now welcome to another edition of focus on tonight my guest is ryan lead who is the general manager of bahama breeze which basically is right here over in princeton on u s highway one and we'll be talking to him about what's going on bahama breeze and talking about the restaurant business and just things associated with it that you should know about and get to know about but before we start i just want to first of all thank ryan for coming on board and i know he's a busy guy he's coming in and  has the opportunity to tell us a little about what's going on the restaurant business and i want to give you a little background about ryan so you get to know him before we start our run intended northampton high school at edinburgh university in pennsylvania he's worked for bomb a breeze  for thirteen years he started off as a server in pembroke pines and then he took his first magic position down in cherry hill and his first general manager position was over in woodbridge and now currently he was the general manager as i said before in be mom and pop restaurants or corporate so we like to just give people information and with the make their own decision we don't endorse any specific restaurants but we also like individuals to know a little bit about the various  colorful the food the atmosphere you know it's vibrant it's you know we've kind of created our own word an island and again it's about in the scape you know you might not be able to get away for a vacation but you can come to bahama breeze feel like you're in the islands get that bahama mama that you had when you're in in a room a right you know experience some different food that you might have seen abroad you know just not sure it's not your typical  variety it's good so you have for those who don't know what is the caribbean food what type of caribbean food talking about honestly you know that's a big misc and it's all of your favorites and so on seafood chicken steak you know it can be anything a lot of people are associated with like the more like out there are things like you know oxtail and you know pig's feet and stuff like that and that's there too but you know it we have a jerk chicken pox edition which is similar to a chicken alfredo but it has jerk seasoning and you know jerk butter to it so it makes it a little more caribbean you know we have steak on the menu but we about whether they have happy hours or specific times you know the week for happy hours absolutely have to go sunday through thursday you can come to happy hour from nine o'clock until we close and monday through friday from four to six we also offer happy hour so you can get it after work or if you have to work a little later you can come late night and out as well ok so you're located over by the movie theaters right yes at the market from off market fair right and that was i think you come in large groups you need to make reservations in advance or we recommend reservations for large groups we also offer private dining so we can cater a menu to or large groups needs so we can do both you know if you don't want to lock in on a certain menu and we can take just a normal reservation or you know he can reach out to us through a website or you know giving us a call and we can also schedule something a little different where you can again n on your beverage menu in your drink menu and kind of create like your own your own party at a restaurant so once that once on the special to some of the soothes on the menu right now that people can select from on the nose menu of the top of so it depends on the order we do take up and we will deliver based on like if it's a large order but we don't have like a delivery service for say ok ok how about you know catering you mentioned a little bit about catering you breasts a big pan of potatoes so it's like all the sides but it's compartmentalize so that when you have it there you have your event at your home you know you can serve it from there as opposed to like a bunch of little boxes again with those depending on the order if when you find of people coming into the restaurant and i don't know if you do maybe do surveys and not on the know about what people enjoy eating and you've worked you know before woodbridge and were some of the issues that you find to be most favorite or most requested  the coconut shrimp is one of the highest order dishes in our restaurant we have it on the appetizer and the entree menu you know it so it's a large frame and marinated in cocoa lopez management what made you decide to go into restaurant management or did it feel to you well my father was a restaurant manager my whole life so i moved around a lot which was probably the the only negative about going in the restaurant management which is why i waited to make the decision but you know i grew up in it and i love talking to people when i went to school i had many different majors trying to decide what i want to do with my life that wasn't restaurants at the request my father but you know honestly like it's i like the environment i like that every day is different i like that i have one hundred people that you know i manage that i'm able to you know help them in you know serving better serving gas i love you know able to reach out to the community and you know you have a lot of leeway when it comes to the restaurant business so it's often said sometimes by many i don't quite understand this and maybe you can help me out you say that the restaurant business is a tough business what is the saying there you hear people say what was that means this is what you think about the industry and you think about the people that work in it so you know i have when they're in high school towards the tail end of the job that they have through college until they get their real job for their career so you're constantly managing people with a mindset that you know this isn't what i'm going to do for m for the rest of my life so that can be challenging because you know again you know i think you have a different approach if it's something that you're going to do forever or something that you're going to do for a short amount of time so it can be challenging you know you're also dealing with people that are hungry and you know they might have waited in traffic and they might have waited at the door because you're on a wait and now they have to wait for the order to be ready and