During our epic cousins week at the beach Lucas ran a restaurant with the help from his cousins. It was a breakfast joint called Cousins Restaurant. The restaurant was open every morning from 8-10.
Aunts, uncles, grandmas, cousins, and even Michael, Henry, and I purchased meals. Lucas was responsible for creating the menu with pricing. He also had to come up with a grocery list. His cousin Greta helped him with some of the planning in the weeks leading up to the beach vacation.
We bought the groceries for Lucas, but he had to pay us back with the profits from the restaurant. He also had to hire employees and pay them. Lucas did a lot of research about how much food items cost and what the mark-up should be. He also had to figure out how much to pay employees.
His cousins Violet, Barrett, and Greta helped in the kitchen. Max, Henry, and Barrett were also delivery boys. The delivery boys loved delivering to Grandma Miriam because she was a big tipper. Sometimes the delivery boys would get distracted at grandma’s and forget to come back and help.
He learned great lessons running his restaurant. He was working in a small kitchen with limited cookware. His employees sometimes got sidetracked (Barrett liked eating the chocolate chips). Timing the preparation of the food was difficult. One morning eight customers showed up at the same time. He had to learn how to deal with customer complaints. Sometimes he had to start over if a meal was not prepared correctely.
Lucas stuck with it all week. His cousins showed up around 7 to help get set up and they all worked hard, for the most part, until the last customer left, around 10 am.
Lucas ended up earning a profit from the restaurant. He really did earn it. He showed a great work ethic. The food was delicious too. Even his Uncle Sam raved about the Egg Combo, and he is a tough critic.
We are proud that he stuck with it and that he took it seriously. Kids can do a lot more than we think they can. Many times we do not allow them to show what they are capable of. If we do not let our kids try things because those things seem too hard or we are afraid they might fail, then we will never know what they are capable of, and neither will they.
