Bug-A-Boo closes again
November 16, 2010 at 6:00 pm in Alexandria Echo Press
Bug-A-Boo Bay is closed again.
The Alexandria restaurant closed last Wednesday morning and about 50 workers are out of a job, according to Shannon Bracey, front of the house manager at Bug-A-Boo Bay. Continue Reading
Just a case of the owners of Bug a Boo biting off more than they can chew. There was no such thing of this one hour talk when they bought the place. It is only being used now as an excuse because of poor ownership.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Shane, please tell us, what should the owners have done differently since re-opening the place last spring?
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Look into the numbers a bit better. What did they do differently than before? There was a reason it already closed by a well established owner and it didnt work, what made them think it would be different? I have yet to hear anything from the current owners taking the blame. All the blame is just being passed to the city council. Although I agree the extra hour is not a big deal, the city council did not buy the business. Is the city council responsible for other people in this town losing their jobs?
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Shane, thank you for the reply.
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Maybe the owner should take some responibility for the closing and putting these workers out of work. In everything I heard it was the city’s fault. While the city should have some of the blame. This wouldnt have been needed if Bug A Boo was doing good.
I think Mr. Stodola thought he could re-open and the crowds would come. But when you have overpriced food and you hire the worng people along with mimimal good service, you are setting yourself up for failure.
Maybe the owner should accept the blame for the closing.
And to Ms. Bracey…”a close knit family”……really?
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It’s too bad the city of Alexandria can’t find some council members that have guts enough to debate and vote. No reason given for the fence sitting session. Only 1 council member had the will to put forth a motion. If they don’t want to debate or vote why in the hell are they there.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Personally, I think if the difference between success and failure is the hour between 12:00 and 1:00 am, then there is truly something much more wrong with this picture than what has been said thus far.
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Bob,
You missed what I was trying to say……I meant in this whole debate, you have workers and the owner putting all the blame on the city. He wouldnt have been in the “take or leave it’ position if business was good. But all I hear is the city council being blamed for putting thse people out of work. I meant the owner should be partly at fault.
After all it wasnt the city that closed Bug A Boo, it was the owner. And what does it say for the owner that he couldnt make things work in less than 6 months…
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Two different thoughts:
First the council has every right to extend drinking hours or not – regardless of number of jobs. My issue is that the council and Mayor have basically voted NO through their(non) actions but not had the guts / courtesy / common sense or whatever to defend their (non) action. If they stood up and said it was due to safety, noise, religion, or whatever – that could then be the basis for discussion and holding them responsible.
Second – whether the extra hour would make a difference operationally is not exactly the issue – the current owner has said he is shutting down and the only buyer in sight is making the extra hour a condition of sale. It is unlikely that there will ever be a precise answer to whether this one hour would make the difference financially – but we do know that without it the sale is dead and the current owner will (or has) close it. So the real issue is the buyers PERCEPTION that it is a deal breaker – and he has most or all of the cards.
So our council and mayor have side stepped the issue and the business is closed. What a great outcome for Alexandria!!!!!!!!!
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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I’m not sure blame for the business failing has to be placed anywhere but on the shoulders of the owner. They tried and failed. It happens all the time. 80% of all new businesses fail. I disagree with the sentiment that a one-hour time slot could save it from failure. That’s ridiculous.
Where I parted ways with your comment was when you made it sound as though with the decision to go into business also comes a responsibility to create jobs for others. That’s that entitlement mentality that has invaded our society and it’s wrong plain and simple. I am in business because I farm part time. Does that mean I am wrong because I do all my own work and don’t hire a full-time employee? I can guaratee that if that were the case, I would not remain in business simply because I could not afford to meet that requirement.
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I have a unique perspective as I live in Detroit Lakes and work in Alexandria. I’ve been a Zorbaz patron for longer than I’d like to admit, and I’m on a first name basis with the bulk of the Zorbaz staff. (Insert derogatory comments here.) In almost every place Zorbaz has had an establishment, they’ve been hugely successful. It would be very surprising if they didn’t succeed in Alexandria.
DL has had 2 am bar close available since the state changed the law. There was minimal impact to the town in regards to cost and crime after the initial adjustment period subsided. Meaning very little downside to John Q. Citizen and the Alexandra area.
The simple fact is, Bug-a-boo and Zorbaz came to the City Council and told them, “If you don’t implement 2 am, Bug-a-boo will close, Zorbaz will leave, and these people will be out of a job.” The Alexandria City Council had the opportunity to secure a multi-million dollar, long term business in the Alexandria area and they didn’t act. How was that a good choice?
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I wonder….is it possilble that the good folks of Alexandria, represented by their city council, have decided that enough is enough and extending the legal hours only encourages more unnecessary drinking and carousing?
The owners and potential buyers made a choice and issued an ultimatum. They stood by their decision and I respect that. One person on the city board moved to discuss a topic but there was no other member interested enough to even second the motion so it could be brought to the table for discussion. That’s the way the cooking crumbles.
It’s kind of like when a group of friends are sitting around chit-chatting and suddenly one of them blurts out, “Did you hear about ….blah…blah?” and the entire group goes silent. Nobody is interested so the subject is dropped. You want to discuss it? Get others interested enough to talk about it and then bring it up again. The council has not voted to ban the topic. This council member that wants to get this on the table now has the task to get at least one other member interested enough to second her motion and then she can bring it to the table. What’s the big deal? That’s the way it works.
