Loaded – La Rumbla Success Story
Sam and PJ from La Rumbla have worked hard at finding the right balance between operating a great business that’s also a fun business to be part of.
Your first restaurant La Rumbla was a hit from day one?
I guess that’s what it looked like on the outside. We can’t really deny that we were busy, and both locals and tourists really did support La Rumbla from day one, but because we were both working so hard and we weren’t really making any money in the first couple of years, it doesn’t necessarily feel like we just stepped up to the plate an hit a home run.
It wasn’t until a few years down the track when we had been working with The Hospitality Company on how to improve the business and fully implemented the Loaded Hub that we felt like we were running something successful.
Tell us a bit more about The Hospitality Company helping to implement Loaded?
We originally came across James from The Hospitality Company on a Restaurant Association webinar and liked what he had to say. It wasn’t until some time later that we were totally sick of working huge hours and not feeling like we had control of the future of the business that we got in touch.
We quickly started one on one coaching with James and his companies help with implementing Loaded was instrumental in us getting it right from day one and being able to go deep and introduce the entire hub over a shorter time frame.
You talk about trying to run a great business that is also a fun business, tell us more about that?
Well we like to think we had always run quite a fun business, that our team loved to work in and our customers loved to visit, but it wasn’t until we got serious about systems and process that I feel like we started running a great business.
The irony is that in running better systems and process, running a great business has actually made the business more fun for everyone as we’re both a lot less stressed and fun to be around.
What would you say is the biggest value Loaded has offered your business?
At the floor level I think it would be the huge improvement we have made in our cost of goods since we started using loaded. However, I think the real value it has offered us is much higher level than that.
The control it gives us has given us a lot of confidence in our ability to be successful, and I know for a fact that we just wouldn’t have been brave enough to open our second restaurant Slowcuts without it in place. It was pretty crazy times when Slowcuts first opened as it was so much busier than we expected. I think we literally would have exploded if we hadn’t been using Loaded for a couple of years prior at La Rumbla.
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Arrowtown, 9302
New Zealand
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