Takumi's Blog

Every year our school host’s a festival. The students use each classroom to make haunted houses, art galleries, restaurants and use the GYM for doing performances like dance and music. It’s customary that the seniors get to use classroom #158; it’s the largest classroom in the school.

Before I start talking about what happens, I’m going to explain a little bit about how the people who organize it are chosen. At the beginning of the school year we get to choose which ‘chore’ we want to do, this ranges from organizing a yearly sports festival, school festival, etc. and also organizing events within the grade to do things together (like cook together, yes, we do cook together).

Once we choose what we want to do, the chosen ones get to start planning and organizing it within the school’s rules, and the whole process is heavily monitored by the school staff. Everything needs to have paperwork and approval by the teachers (not just receipts for costs, but also what your plans are, how you’re going to do it, when you’re going to do it, who’s involved, who’s idea was it…. you get the picture).

Last year was great, they had one restaurant setup in it, and had a dark, laid back setting. I remember it was kinda green-ish, but that’s about it. Oh, the food was great too.

Apparently though, this year’s organizers didn’t like last year’s restaurant, and wanted to make it more interesting. Guess what they did?

They split it up into four different restaurants. They thought this would be easier, more cost efficient, and less work for each individual, and more interesting for the customers (keep note on how they worry about the customers here). When I heard this plan, and before it became final, I did try to tell them that it would make things more complicated and cost more.

• Since each group would be doing different restaurants inside the same room that used to only house one, the amount of customers we can have is very limited.
• Each restaurant would be selling different things, and thus it would need to stock up on different things, which means each student would have to pay more (whereas if it was one restaurant, they could buy in bulk, save, and not have to buy a variety of things because they wouldn’t be offering that many choices)
• It would get more complicated and give each student more work to do because each restaurant requires its own decoration and planning

In the end, they sort of listened to my advice. They decided we will be running three restaurants instead.

I guess I should also mention that the head hancho for the seniors used to be a friend of mine, but, for reasons unknown to me, is not anymore. (I’m assuming this is also why he didn’t put me in the same group as his).

They split it up like this:

• A Cafe
• The Sea House restaurant
• EcoMc (Eco friendly McDonalds, get it?)
• Overall decoration

I thought this would mean it’d be kind of like the cafeteria floor in a mall, where stores have their little booths and all the customers get to sit wherever they want regardless of where they bought their food.  When my former friend told all of us that the cafe was the only one that’s allowed to do drinks, we were all fine with that at first. So when the deadline to turn in the paperwork for what we were going to sell came, we didn’t think of adding drinks to it. The cafe group was kind enough to let us know at the last moment, that they were going to build a wall around the cafe to make it separate from everyone else’s.

I don’t understand their thinking. We sell food, when people buy food, most of the time they buy a drink to go with it. Now I get the fact that building a wall around the cafe might make it seem more like a cafe, but then they leave the big problem of not having drinks for the customers with the food groups.

I went ahead and asked a few teachers if it would be possible to add drinks to our menu, a few, not a lot so we don’t oversell the cafe. They gave me the green light. Here’s where the problem is, since my former friend has some sort of grudge against me, and he’s also one of the more popular kids, got in the way of me arranging a meeting with my group on discussing which drinks we should sell, and some of his other group members also stopped me with the reason that “because we didn’t approve it, you guys can’t sell it.” Does it sound like they would have approved it even if we did ask?

When I talked to one of the girls who I’m on better terms with, one of the reasons they didn’t want us selling is that if we do, people won’t buy drinks from their cafe, and then all the money they put into making it would come back, and it would have been a waste.

I totally understand that, and I don’t want that to happen to them either. But I’m also thinking about the customer and how they are going to feel when there’s nothing to drink and they’re thirsty.

So I proposed two options and with this common rule: we only sell drinks to those who are buying food, and if someone wants a drink, we direct them to the cafe.

1. We sell a limited amount of drinks, and give the profits for the drinks to the cafe. (ie. It costs us $1.00 for the drink, we sell it for $1.50, and give them $0.50)
2. They make a small stand in the food area that sells drinks

I don’t think there’s any downside to either of these options right? The customers are happy, and the cafe still earns money.

The situation is still in progress, and this is just how far it’s come. What do you think would be a better idea for this situation? Any suggestions, comments?

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