5.X — The Owner Has to Get Paid Too #
The owner is also an employee. And the owner deserves a paycheck.
Not a draw. Not money pulled when things look good. A real, scheduled, consistent paycheck — built into the budget the same way any other labor cost is. If your operation cannot support a market-rate salary for the person running it, your operation is not a business. It is a job you own.
This matters for two reasons.
First, it tells the truth about your business. An operator who pays themselves nothing, or pulls money irregularly, is artificially improving their P&L. The business looks more profitable than it is — because the most important labor cost isn’t on the books. When you go to sell, to borrow, or to evaluate whether the business is actually working, that distorted P&L will lie to you.
Second, the restaurant is not your retirement plan. The value of your business is a paper number until someone writes you a check for it. Markets change. Leases expire. Concepts age. The operator who put every dollar back into the business for twenty years and counted on a sale to fund their retirement has a single point of failure — and no backup plan.
Pay yourself a market-rate salary. Build something outside the restaurant. A retirement account. An investment. Real estate. Something that grows independent of whether Tuesday night’s service went well.
