The Season 6 premiere episode of one of my favorite shows, The Conners, features one of my favorite actors, Nick Offerman, guest starring as a chef and host of the reality show, “Restaurant 9-1-1”. In this fake reality show, Nick Offerman travels to various failing restaurants to fix their issues. In The Conners, the restaurant that needs assistance is the The Lunch Box, owned by the character Jackie Harris (Laurie Metcalf).

You might be wondering why I am writing about a tv show on a web site featuring the hunt for my dream. Well, as I work through what I want to do next, I can no longer simply think of myself. Now, I have to think in terms of a family, a wife, and hopefully kids, and how my dream fits in. In this episode of The Conners, this topic is confronted head on when Nick Offerman’s character is talking to Jackie about all the time, effort, and passion that would need to be done to bring The Lunch Box back to greatness:

Harris: Care? I just want to have a life.
Offerman: When you own a restaurant, that becomes your life.
Harris: Yeah, sure, if you’ve already had a life to begin with. I used mine trying to prove to my mother that I could be successful at something. So I went down a lot of different roads…And then I thought, “if I could make this place a success, that would really do it.” But when I found Neville [her husband], I just realized, that I didn’t need approval, I needed love. And now, I never want us to be apart.
…
Offerman: Look, you know that you have a choice to make here – this restaurant, or this Neville woman…Look, I was willing to pay any price for a successful restaurant. Two wives divorced me, and I just bought a truck for my son who I’ve never met. I don’t feel that kind of passionate obsession coming off of you. I mean, there’s some desperation, a whiff of crazy, but no passion.
Harris: You’re right because I don’t want to do it anymore.

The Conners S6 E1: The Publisher Cops Show Pilot

If you don’t watch the show, or even know anything about it, this may be too much context. But hopefully you still understand the overarching theme that is being presented. Restaurants can be time and life sucks and people have to make sacrifices in their own life to be successful in the industry. To have a relationship, significant other, or a family, while working in the restaurant business, can be almost impossible if not completely impossible. This is why Birdie’s decided to open their own restaurant and run it so that employees’ lives aren’t forced to fit into the job, but that the job fits into their lives. This is why Jeremy Umansky at Larder treats his employees as family.

As I work through what is next, and what my entrepreneurial dream is, I need to continually think about how this new venture will fit into my already established life, marriage, and family. This is why, never mind the cost, opening a traditional restaurant with traditional hours most likely won’t be in the cards. Something more unique and “Shane like” will have to be devised. What that is, I have no idea. But I will figure it out. Eventually.