Case Study – THE NO-NAME GRILL
It was 10:30am on a Monday in the first week of June.  Don Kirby leaned back in this chair and pondered what he was going to do about Jesse Hawkins, his one-time good friend and employee.  He asked himself, “Where did I go wrong?”  Don then wondered about what he should do with Hawkins’ wife and son.  “How could I have prevented the events that occurred?  How can I keep them from happening again?  How could I have been so naïve and trusting?  How could I have been so stupid?”  The questions raced through his mind and he was feeling quite ill.
BACKGROUNDThe No-Name Grill, established by Don’s family in the 1940’s, first opened its doors as an evening dinner club that also catered to large banquets and parties, supplying a variety of different entertainment including dancing and aspiring entertainers.  Over time, the No-Name evolved into sport’s themed, bar and grill, entertainment establishment.  The building contains three distinct sections, the Restaurant area, the Sports Bar, and the Entertainment venue. The Restaurant is a full-service entity with a casual dining atmosphere akin to the one of the named chain restaurant establishments.  The menu offers a standard, broad based American cuisine with selections including hamburgers, sandwiches, steaks, fish, etc., along with limited international items including quesadillas and egg rolls.  The area can seat up to 100 patrons at any given time with the check for a party of two averaging around $65.  The majority (90%) of the payments were in the form of charges to either a credit or debit card.The Sports Bar contained pool, billiard, and foosball tables (each coin operated); dart boards, punching bags and other games of skill (all playable at no charge); and a large selection of video and arcade games (also coin operated).  It also contained multiple areas with comfortable seating and large screen televisions for individuals wishing to watch sporting events.  The menu was a limited version of the Restaurant, focused on mainly quickly prepared items more akin to a combination of fast food restaurant items and an assortment of appetizers.  The section could easily service 250 patrons at any given time with a maximum capacity of 350 persons.  On an average weeknight, the area saw approximately 75 customers with this number expanding to 200 on the weekends.  The average customer spends around $35 per visit with the majority of the tab related to beverages.The Entertainment area was the original section of the establishment and provides a wide variety of night-time attractions including live bands and disc jockeys.  The area contains a removable stage and dance area to accommodate a wide venue of activities.  While On special occasionsThe Grill had a capacity of 1,200 patrons.  On an average weekday the grill had about 200 patrons for lunch and around 350 for dinner.  On a normal weekend night, 900 to 1,000 customers were typically served.Don Kirby was the owner and general manager of the No-Name.  He was 47 years old and had been the owner and general manager for 23 years, after working for and then taking over the business from his father, who had passed away unexpectedly.  Don had never attended college.  He learned the ropes of the Grill initially from his father and then through trial-and-error after his father’s death.  He was average height with a stocky frame, and he prided himself on staying in good physical shape.  Don was a friendly, personable man, with a fairly easy-going personality, and he got along well with most people.  He had a wife and three children (two boys and a girl – in that order).  His children’s ages ranged from 16 to 21 at the time that Don sat in his office wondering what to do about Jesse Hawkins.  Don’s oldest son attended a local community college but also put in 10 to 15 hours a week at the Grill.  He had no managerial or supervisory responsibilities and usually worked as a bouncer.Over the last decade, Don had tried to delegate more of the daily responsibilities of the Grill to his operations manager, the floor supervisor, and the office manager.  He had made a promise to his wife to spend more time at home with her and their kids.  In the first years of his marriage and when his children were young, Don spent long days at the Grill.  He typically worked until midnight and sometimes through the early morning hours.  As Don put it, “I worked too many hours when I worked nights at the Grill.  But now, well, those days are behind me.  The last 10 years or so, I have made it a point to complete most of my work during daylight hours.”  Nevertheless, he still dropped by the Grill now and then in the evenings “to keep his eyes on the things and to help out when necessary.”
MANAGEMENT AND SCHEDULINGThough Don had never formally developed an organizational chart, Exhibit 1 depicts the basic organizational structure of the employees at the Grill.  Also, Don had never developed written job descriptions nor had he developed any formal policies and procedures other than a drink recipe book for his bartenders.  He felt the Grill was small enough that he and his staff collectively could get things done without a bunch of unnecessary formalization.  Whatever work needed to be done, got done, by whoever might be there to do it at the time.Don has two direct reports, Bruce Samson, who was operations manager and basically ran the show, especially during nightly operations when Don was away.  In addition to running Grill operations during the peak hours of business, Bruce also performed most of the personnel functions associated with the Grill.  Bruce was also responsible for activities such as scheduling, training, and placing workers into specific positions of server, bartender, and security/bouncer.  Don, Bruce, and Cathy were the only full-time employees of the Grill.  All other workers were hired on a part-time basis, including the floor supervisor.  The floor supervisor occasionally filled in when both Don and Bruce were not at work.The other direct report was Cathy Werner who handled all the administrative functions including the following:• Accounting for all cash receipts, which included preparation of daily deposits and reconciliation of sales to deposits, and reconciliation of the monthly bank statement,• Processing disbursements for all purchases, to facilitate this, Cathy was given a company credit card with a $10,000 spending limit,• Performance of all payroll functions including check distribution,• Maintaining inventory levels, including cycle counts, and ordering all supplies including food and beverages,• Preparation of monthly sales and use tax and payroll tax returns,• General Ledger maintenance including preparing and posting all monthly standard and adjusting journal entries.  At the end of the fiscal year, all General Ledger information is submitted to a CPA firm for income tax preparation.Don typically began work at 9:00am; Cathy arrived at 7:30am and Bruce normally did not arrive until 2 or 3pm.  Although some overlap did exist, much of the time only one of the three managers was present at the Grill.  Moreover, because the Grill was open 7 days a week and Don and Bruce had different days off while Cathy worked a Monday through Friday schedule from 7:30am until 4:30pm, Don believed it was not practical to become involved in the daily operations of the Grill.  Collectively, all three shared many responsibilities and Bruce did not seem to mind this at all.  From his perspective, there was never a shortage of things for him to do and he welcomed any help the got from Don and Cathy.  Employee turnover was some-what high, generally around 50 percent, because many employees quit when a full-time job became available elsewhere or left due to graduation from the local college.  In addition, business at the Grill was quite variable.  For example, in the first week of May, the Grill only needed 4 kitchen staff, 15 servers, 5 bartenders, 5 bus persons, and 6 security /bouncers each day.  However, on the last week of May, the ‘Harvest Days” festival (the annual celebration of the Harvest industry) the Grill daily needed over 8 kitchen staff, 30 waitresses, 10 bartenders, 10 bus persons, and 12 bouncers for the Harvest Days crowd.  During times like these, Bruce turned to primarily temporary help, but also some patrons of the Grill who wanted to work once in a while and members of the Harvest Days steering committee.

Prepare a three page recap of the three most issues of the case study