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Bob, I disagree on the unnecessary drinking and carousing. If people want to drink from 1-2 am, they don’t need the bar open to do that. But we all have our opinion on how to spend our free time and I’ll leave it at that. We’re both entitled to our opinion and we don’t have to agree with each other…:)
The extension allows a business to take advantage of an extra hour of revenue. Would this be an issue if there was a city ordinance that regulated when a Convenience Store can be open? Maybe, maybe not. State law allows for an extra hour and all Zorbaz is trying to do is make sure they can take advantage of it. Why wouldn’t a business want that?
I agree with you that the issue isn’t dead. I do believe this could be the start of a missed opportunity. Zorbaz is a well-run establishment with a very large fan base of people throughout MN. All indicators are that they would be around for a long time providing revenue and jobs to the area. From a City perspective, it’s the potential for missed revenue and lost jobs and in my opinion, that’s a poor choice by the City Council to not pass an ordinance that would have little adverse impact.
After the motion was made and failed, the other council members could have made a motion to investigate the impact further, or recommended they discuss the issue with other owners, or made a motion to discuss it again at the next meeting. Instead, I believe it just got tabled and as far as I know, there is no agenda to discuss it further. If that is the case, and it does die out, then it is a missed opportunity.
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Mike D – my family LOVES the Zorbas in Detroit Lakes, we rave about it. We are sad to hear they are not coming to Alexandria.
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And here I thought blackmail was illegal. Silly me!
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i used to work out there before the new owners took over and im glad i never went back , my friends that worked out there this summer said it was just udder chaos. no one knew what they were doing and the lack of management so so this failure is 100% on the owners and blaming it on the 1 hour extension just shows you how smart they really are
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Udder chaos? It’s a dairy?
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funny you caught the udder part.
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Ryan, you are correct that the failure of Bug-a-boo is on the owners themselves. However, Zorbaz not coming to Alexandria happened after the City Council essentially dropped the extended hours. The Zorbaz CEO, Cole Hanson, was already down in Alexandria helping manage Bug-a-boo and begin the transition. The commitment by Zorbaz was made and was being followed-through. However, that all halted after the extended hours were left in limbo.
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There is lots of conversation here about bad management, the precise impact of add’l hour etc. These are “rabbit trail” conversations – they lead nowhere.
If the current owner was saying he would stay open if only he could get the add’l hour that might be fair discussion. It is my understanding that the current owner came to the council basically admitting failure (so no further need to pile on that issue) and saying that if he could not sell to Zorbas he would close. Zorbas had made the add’l hour a deal breaker in their offer to buy. So if management ability is the issue it should shift to Zorbas who seem to have a proven track record. I do not believe that Zorbas said that the only possible way that they could make money was with the add’l hour. They did say that it was a central issue to making the buying decision – which is absolutely their right.
I do not believe that the loss of jobs is an absolute reason to approve the add’l hour – HOWEVER, the failure to have a meaningful discussion on the issue is a FAILURE of the council. They could have each stated their reasons, which I assume they have reasons, and then we would know and understand why the decision was made. If it was mainly safety there could be a closer review of safety stats in other similar situations. etc etc etc.
Since the normally visible mayor and council have disappeared maybe we should be putting their picture on milk cartons to see if we can locate them??
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“I do not believe that the loss of jobs is an absolute reason to approve the add’l hour – HOWEVER, the failure to have a meaningful discussion on the issue is a FAILURE of the council. ”
I believe I can agree with this statement but I still think it comes down to one thing – the council member failed to obtain support to bring it to the table. I don’t believe it is the responsibility of the council, or any council, to discuss each and every topic raised. Part of the reason for Robert’s rules requiring a 2nd to a motion is to make certain a council is not wasting precious time discussing topics unnecessarily just because one member wants to bring it up.
Based on this discussion thread there certainly seems to be support in the community to warrant bringing the discussion to the table. This council member did the right thing by asking it to be discussed and learned that there is little support on the board. Now, in order to fulfill her responsibility to her constituents, she needs to work on the council to get it to the table.
I hope she doesn’t see the lack of response to her request as a failure but as motivation to work harder for those that have elected her into office.
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Actually, most of the boards I’ve been on have a discussion BEFORE a motion is made.
I don’t know if that was the case here.
It WAS discussed at the prior meeting.
” I don’t believe it is the responsibility of the council, or any council, to discuss each and every topic raised.”
If this topic was on the Council agenda, I believe it IS the responsibility of the Council to discuss it.
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I neglected to mention that just because the sale appears to have failed, if the board should decide to extend the hours, I’m guessing that Zorbas may once again be interested. I suppose it’s possible they may have already realocated the budget elsewhere but that would be a quick turn-around I think.
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Bob – “……..I don’t believe it is the responsibility of the council, or any council, to discuss each and every topic raised.” I agree with this in principle – but in this case we have a situation where the council had had hearings and 3 -1 were IN FAVOR and there were 40 or so people in the audience – that puts this issue in a much brighter light than some single resident issue or some whim of a council member. It is now a week later – the mayor usually calls open line if there is a stray dog issue – why is everyone underground???
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Admittedly, I don’t know all the history behind this event. Just commenting on what I know from the original posting.
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Is it possible, that this is just one more Alexandria business that has failed, due to overpricing, poorly trained staff, bad customer relations, arrogant management, etc?
Nah….
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b.a.c. – Absolutely it failed for many or all of the reasons you list. The issue is not and never was saving the “former” owner. The issue is that there is a buyer with a proven record of pricing, training staff, customer relations, etc ready to jump in………with one condition – the additional hour. That is what the council was facing – or should have faced up to.
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