You need a lawyer to draw up this kind of contract. It’ll seem expensive, but co-owner or partnership situations are almost always bad and cause constant disputes and issues. I’ve done it and I would never do it again.

If you must, your contract will need to address ownership terms, how profits are split, when profits are split (when is a big deal because net profit from one day to another changes wildly depending on when you’re restocking inventory, processing payroll, making large annual payments like insurance, encountering maintenance issues, etc.). It will also need to spell out how partners can voluntarily exit, how their shares are valued, the terms of paying them out, and how those sold shares are split among the remaining partners. It should also spell out how partners can be involuntarily exited for not fulfilling their obligations as partners (and it will need to state what those obligations are) - inevitably one partner is going to want to freeride on the efforts of the other partners. I really advise against partnership, you’re not going to be the exception to the nearly universal examples of partnerships going to hell. If you want to do this, I encourage you to try to figure out a way to do it just yourself.

As far as valuing the existing business, you’ll need to review the profit and loss statements and balance sheet to get an idea of the health of the business. What are the outstanding debts (are you taking those over or are you buying assets)? Are there any off-the-books revenue or expenses (paying employees under the table, making unreported cash sales, etc. - this is all very common stuff) that distort the picture of the “official” profit and loss statements. If in a leased space, does the lease even allow for ownership transfer to you within the existing lease? What are your obligations under the lease (often, tenants are expected to handle some level of HVAC maintenance, may have to pay for common area maintenance, may have to pay for property taxes, etc.). Are there any vendor exclusivity agreements? Also, you’ll have to transfer utilities into the new business entity which will require deposits that are way, way more than you think it will be (likely multiple thousands).

If they expect exact change, that needs to be stated upfront. When we had delivery drivers that we allowed to accept payment for catering drops, it was put in writing on our invoices that drivers carried no change.

I am generally sympathetic to having limited change on hand because so few people pay in cash today that register’s don’t ebb-and-flow through the day anymore. A $100 dropped on a less-than-$20 total can require the register to be manually restocked which isn’t always feasible for many small businesses. We routinely do less than $100 in cash sales against ~$2500 in daily transactions; cash is almost a nuisance at this point to keep stocked for sometimes literally just 3 or 4 people a day.

Oh, absolutely. The negativity that comes with owning a business was absolutely the most surprising thing of ownership to me. Its the #1 thing I will mention to any aspiring or just starting out entrepreneur before anything else. There is nothing that can prepare you for it besides just knowing its coming.

Family and friends were always, and still are, backhanded or veiled negativity. “Oh… that’s your location?”. Yeah dude, local restaurants don’t usually have a Olive Garden style build-out on the main shopping drag in town. “You know most restaurants close in their first year”. Yeah so this is an existing restaurant that we are rebranding - it is already cash flowing itself. “You don’t even make $2,000 a month? I could never live on that”. Yeah, small business restaurants aren’t going to start printing McDonalds money by the second month. My favorite are the ones who, today, are like “oh you deliver (for the restaurant), things must be rough at the restaurant”. Oh no, taking our orders is how my house was paid for when turned 31 and I do it now because I’m not needed for anything else there so I’m just bored. I love watching their face change. They don’t know how to process it.

But… the general public. I will never forget the vitriol we experienced in our getting started years when money was tight, I was sinking my life into it all seven days, and we were doing truly the best we could with what we had. It is breathtaking how the general public will stomp all over something you have sunk tens of thousands of dollars and your literal blood sweat and tears into over some of the most ridiculous, arbitrary, and nonsensical things. I was told we’d go out of business because our grilled vegetables still had a crunch to them and weren’t totally soggy because “that’s what grilled means”. I was told we’d never make it because we had a freak volume night and there were some people who had to wait 30 minutes on orders as if they’d never waited 30 minutes at the chain restaurants on a busy night. The number of people that told me they’d never come back - actually literally screaming from the doorway - because we didn’t have servers and you order at a counter was more than even your worst assumption in people would have you guess. That doesn’t even start on the Yelpers. It doesn’t even start on the negativity from employees. And, holy hell, it doesn’t even start on the covid years that were their own horror show - I lost all my faith in humanity after that. I’ve never seen hate on that level as I did during the covid years.

