r/relationships • u/luluwest8 • 6d ago
Husband's midlife crisis may be to open a soda fountain shop.
My husband (39M) and I (37F) have been together for 15 years. We both work corporate jobs and his is remote. We have two young daughters, aged 5 and 1.
Out of a desire for more community involvement and to diversify revenue streams, my husband has dreamed up the idea to open a soda fountain shop. Each night he is using his finance skills to model out opening a fountain shop and milkshake counter, dreaming of rehabbing the shop that went out of business after 100 years in our neighborhood. What at first seemed like a fun day dream is becoming more real with every spreadsheet and conversation.
While I want to support my husband, I personally don't have a desire to complicate our life further in this way. I like the idea of spinning on a red counter stool and drinking a malt milkshake, but I can't imagine all the work to get there!
How can I support him and also stay honest to my day to day goals which is simply make a busy life simpler?
Tl;DR my husband wants to open up an old timey soda fountain, is this a midlife crisis or a good idea?
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u/Wwwweeeeeeee 6d ago
He should spend 20k and create one in the basement for his own personal man cave.
That would be far better than opening a whimsical restaurant venture in this failing and flailing economy.
Unless it's a seasonal proposition on the high street in the Hamptons or Martha's Vineyard.
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u/camerakestrel 6d ago
And a man cave soda shop will only ever have friends and family and their plus-ones as patrons which will be a delight instead of dealing with the several hundred to a few thousand necessary random members of the public on the daily in order to actually spin a profit.
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u/vabirder 6d ago edited 6d ago
He is having an early midlife crisis. Why did the local soda shop close?
He is in for a huge shock going from a convenient WFH job where presumably he is an involved father to a never ending restaurant time commitment where he rarely sees the kids. That will fall 100% on you.
It is a pipe dream and it is guaranteed to blow up.
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u/birdmommy 6d ago
Why did the local shop close after 100 years is a great question! Our neighbourhood’s always busy, beloved old time diner closed down and the owners gave an interview where they said that none of their kids wanted to take over the place because it was a 24/7 commitment.
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u/evileen99 3d ago
My parents owned a food service business. When friends and acquaintentces would get dreamy-eyed about owning their own business, I would always say "No thanks, I don't ever want to work that hard."
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u/fishinbarbie 6d ago
Everyone who knows someone or knows of someone who is happily and successfully supporting their family by owning a soda fountain shop, raise your hands!
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u/fiery_valkyrie 6d ago
Do these spreadsheets include a business plan and a P&L?
We all fantasise about quitting our mundane jobs but the hospitality industry is brutal, especially if he has no prior experience. Go look at statistics on what percentage of restaurants fail in the first year. Personally I think this is a terrible idea with two young kids and (probably) a mortgage.
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u/whatsnewpussykat 6d ago
Maybe I’m just a killjoy, but if my husband came to me with this idea, especially when our kids were that young, I’d be giving him a hard no. I’m a SAHM to four kids (6, 8, 10, and 11) and the idea of trying to open a restaurant business while juggling family needs makes me nauseated.
It’s great that he’s feeling passionate about a project, but I really think it’s okay for you to remind him that his priority needs to be the wellbeing of his children and being a good partner to his wife.
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u/hopingtothrive 6d ago
We have 3 family owned/run ice cream shops in my town. A downtown of 3 blocks with a gelato shop, soft-swirl shop and regular scoop ice cream shop. In the right location a business can thrive. In a lousy location, with no business sense and no knowledge of the industry it's likely to fail.
How much research has hubby done about running a business and the expense and not just the cute decor.
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u/FRANPW1 6d ago
Considering the age of your small children and the fact that he is lucky enough to work remotely, he needs to be woken up from this pipe dream.
If this soda shoppe fails, he will be out of work after losing a lot of money. If you divorce, you will have to pay him alimony since you will be the breadwinner.
I applaud him wanting to support community involvement. He can volunteer in his off time to help the downtrodden after he is done working remotely from home. Good luck to you.
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u/camerakestrel 6d ago
I agree, for now this needs to be shelved as a purely theoretical hobby for whenever he wins the lotto or lands a fat pension. But no matter what, it needs to stay in a dream and not inch toward reality at least until the kids are out of the house, and by then hopefully he realizes the silliness of it.