you know i don't know about you but i definitely get hangry if i haven't eaten so you know that's tough  being able to empathize with you know you're doing your best to get get the food out to them but you know you can impact you know everything that happened in the rest of their day before they walk in your door but you know they want to people want to eat so those are you know two aspects that are a little difficult but you know you get through it so what always interest me is that how does a restaurant know how much to order in any given day you know and then we'll basically from the beginning of time for your restaurant you know what your sales were and you know you have a menu makes of what you sold yesterday and the day before so the system does really well it averaging  unfortunately you never know somebody could come in and you could you know rugby team show up and everybody wants ribs you know i mean you can't plan for that so you do your best try to err on the side of caution when it comes to having those things prepared and ready so what happens is any prepared food that we've made or even on you know we've prepared it whether we've cooked it or just portion that we have a shelf life so once it's exceeded our it's met we log into a system and let them know and they come and pick it up so who gets frozen and direct and then delivered and then they thought and use it and you know if we have something you know we put a special on and you know we order the product  truck comes and brings it to us and then you know we do have fresh produce and seafood that comes from more local vendors ok so when you think about whether you know a lot of people say how to get into the business i mean are you hiring right now or do you need help or are you pretty well well staffed we're decently staffed but like i said being a transitional job you're not you're never like one hundred percent staff so we're always interviewing we're always looking for great afghans that are willing to come in and you know give our guests a great experience so you know for you know even if we are technically like one hundred percent staff were always looking to fred like that next individual that's going to come in and do a great job and satisfy your guests that's good so in the restaurant business as far as the pay is concerned you know and you can if you don't know the answer it's ok in the restaurant business how does it work do you work mainly on your tips you work on a per hour basis you deal with the guests and taking orders are all hourly positions and then your servers and your bartenders are to positions so the odds to thirteen in our state tips minimum wage then you make your tips on top of that and then there's obviously some you know failsafes as far as you know making sure that people make minimum wage so you know if you're a server and you happen to work like a couple shifts and not a lot of people come in and we make sure we get you a minimum wage it's only saturday nights if a gentleman named john monica that comes in and plays the guitar for us and sings ok during the summer it's every night so it's been every night and we have still pan and we have  you guys playing keyboard we have john playing the guitar it's a wide range but it's an every night affair ok you have any special dates coming up that you want to talk about not really no special days we do have a week after new year's is actually pretty busy and then we kind of slow down till valentine's day and then we start to pick up again you know with our with our main attraction being you know the live entertainment and stuff like that  there's plans with the mall now and soon to be going to the township about enclosing that new glass so we can use it year round and actually create for us a private dining space where we can hold meetings and that's nice atmosphere there and that's on what's been the toughest part so far is that the patrons is just learning the ropes what's the toughest part of the restaurant business at least in personal experience you know i guess i think it's the people and it's not just the patrons and it's all of them it's the people that work for you you know you really have to be a good like not judge but like judge of character but you have to be able to read people pretty well you know you can talk to the employee the same as you can talk simply be you can talk you know you have to feel out the gas and understand what the core issue is is it you know i have said about a spice being in the food or you know i mean it's every case is different it's again that's the fun part of it and that's the hardest part too is like it's not just if it's a happens you do be you know you might have to do c d e or f there has or else all six of them you know and there's good so i see in your copy of your menu here you know you put the the notifications about certain things containing row or undercooking gradients you know about you know basically you know so people know that and i see that you have different you know different types of options for people which is which is great and i think that does this menu change on a seasonal basis or is this pretty much a set menu so the physical menu is year round  the inside cover if you look when you're in the restaurant are chef creations page changes quarterly so four times a year we'll have different food and what'll happen is throughout the year we'll see how those do and if they do well they'll make it into very very brand appropriate drink that's one of my favorites a big rum guy you know if i'm with other people we have a rum raid right now which is actually a it's an assortment of nine different drinks  so it's good for like a larger group definitely not for an individual and that's pretty fun so that any restaurant similar to bahama breeze in the area or pretty much just is pretty much is that i mean typically whatever market there any changes that we can know about her time or anything that you know i mean that was definitely coming on it's just a matter of getting approval right now and getting the construction part i'm hoping to have that done by late the spring all right you know i was hoping to have it for this holiday that's a show for tonight and i hope to see over there and having a good time in the meantime stay healthy stay active stay focused and i'll see you next week another edition of focus on