By SALLY  GOOD

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(Nov. 16, 2009) Closing your restaurant is not something you plan before your grand opening. Before opening, you plan a budget, you plan a menu, you plan on cornering the market, and you plan how you’re going to spend all that money. After opening, during the honeymoon phase, you plan and re-plan production schedules, more marketing strategies and expansion.

But rarely do you plan on how to close the doors. To do so could be a self-fulfilling prophecy—dangerous thinking.

But it happens. Friday nights aren’t what you expected. Lunch business falls off. You think about shortening your hours of operation to cut labor.

Nothing seems to help sales. Maybe floods have killed tourism for two years straight. Perhaps a new highway is being constructed 100 yards away. Or three local factories that supply the base of your clientele recently closed their doors. We can’t predict the future or control the weather. But we do have to face reality.

Like most things in life, there is a right way and a wrong way to close a restaurant, and it does involve planning. Before locking the doors one last time, follow the steps below.

But first: Look at all other possibilities, for sanity’s sake. If you don’t, the “what ifs” will haunt you later. Have you had offers to sell? If so, contact the interested parties. Do you have potential investors? If your financial situation is temporary—for example, unusual adverse weather patterns that couldn’t possibly last have affected business—perhaps all you need is a little time that investors can help you buy. Have you hired a consultant? If you were new at the business, investing your last few precious dollars in a professional could save you.

Once you have eliminated all other options, you must:

Get out of denial. Numbers don’t lie. Talk to your accountant. Compare your projected sales with actual sales. Review all your adjustments in labor, ordering, inventory and marketing. If you made mistakes, accept it now. If outside factors have played a role, accept that. Go ahead, be bitter for a few moments. Then shake it off. Don’t hold onto the dream for pride’s sake. Doing so could be the difference between financial disappointment and financial ruin. Don’t wait until you are forced to close.

After you’ve worked through these two things and made the decision, it’s time to move on.

1. Tell no one—other than your lawyer. This is perhaps the hardest step. Your restaurant is your baby, your life’s dream, and it’s dying. That hurts. You’re depressed, angry, confused, worried, nervous, disappointed, stressed to the max, and at moments still wildly, irrationally hopeful—and you need emotional support. You really need to talk to someone. Let that someone be your significant other only and no one else. Not your mom, your best friend or your assistant manager. Telling the wrong person, no matter how much you trust him or her, is tantamount to taking out a full-page ad in the local paper. Once the word leaks out, it will spread like spilled mop water. Staff will quit showing up. (They’re out job-hunting.) Theft will skyrocket. (“They’ll never miss this!”) Your vendors will demand cash—the green kind, not checks. Creditors will start coming around in person. With bats. Just kidding.

2. Choose a date. Make it as soon as possible. This too is difficult: You see inventory being wasted, and that goes against every fiber of your restaurant manager being. Resist the urge to deplete your supplies. An empty walk-in and a long “86” list sends up a big red flag, and it probably won’t save you that much money in the long run. Select a final day that falls at the end of a work week. And who do you tell? That’s right, no one.

3. Update employee files. Make sure you have current phone numbers and addresses.

4. Make lists. (Breathe a little. It’s getting easier. Most stress is caused by procrastinating on making important decisions, and you just cleared that hurdle.)

• Who to contact immediately once the doors are closed: employees and vendors, future large-party reservations, a food bank, payroll or book-keeping service, landlord, banker, and movers.

• Who to contact later, after you’ve vacated the building: utility companies, Internet/cable providers, the post office and realtor.

• What to take with you: signs, office files, licenses, and personal items.

• What to leave behind, sell or put in storage: furnishings, equipment, and smallwares.

• What to do with your spare time—once you’ve closed. Now you can actually go to your son’s Friday night basketball game.

5. Close the doors. Timing this can be a bit tricky. For the rare restaurant that stays open 24 hours, you will have to actually send employees home and tell them they’ve been laid off. Otherwise:

1. Contact employees. It’s important that you do this first. Your employees’ devastation at losing their jobs will be as painful for them as it is for you to close. Let them hear it from you. Offer letters of recommendation. Call them in order of seniority. Leave voice mail messages if necessary.

2. Put a message on your restaurant answering machine that you have closed. Be pleasant, and thank your customers and vendors.

3. Post “closed signs.” Also, cover the windows with paper. Lock all the doors.

4. Call your vendors. Cancel impending orders if you can. If you owe money, tell them you are working out a payment schedule with your accountant. Stay calm but stay in control and keep the calls short.

5. HAVE A DRINK. The hardest part is over. The stress should be slowly rolling off your back by now.

6. Cancel all future dining reservations.

6. Throw an employee appreciation party. This is for closure, and again, for a good final impression. Have it away from the restaurant, perhaps at a pizza parlor. Maybe you can have it the night of closing, or perhaps combine it with passing out final paychecks. Maintain a positive mood, give a speech, and hand out some door prizes. Later, you will thank yourself profusely for this one last seemingly minor gesture. Trust me.

7. Clean! Get rid of all perishables, especially. Leave the premises and equipment in good shape.

Finally, here’s a list of Do’s and Don’ts:

DO…

…quit selling gift certificates as soon as you are certain you will be closing.

…make sure your hostess is getting contact information for reservations.

…keep the entire process in as small a time frame as possible.

DON’T…

…allow unsupervised employees on the premises after closing.

…publicly blame specific individuals or companies.

…answer the phone once you’ve closed.

…beat yourself up. There’s not much you can do for the angry man holding a 10-month-old gift certificate, or the Little League team you promised to sponsor. Sometimes we just have to accept such things as part of the risk of doing business.

It’s done. You should be looking toward the future. When you finally close the door, think of it as a window of opportunity. Don’t forget: Michael Jordan was cut from his high school varsity basketball team. Winston Churchill failed the 6th grade. And Edison tried thousands of experiments before he succeeded with the light bulb.

Sally Good currently owns Manna Bread and Wine in Lubbock, Texas. She recently closed a restaurant in Texas Hill Country.

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This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors and management at Nation’s Restaurant News.