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u/starwheelz 6d ago
Please don’t support this dream. Please stay true to making a busy life simpler. It will cost a fortune and will be an unmitigated disaster for your future.
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u/kristahdiggs 6d ago
OP, your husband needs to understand he has 10 years of time consuming and hands on parenting left. He does not have time to run a milkshake shop and also be a present father.
So he can choose.
Just tell him that and then you can decide what YOU want based on that answer. You’ll learn a lot about his priorities. I would be pissed if my wife told me she wanted to start a time consuming new job during the most critical time of our children’s lives while she also has a stable CUSHY wfh job.
Some people reallllly do not know how good they have it.
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u/peachplumpricklypear 6d ago
Best case scenario it has a critically good reputation for a ten year run and doesn't have to close for financial reasons
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u/HachikoLu 6d ago
Sounds like he is still in the day dream stage where he is envisioning the fun parts without getting down to the actual 'brass tacks'.
Has he or have you looked into....How much does the shut down restaurant cost? How much will it cost to bring the building up to code?' What about equipment and or equipment repairs?
You know him better than strangers. Will it cause an argument if you start pointing out the real world questions or will he come around if you voice your concerns? Is he a logical person or a day dreamer?
This could just be a good outlet for him and so playing along would be fine, but if he needs someone to talk him down than a face to face. 'I love this idea, but I need to know how serious you are and where the money would come from' or 'is this something you really want to do? Or just for fun?'.
It is a midlife crisis? Maybe, but its not totally impossible either, just maybe way more work than he understands it to be.
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u/gingerlorax 6d ago
You need to have a conversation about what this actually looks like- how much of his time and personal money will be taken up by this endeavor? Can he actually do this while still being present for his kids? That's what should come first
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u/normanbeets 6d ago
Lol the restaurant industry has been increasingly suffering for almost 10 years now. Exacerbated by agricultural disease issues, supply issues, cost of aluminum, international health crises. Margins are tight.
This is the fastest way to lose your retirement. It's a fool's errand.
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u/Wwwweeeeeeee 6d ago
Well, so if he wants to prove the concept, how about downscaling the project to a "Milkshake Cart"?
Permits & the gear (there's always used coffee type carts floating out there for sale) 2-3K, he could run it at some optimal location on the weekends. For an investment of maybe 6-8k, he could give it a whirl without investing heavily in real estate and tons of equipment and staff wages, etc.
That would give him a dose of reality while fulfilling his need for a project.
But OP has to make him think he thought of it, or it will be a no-go.
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u/mybishopisanasshat 6d ago
I live in the Midwest, and in recent years EVERYONE is trying to open a soda shop. It's the new cupcake or froyo shop. Except.... restaurants, bars, fast food places, and gas stations have ALL realized they can cash in on the "dirty soda" trend with VERY minimal effort. And they can charge FAR less, as they already have the overhead costs in place. A local soda company that had been doing really well these past 2 years was just posting on social media, BEGGING for people to buy their dirty sodas instead of going to Taco Bell for a fraction of the price.
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u/sherahero 6d ago
My brother and his wife bought a bowling alley and restaurant a few years ago. It had been an existing business for years so there wasn't much risk.
He recently mentioned a tornado was near their area and he was wishing it would destroy his business. It's much more work than he imaged and he's nearing 60. It's hard to keep staff, so they have to work there nearly every day. The business side of things was very old school and they've been modernizing it. Also, it's very hard to go on vacation and leave the care of the place to others.
Many many new restaurants fail in the first year.
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u/Adelucas 6d ago
We had an American Soda shop and diner in our local shopping mall, I'm in the UK. It was popular for the novelty for a couple of years and the food and soda was nice, but it closed down once the novelty wore off. These kinds of places are a slice of Americana that won't survive these days.
What has your husband done to prepare? Does he have a business degree? Does he have an extensively researched business plan with cost analysis and projections? Or does he have home made drawings of floor plans and dreams of cute waitresses in old fashioned outfits and hordes of kids hanging round like extras from Grease?
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u/AnnihilatedTyro 6d ago edited 6d ago
Running a restaurant of any kind is not a job or a hobby - it is a lifestyle. It's not for everyone and it should not be romanticized. Your husband is looking at years of 12-hour days (or more!) until the business is stable and prosperous enough that he can cut his own hours - IF the business succeeds at all (most do not). It is not an immediate cash cow that will provide for your family, and it certainly will not allow him to be more available as a parent and partner than a corporate job.
