I took a road trip recently to visit my mother on the Oregon coast.  After driving for six hours, and getting into town late–too late to surprise my mom–I decided to have a little Irish whisky and celebrate St. Patrick’s day before checking in at my motel and hitting the hay.

I walked into a restaurant/bar that I had taken my mom to on a previous visit and liked very much.  Wasn’t sure if it was open or closed, and there was no sign to guide me as I stepped into the place.  I didn’t see anyone.  No customers and no employees.  Hmm.  I guess they’re closed, but I wasn’t willing to give up that easily.

Um…Excuse me…

I walked back into the kitchen of the place to see if I could determine if they were still serving.  No one there, either.  This is getting rather baffling.  I walked back out to the dining room only to strike out again.  Can’t find a sole.  I guess that means they are closed.  Oh well.

On my way towards the door, I happened to notice A FEW THOUSAND DOLLARS IN CASH sitting on the bar!  Nice tall stacks of twenties, tens, fives, and ones.  Wow.  I thought for a second of how lucky they were that it was me who walked in and not someone else.

Lock the door!

I walked back into the kitchen again–this time all the way into the back storage area only to find a guy with headphones on cleaning up.  “Excuse me, are you still serving?”  “No, we are closed.”  “Um, okay.  You might want to lock your front door with all of that cash sitting out.”

Seriously.  I did not make this up.  It actually happened.  Now I know restaurants tend to be 24 hour operations.  There is usually someone there, even long after the place is closed, if only the night crew cleaning up the joint.

Be smart about it.  I worked at a place where the night cleaning crew was vacuuming in the other part of the restaurant when some smart person figured it out and walked in and helped themselves to a handful of bottles of booze.  That was all they took.  We got lucky on that one.  After that we made sure the door was locked.

There is this thing called safety

Protecting your cash and your product is one thing, but protecting your employees is something different altogether.  We live in a country with about 300 million guns.  When money and alcohol are involved things get tempting and complicated–So lock that door!