A Day in the Life of a Restaurant Owner at Ruby’s Diner

For millions of Americans, a work day is just that--a day at work. To a business owner, however, their work “day” bleeds into the night, morning and even the weekends. Especially if they own a restaurant. Even with good delegation and healthy boundaries between personal life and work, restaurant owners work tirelessly on their business.

Take Jonathan and Tamurei Litt, a couple that owns not one, but two Ruby’s Diner restaurants in Pennsylvania. Both Jonathan and Tamurei have been passionate about restaurants since they can remember, but they each have very different roles in the business.

Tamurei manages the back-end work that most people don’t think about when going out to eat. She handles the accounting, payroll, permits and so much more.

“It’s one of those things where I get to the end of the day and think, ‘what did I do?’” she said. “People who aren’t in the restaurant industry don’t typically understand how much back-end work there is. In restaurants, you manufacture AND serve, which is different than other industries that might focus on either providing a service OR manufacturing a product. We have 200-plus employees and around 30 vendors, so there’s a lot that needs to be managed.”

On top of all that, she works across two different locations, each with different townships who each have different regulations. Now picture restaurants owners with more than two locations! However, Tamurei is currently working on implementing different technologies to help them manage everything more efficiently so that they can continue growing with the brand, and hopefully manage up to five Ruby’s locations with just the two of them.

While Tamurei is spending each day managing the back-end of things, Jonathan is in the restaurants working the day-to-day operations.

“There are a thousand details that go into getting a burger out the door, and a lot of behind the scenes that no one pays attention to,” Jonathan explained.

What that means for Jonathan is that he spends a lot of time setting expectations, managing and training people, and making sure they’re putting in the right work. A lot of time is spent making sure the food and presentations are up to standards, but then there are times when someone needs Wi-Fi, or an elderly person needs help navigating the restaurant. One minute he’ll be on the phone with a customer, then he’ll have to jump on the cook line to ensure a bucket of sanitizer is promptly changed.

“You have a huge responsibility when serving food to the public,” Jonathan said. “It’s always in the back of my mind--are we serving food safely? Things like noticing towels or buckets that need to be changed come naturally to me now. But nowadays, that isn’t enough. Running a successful restaurant depends primarily on your people and how you treat them.”

Employees are a difficult aspect to owning a restaurant business, as most people are not career employees. Sure, you’ll get servers that stick around for 10 years, but most are transient and young, evolving through school and a career, so it’s natural to have a lot of turnover in restaurants. That’s why many of Jonathan’s days are spent coaching and teaching new managers. Some days, he arrives at one restaurant at 6 a.m. and doesn’t leave the second restaurant until 1 a.m.

“When you’re in the restaurant industry, you need to have energy and passion to want to do it – but you have to have that energy all day long,” Jonathan said. “Even when we’re taking a day off, our restaurants are still operating.”

Even when they are working those 50-plus hour work weeks, however, the Litts bring that passion and excitement into their business. When asked why they chose to open a restaurant over a different type of business, the answer was simple: both Jonathan and Tamurei grew up in the restaurant industry, having understood it since they were young. The question wasn’t as much about the type of business they wanted to own and operate, but it was more about whether they wanted to franchise or start their own concept.

“While our skills complement each other perfectly, franchising has made up for the areas where our skills were still lacking,” Tamurei said. “We knew that if we went with our own concept, we would have to develop a brand, a look and a menu. That’s fine, but we would have needed help. I’m a finance person and Jonathan is the operator, but creativity is our biggest weakness. With a franchise, you’re getting a restaurant in a box. You get a brand and a product, and when the franchisor is good, they continue to develop the brand, like Ruby’s does.”

Also, since Tamurei is a finance person, she was very attracted to the economics that Ruby’s Diner had to offer. While she was paying close attention to the numbers, Jonathan was able to use his skills to analyze what his day to day would look like with the business. He encourages everyone, no matter what type of franchise they’re looking at, to really consider what each day would look like for you.

Unless you’re 11, like the Litts’ daughter, who loves helping out at the restaurant. She already has that business-oriented mindset and enjoys working at Ruby’s as a hostess. Maybe someday, she’ll tell us what a day in the life looks like for her.