Love’s Seafood & Steak Restaurant

Restaurant Name: Love's Seafood & Steak Restaurant

Number Of Employees: 43

Owners: Donna & Fulton Love

Location: Savannah, GA

Love’s Seafood & Steak is a family owned, multi-generational restaurant dating back to the late 1940’s. What started as a humble road-side fish-camp has earned its place as a staple in the Savannah restaurant scene. Owned and operated by Fulton and Donna Love. Fulton inherited the restaurant from his father, and one day wants to pass it down to his son (John Love - age 45) and grandson (David Love - age 30 ) However, with the state of the restaurant and the lack of ambition shown by their son and grandson, they are not ready to hand-down the restaurant. Despite having a general manager, and several managers, they HAVE to be at the restaurant in order for it to run. If they’re not there, they worry about what will happen (or what will be served!) If they’re not micro-managing everything, food will go out undercooked or incorrect, people will show up drunk (or not at all) and chaos will ensue. 

Additionally, Donna and Fulton fully understand that they are stuck in the past in every aspect of the restaurant: from their menu, to their “hand-written” host system, to their antiquated managerial style; they understand that the way that they’re running the restaurant isn’t modern and certainly isn’t efficient. They want to know how to bring their restaurant into the 21st century while still honoring their history.

One of their biggest issues is the disrespect and disconnect that exists between management and the employees. Not a day goes by without a fight or an incident. The servers or kitchen staff can’t stand Donna. They think that she micromanages and think she’s a flat out “b!^*tch.” They say as much when they trash talk her around the restaurant. Donna doesn’t know any other way to get through to her employees, so she continues to be aggressive and abrasive. This lack of trust between staff and ownership opens suspicions: what is happening when Donna and Fulton are not around? Are they stealing? Drinking on the job? Bad talking the family and creating a hostile work environment?

Fulton and Donna also have a major blind-spot as it relates to their bar, alcohol sales and inventory. They do not understand how to price drinks, how to properly do inventory and how to make alcohol a revenue generator. They worry that because they don’t fully understand what they’re doing in the bar that they are losing money, or worse: employees are giving away drinks or sneaking bottles. 

Love’s does a lot of business. But that doesn’t always mean that the kitchen is always consistent or putting out the highest quality food. Chef and GM, Brandon, has extreme ADD which makes it very difficult for him to concentrate on individual tasks, not to mention getting the food out in a timely manner. Brandon will not even start prepping the food until the kitchen is already open, which of course causes a domino effect of delayed service. Love’s gets so backed up that the other manager, Amy, is pulled away from her job on the floor attending to customers and forced to lend her hand in the back - just to help get the food out. Even Donna and Fulton have to leave their home (which is just across the street from the restaurant) and help with the food themselves!

Additionally, there’s entire groups of people outside of their standard customers base who are potential customers, who simply are not being market towards, namely young people, single people, Hispanic groups and other groups outside of families and tourists. Amanda, a server who is a Mexican American, believes there is a whole Hispanic community that is not being tapped into. The few that decide to venture in cannot understand the menu or know what to order. 

 Lastly, Fulton and Donna are not convinced that John and David are ready to take over the restaurant. In fact, Amy (one of their longest-standing managers) has been interested in owning the restaurant someday, but the Love’s want to keep it in the family. Donna and Fulton aren’t sure how to inspire John and David enough to rise to the level of responsibility it takes to own and operate a restaurant. Donna and Fulton aren’t getting any younger and if they want to ever retire they need to figure out the issues with their restaurant before they can pass it down to the next generation.