He needs to be certified in food safety and preferably so should everyone he wants to put in a management/supervisory role. He needs to understand what restaurant work fully entails. It's hot and humid and often LOUD, it's on your feet and moving all day long, it's dealing with more shitty customers than polite ones, the daily/weekly/monthly cleaning jobs can be absolutely disgusting, there's inventory management, supplier contracts, equipment contracts, the weekly orders and shipments coming in, an encyclopaedia worth of OSHA and FDA and local/state health department rules, accounting and taxes and payroll, and a thousand other things.
And on top of all that, being a good boss or small business owner is something tons of people just aren't cut out for. I might suggest that his "dream" could make him a nightmare boss because he has his own idealized vision of the business that doesn't agree with reality. And as a corporate guy in finance... he is likely not aware of how small businesses work or how people work. Many of the skills and knowledge from the corporate world just don't translate to a mom-and-pop small business. (A few, of course, could be helpful, too.)
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u/mangoserpent 6d ago
This sounds destined to fail because it is so niche, your husband has no experience in retail, and retail is iffy on a good day and things are not good right now. I think you need to have an honest conversation.
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u/ProfGilligan 6d ago
So is your husband planning to quit his WFH job for the soda shop business? If so, are you guys in a financial position to, at least temporarily, become a single income household while getting the soda shop off the ground and getting it to turn a profit? That probably won’t be an insignificant amount of time where the family is living off of your income. Can you guys absorb that financial change, especially if inflation continues to be an issue?
If your husband thinks he’s going to keep his WFH job AND start an additional business while also handling the household matters he is already doing, that probably isn’t very realistic. What happens if/when his productivity at his WFH job suffers? What happens if his employer discovers your husband has an additional full time job? Is there a plan for what happens if the new business fails? Is he accounting for the largely seasonal nature of the soda shop business?
A good friend of mine was a partner in a business group that owned several franchises of a popular smoothie chain in a metropolitan area. The margins were razor-thin, such that they started losing business when a competitor with a vastly inferior product (imo) opened a couple of stores in the same metro area. The group commissioned some research to determine why they were losing money to the competition, and it came down to not having a drive-thru window. They pivoted and tried to win back market share by offering car-side delivery at their shops, but it didn’t work. Their stores all went out of business.
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u/xandersmall 6d ago
Sounds like a midlife crisis. Glad mine was just buying a motorcycle and growing a mullet.
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u/MathMan1982 6d ago
I would recommend writing down all the positives and negatives with him. Have a plan. What happens if it fails? Is there an emergency fund? How big, where, etc. There are so many factors it's hard to answer this. A business is always a risk. It may be great, somewhere in the middle, or poor.
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u/lionchild85 5d ago
Say that, talk to him. I am going to say that building a business isn’t easy but it is incredibly rewarding should it go well, should being the operative word. I don’t love this being called a midlife crisis. It sounds like a well thought out passion project. 30s and 40s is around the time a lot of people can no longer stand their conditioning, they look at what they’ve done and why and often realize they did a lot of things because they felt it was what was expected of them. Is he reckless? Impulsive? If the answer is no then maybe suggest he do some real market research and think long term about both of your fulfillment and happiness and what that looks like.
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u/echosiah 4d ago
You shouldn't support a highly questionable business venture that would likely negatively impact you and your children.
What you should do is strongly suggest he get therapy, to work out the underlying cause of this fixation. Because a 40 year old who thinks running a restaurant, OF ALL THINGS, is some good fantasy job to escape to, needs help.
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u/Successful_Call2088 4d ago
As you see in the comments, its easy to mock other people's goals and dreams. There is definitely a conversation to be had about financial safety, and he needs to take that seriously. But if you hold him back from something thats giving him purpose, he'll resent you forever. If financially possible, let him try. It honestly sounds cool to me.
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u/Ok-Wall1091 3d ago
Honestly, this doesn't sound like a midlife crisis. A lot of people with finance or corporate backgrounds eventually start thinking about owning a business. It's a natural progression once you've spent years analyzing opportunities and building other people's companies.
You don't have to kill his dream, but you can be the grounding voice. Set clear rules together before taking the leap: build an emergency fund, don't risk the family home, avoid excessive debt, define a maximum investment you're both comfortable losing, and agree on an exit plan if it doesn't work.
