this same day 25 – 30 years in the future my lunch could be whatever the blue plate special is at the Bluefrog because I will have money then. I will even be retired and could travel to Texas to eat that lunch at the Bluefrog. So yeah for us that we were bought out but now get back to work because nothing has changed for today.
2 Comments
11 September 2008 at 11:25 am
Congratulations to everyone! Not only are your financial futures secure, your eternal home is being prepared as we speak!
I met a guy on the ship from Marshall, TX!
12 September 2008 at 9:28 am
Was there anybody on the ship you didn’t talk to?