- Original Poster
- #1
Good morning!
I/we need some advice for our food business.
We recently rented a unit in a food court, the kind of place that has several food and drink vendors, lots of seating in the middle etc.
We are there two weeks and already there are issues. Having spoken to some of the other vendors we get the impression that the owners are not too bothered about doing anything to help. I have outlined some of the issues below and would welcome any advice/help...
1) The place is constantly cold. The front of the building has two openings with no doors(shutters only) so the cold constantly comes into the food hall, I have yet to see any customers eating without a jacket on. I know that this has been brought up before but nothing is done other than putting a large heater in the middle of the seating area but this faces one way only and is usually surrounded by the cleaners trying to stay warm.
2)There is an issue with flies. We think this may be caused by 1-2 vendors not covering their food but have no proof of this but the flies are obvious and a health hazard.
3)People bringing in for from outside to use the seating area. I have brought this up with the manager but he says there is nothing he can do to police this. I said its unacceptable as I am paying rent here and don't expect to see someone eating a KFC/McDonalds/Greggs in front of my unit when I am trying to sell food too. They even have the cheek to ask for napkins and cutlery. I told management that if they do not do something about this then I will ask the people to leave myself but was told I cannot do this yetis is costing us money as they are not spending here.
4)We get a lot of school kids coming in which we welcome however some are loud and put a lot of other customers off coming in here. Management don't eat to do anything to address this and are happy to let them curse and shout loudly in front of families who are trying to enjoy some food.
5) Access to hot water. There are several food vendors here yet there is not enough hot water for all as the owners have installed a residential boiler and not a larger commercial boiler. This means we regularly have no hot water if and when other vendors are using it.
6) WiFi - much like the water boiler the WiFi is a basic residential set up which is not great when several business's need to connect their delivery apps, POS systems etc. it regularly fails so we and others cannot connect sufficiently at times as the signal is too weak as wet re all sharing it.
5) Sanitation. There are two toilets here. The mens have a cubicle and urinal (not sure about the ladies but I would imagine its similar, in bad shape and not maintained)one is always out of action at one time, this week it was the urinal. These are not meant to be used by the public but they use them anyways as there are no toilet facilities for the public to use here. Again there is no hot water in the taps so washing hands is a non start so we have to return to our units to wash hands in hot water.
6) Marketing. We were told that they have a social media marketing person but they are useless. The images are terrible they regular misspell or incorrectly name products when promoting them. They even tagged in the last place we were trading from in a post!!
7)Utilities and billing. We have asked to see the breakdown of electricity charges but have yet to see them. They take a reading for each unit and bill accordingly but we have yet to see the rates we are being charged. We are still to receive our first "bill" for electricity usage but again from speaking with other vendors, the management refuse to Gove over this info so we think they are charging us more and maybe making a profit via overcharging (we are not 100% sure about this though as we have not seen the per KW costs).
We first looked at this unit at the end of Aug, since then several vendors have left, some only lasting a month there. One guy who was doing a great trade there only lasted three months because when he complained about some of the issues above the owner gave him his notice and told him to vacate the unit (we all have rolling monthly contracts)
The vendors have asked several times for a meeting with the owner who will agree to this but not show up. He has been known to shout down at people who make a complaint about the place. I have met him once so have yet to see that side of him however this has been relayed to me by more than one vendor.
Lastly just to add that the centre manager is a great guy but we feel he is stuck between a rock and a hard place, he does not want to rock the boat with his employer too much while at the same time trying to keep the vendors happy, I don't envy his position!
So thats pretty much it in a nutshell, a rather big nutshell and any/all advice is welcome and appreciated!
Thanks
I/we need some advice for our food business.
We recently rented a unit in a food court, the kind of place that has several food and drink vendors, lots of seating in the middle etc.
We are there two weeks and already there are issues. Having spoken to some of the other vendors we get the impression that the owners are not too bothered about doing anything to help. I have outlined some of the issues below and would welcome any advice/help...
1) The place is constantly cold. The front of the building has two openings with no doors(shutters only) so the cold constantly comes into the food hall, I have yet to see any customers eating without a jacket on. I know that this has been brought up before but nothing is done other than putting a large heater in the middle of the seating area but this faces one way only and is usually surrounded by the cleaners trying to stay warm.
2)There is an issue with flies. We think this may be caused by 1-2 vendors not covering their food but have no proof of this but the flies are obvious and a health hazard.
3)People bringing in for from outside to use the seating area. I have brought this up with the manager but he says there is nothing he can do to police this. I said its unacceptable as I am paying rent here and don't expect to see someone eating a KFC/McDonalds/Greggs in front of my unit when I am trying to sell food too. They even have the cheek to ask for napkins and cutlery. I told management that if they do not do something about this then I will ask the people to leave myself but was told I cannot do this yetis is costing us money as they are not spending here.
4)We get a lot of school kids coming in which we welcome however some are loud and put a lot of other customers off coming in here. Management don't eat to do anything to address this and are happy to let them curse and shout loudly in front of families who are trying to enjoy some food.
5) Access to hot water. There are several food vendors here yet there is not enough hot water for all as the owners have installed a residential boiler and not a larger commercial boiler. This means we regularly have no hot water if and when other vendors are using it.
6) WiFi - much like the water boiler the WiFi is a basic residential set up which is not great when several business's need to connect their delivery apps, POS systems etc. it regularly fails so we and others cannot connect sufficiently at times as the signal is too weak as wet re all sharing it.
5) Sanitation. There are two toilets here. The mens have a cubicle and urinal (not sure about the ladies but I would imagine its similar, in bad shape and not maintained)one is always out of action at one time, this week it was the urinal. These are not meant to be used by the public but they use them anyways as there are no toilet facilities for the public to use here. Again there is no hot water in the taps so washing hands is a non start so we have to return to our units to wash hands in hot water.
6) Marketing. We were told that they have a social media marketing person but they are useless. The images are terrible they regular misspell or incorrectly name products when promoting them. They even tagged in the last place we were trading from in a post!!
7)Utilities and billing. We have asked to see the breakdown of electricity charges but have yet to see them. They take a reading for each unit and bill accordingly but we have yet to see the rates we are being charged. We are still to receive our first "bill" for electricity usage but again from speaking with other vendors, the management refuse to Gove over this info so we think they are charging us more and maybe making a profit via overcharging (we are not 100% sure about this though as we have not seen the per KW costs).
We first looked at this unit at the end of Aug, since then several vendors have left, some only lasting a month there. One guy who was doing a great trade there only lasted three months because when he complained about some of the issues above the owner gave him his notice and told him to vacate the unit (we all have rolling monthly contracts)
The vendors have asked several times for a meeting with the owner who will agree to this but not show up. He has been known to shout down at people who make a complaint about the place. I have met him once so have yet to see that side of him however this has been relayed to me by more than one vendor.
Lastly just to add that the centre manager is a great guy but we feel he is stuck between a rock and a hard place, he does not want to rock the boat with his employer too much while at the same time trying to keep the vendors happy, I don't envy his position!
So thats pretty much it in a nutshell, a rather big nutshell and any/all advice is welcome and appreciated!
Thanks