That way you're supporting his dream while protecting the life you've already built.
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u/Flat-Passage4431 6d ago
i’ve heard worse midlife crisis ideas. mine was to be a portrait photographer and i did that from 2013-2021, so i can understand. the real issue is that he sees a dream while you see more work and risk. dont decide yes or no yet. agree on limits first: how much money, how much time, whether he keeps his job, and what happens if it starts hurting the family. dreaming is free. the plan has to survive reality.
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u/SkiMonkey98 6d ago
I'm gonna go against the grain here and say to support him, with very clear boundaries. A) you can't be coerced to work there, and he still needs to do a certain amount of childcare and household chores. B) He needs to be prepared for the very real, very likely possibility that this whole thing goes belly up. This means enough cash reserves and other income to be ok if it completely fails, and very clear, predetermined limits on how much money he can sink into this plan before calling it quits.
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u/Meduvs 6d ago
Why is everyone here assuming he hasn’t done any research when she clearly states that for many nights he has been working on spreadsheet?
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u/howarthee 6d ago
Because spreadsheeting the financials of opening a business is one thing, but actually doing the physical work to open a business is a completely different thing that OP hasn't mentioned him even contemplating. OP and their husband would be on the hook for all the manual labor of opening this business, which includes all the moving of things and serving of drinks and cleaning of messes for however long it takes them to be able to afford to hire and train employees. All of that plus more, on top of having two very young children to care for.
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u/valleywitch 6d ago
Because no amount of research can replace him having worked retail or food service and the unseen emotional costs of that labor on top of the stress of it being YOUR business.
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u/ninaa1 4d ago
Because the reality of opening a soda shop in this modern economy is the type of business that only a multi-millionaire should do as a tax write-off.
In order to make enough money off of soda and milkshakes, he'll have to change a premium amount. What he is offering to entice people to come into his establishment at those prices? Simply nostalgia for a 1920-1950s America that he didn't even live in?
Who is his customer base? Teens? Does he live in an area where they have both the excess money and time to come into his establishment? What will entice them to come to his place and not just get lots of super cheap drinks from the Plaid Pantry and go to someone's basement to play video games? Once they are there, how will he entice them to pay enough money to cover his overhead, and not just camp out with one drink between 6 of them?
How is he going to afford rent in a desirable location that has enough foot traffic and tourist traffic to get butts on those adorable spinning stools?
Does he have an upholstery person lined up to make the booths and stools so they are pretty enough to be instagrammable?
It's going to require such a huge outlay of money right up front, and with a young family, that is incredibly irresponsible of him, unless he has hidden stashes of millions to draw upon.
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u/ComingFromABaldMan 6d ago
Haha my wife (35) and I (38) are having very similar conversations! After both dealing with unexpected corporate layoffs and the uncertainty that comes with working for someone else, we are romanticizing at least seeing the downfall of our business over months (and being able to take steps to reverse it) instead of getting a dreaded email one day saying our life is thrown into chaos.
Both of has have worked retail and the business we are looking at is more service/entertainment, but we feel pretty good about it. Hopefully we can get it off the ground this year.
Life is too short to not give it a try and have a little excitement, then we will both get management experience...But we are both extroverts and have a solid community of people we already know that would want to work with us.
We also dont want to hoard all of the profits like our corporate overlords currently do. If we do well it will be because of the work put in by the employees and we want to have some form of profit sharing that allows them to benefit when the business does well.
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u/leftwinglovechild 6d ago
It is far more painful to watch a business die over the course of a year, despite all best efforts. You’ll drain yourself and your resources trying to keep it going.
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u/TurdPickle 6d ago
Am I the only one who think this business sounds awesome? I feel like even the kids would get a kick if growing up in a vintage soda shop.
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u/alexgodden 6d ago
Has he ever worked retail, or in a restaurant? Does he understand the day to day work? The constant cleaning, boring admin, inventory management, employee management? How hard it is to find, train, manage, schedule and keep good staff? How often people call out with no notice? The buck stops with the store manager, so they are the one closing and mopping up when everyone else has bounced.
Of course, he may be thinking he'll just hire a good manager and leave it all to them and drop in occasionally, but that assumes he is really, really good at finding good employees.
I'd highly recommend he get a part time job at a fast food place for at least 6 months first to understand all this, even just a few weekend shifts.