Quick Links
Calendar
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
Categories
Archives
XML/RSS Feed
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Jun 07, 2009 12:29 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Jun 07, 2009 12:29 PM
The final weekend and mountain bikes
Harold's closes this evening (Sunday) until the
19th June
The weekend, though, has been considerably busier than one should expect for this time of year, this being the fault (?) of the Big White Mountain Bike competition.
Although this final event has been a good bonus to the season, it nevertheless has provided a couple of headaches.
Tommy had asked if he could take the weekend off to go to England for a stag party
All in all, it has been a good season.
The weekend, though, has been considerably busier than one should expect for this time of year, this being the fault (?) of the Big White Mountain Bike competition.
Although this final event has been a good bonus to the season, it nevertheless has provided a couple of headaches.
Tommy had asked if he could take the weekend off to go to England for a stag party
All in all, it has been a good season.
Harold's closes this evening (Sunday) until the
19th June in time for the Tour de Suisse bicycle
race.
Inevitably, one can say that it has been a pretty quiet evening, though we are satisfied overall with the business that we have done. The weekend, though, has been considerably busier than one should expect for this time of year, this being the fault (?) of the Big White Mountain Bike competition. Already Friday evening we saw people, especially bikers, arriving for the event, so we had a pretty reasonable evening shift. On Saturday, the main event happened in the street right in front of our door. Inevitably we had a steady stream of business all afternoon and ice-creams were particularly successful seeing the warm weather. In the evening we packed the place between 8 and 9:30 pm when suddenly and for no apparent reason business ground to a halt and we hardly saw a single customer aside from the odd person wanting to buy cigarettes after 11 pm until 10 minutes before closing when people started coming in again just as we were finishing up the cleaning of course!
Although this final event has been a good bonus to the season, it nevertheless has provided a couple of headaches. The first has been a case of budget. As we are closing, the last thing we want is to have lots of stock left over. As we have never had this event before, we had no points of comparison. Were the crowds going to show up in Verbier or was this going to be a flop. And what type of crowds? The Patrouille des Glaciers attracts a pretty passive crowd whereas the Verbier Xtreme puts us under heavy pressure. To make matters worse, the shops are closed now on Sunday, especially the butcher, so that we can't really buy meat on the pessimistic side. In season this is not much of an issue, but for the closing weekend it is a big one. At the end of the day, though, we have just about got it right, though we definitely got too much meat.
The second headache is that we were blissfully unaware of this event a couple of weeks ago. We had absolutely no idea that there was going to be a street party in front of our door. Tommy had asked if he could take the weekend off to go to England for a stag party for a good friend of his. We said ok expecting it to be a quiet weekend. You can guess our surprise and possibly panic when on Thursday we saw them beginning to build ramps in the street. Three times the original expected turnover meant back-to-back shifts for Alan on Saturday following closing the previous night and extended hours for Viviane who, to boot, came down ill and suffered all day. And then, of course, it meant getting up again Sunday morning. At least they could look forward to a welcome break the following week.
All in all, it has been a good season. Not the best (2006), but a close second. We do feel though, that we could have done better, especially as the figures don't take into consideration price rises and that there was so much snow at the beginning of the season to ensure could conditions for the winter. What really played against us this winter was the incredible consistent good weather for the first three months with very little serious precipitation, especially in high season. What this means is that people actually go up the mountain and/or sit out on terraces in the sunshine. Ski shops and Televerbier have had a bumper year. But if people are on the mountain, they are not in town, and if they are not in town or sitting on terraces they are not buying burgers. Bad weather means double or more turnover in the day shift. So a few of those days during the month strategically placed has a major impact on the figures at the end of the month. This is exactly what happened in 2006 with bad weather during Carnaval week and on numerous weekends (the busiest days), especially in March.
The second point is that for some unfathomable reason we did not get the usual Saturday evening Scandinavian invasions when we pack the place at 11pm. Cumulated over the whole season, this has proved to be a fairly important loss. Hopefully, we'll see them back again next year.
This is the last entry for the season. Harold's re-opens on the 19th June (as mentioned above) and we shall resume our blog from the 22nd June. Have a good spring!
Inevitably, one can say that it has been a pretty quiet evening, though we are satisfied overall with the business that we have done. The weekend, though, has been considerably busier than one should expect for this time of year, this being the fault (?) of the Big White Mountain Bike competition. Already Friday evening we saw people, especially bikers, arriving for the event, so we had a pretty reasonable evening shift. On Saturday, the main event happened in the street right in front of our door. Inevitably we had a steady stream of business all afternoon and ice-creams were particularly successful seeing the warm weather. In the evening we packed the place between 8 and 9:30 pm when suddenly and for no apparent reason business ground to a halt and we hardly saw a single customer aside from the odd person wanting to buy cigarettes after 11 pm until 10 minutes before closing when people started coming in again just as we were finishing up the cleaning of course!
Although this final event has been a good bonus to the season, it nevertheless has provided a couple of headaches. The first has been a case of budget. As we are closing, the last thing we want is to have lots of stock left over. As we have never had this event before, we had no points of comparison. Were the crowds going to show up in Verbier or was this going to be a flop. And what type of crowds? The Patrouille des Glaciers attracts a pretty passive crowd whereas the Verbier Xtreme puts us under heavy pressure. To make matters worse, the shops are closed now on Sunday, especially the butcher, so that we can't really buy meat on the pessimistic side. In season this is not much of an issue, but for the closing weekend it is a big one. At the end of the day, though, we have just about got it right, though we definitely got too much meat.
The second headache is that we were blissfully unaware of this event a couple of weeks ago. We had absolutely no idea that there was going to be a street party in front of our door. Tommy had asked if he could take the weekend off to go to England for a stag party for a good friend of his. We said ok expecting it to be a quiet weekend. You can guess our surprise and possibly panic when on Thursday we saw them beginning to build ramps in the street. Three times the original expected turnover meant back-to-back shifts for Alan on Saturday following closing the previous night and extended hours for Viviane who, to boot, came down ill and suffered all day. And then, of course, it meant getting up again Sunday morning. At least they could look forward to a welcome break the following week.
All in all, it has been a good season. Not the best (2006), but a close second. We do feel though, that we could have done better, especially as the figures don't take into consideration price rises and that there was so much snow at the beginning of the season to ensure could conditions for the winter. What really played against us this winter was the incredible consistent good weather for the first three months with very little serious precipitation, especially in high season. What this means is that people actually go up the mountain and/or sit out on terraces in the sunshine. Ski shops and Televerbier have had a bumper year. But if people are on the mountain, they are not in town, and if they are not in town or sitting on terraces they are not buying burgers. Bad weather means double or more turnover in the day shift. So a few of those days during the month strategically placed has a major impact on the figures at the end of the month. This is exactly what happened in 2006 with bad weather during Carnaval week and on numerous weekends (the busiest days), especially in March.
The second point is that for some unfathomable reason we did not get the usual Saturday evening Scandinavian invasions when we pack the place at 11pm. Cumulated over the whole season, this has proved to be a fairly important loss. Hopefully, we'll see them back again next year.
This is the last entry for the season. Harold's re-opens on the 19th June (as mentioned above) and we shall resume our blog from the 22nd June. Have a good spring!
Posted: Sun - April 27, 2008 at 11:57 AM