Anyway, all that said - it’s really easy to let this kind of stuff get to you and lose sight of the bigger picture. These people did get to me for a while, made me question my direction, and made me ashamed of my position in life for a while. One day I finally woke up and realized that for all this worry I put myself through on a daily basis by hanging on these haters’ every word, we were actually dealing with growing pains… not barely scraping by. How could it be that our sales, revenue, and my income were growing to the point we needed to buy more equipment, change layouts, and hire more people if everything was terrible and we weren’t going to make it? I realized at that point I was listening to miserable people who just didn’t want me to make it and their opinion carried no weight other than that. I stopped reading reviews, started letting the comments from friends/family go in one ear and out the other, and left it all behind. It was the best decision I ever made. Do you best, create products/services you’re proud of, take ownership of your mistakes, and support your products/services to a realistic point for the price range you operate in. Then, let the cards fall as they may.

They’re probably just looking for an insurance settlement. Regardless, you’ll need to speak with a business lawyer about your specific situation and circumstances.

We did have a family friend who sued (a large corporate business) for discrimination. He had email records from an ally at HR that included some pretty blatant language that layoffs were determined by race and gender. He also had some objectively awarded company accolades for performance in that calendar year that disproved their blanket claim that layoffs were “performance motivated”. He sued for seven figures and got settled out of court for six. I say this to illustrate that your situation is really going to depend on how much tangible proof they have and only an attorney can advise you on that.

If you want to deal with them:

“Our records indicate you filed a chargeback with your card issuer on a previous order. Therefore, we will be requiring a signed contract with cash payments in addition to a cash security deposit (if you’re rendering services at all prior to payment).”

If you do not want to deal with them:

“Our records indicate you filed a chargeback with your card issuer on a previous order. As the chargeback was not withdrawn by you in a timely manner, it required us to file a dispute as proof of purchase which is a time consuming process that takes away from our paying customers. Unfortunately, we will not be able to provide service to you again.”

It will be reasonably likely that they will have a spouse, friend, or family member attempt to order after either of these options though to circumvent you - so be ready for that possibility. It’s also important to note that call center employees who decide chargeback fates do not have a legally binding opinion. For any lost chargebacks, you should file a police report every time with your evidence. We have successfully gotten charges multiple times that a call center employee didn’t believe was “sufficient.” We also include language on our receipts that we file charges on any chargeback as a warning. Depending on your district’s political leanings, police may go after under-$100 fraud if its a local offender, but if its above a certain figure it qualifies as a felony and even pro-crime districts will be more inclined to go after them. Also if it’s high enough, it may be worth your time to sue in small claims court.

Just throwing it out as a restaurant owner - there’s not a lot of people that do this even though its usually required by fire codes. I had to call around multiple places before we finally found someone in the beginning. That’s a good thing though because you can probably get business pretty easily.

• Expect to work unfavorable hours when restaurants are closed. Nights and weekends.
• Don’t leave a massive mess. It’s a messy job, but clean up after yourself. Leave it how you’d want your mom or dad to come in to find it afterward. You’d be shocked just how far that will get you in positive word of mouth.
• Be proactive with planning. I forget to schedule it all the time and you can get additional steady revenue by just reaching out to remind people to schedule it.
• Some places don’t want you to use their water. I don’t know why. Most providers will bring a water tank. If you don’t want to buy a tank, make sure you can ask if you can use their water and where the access points are.
• Do what you say you’re going to do. Show up when you say you’re going to show up. This puts you ahead of 90% of the competition (and the same goes for any contracting service).
• Expect people to jerk you around over payment, especially if you’re young. We always pay same-day, but we are the exception - not the rule. Get signed quotes upfront that spell out payment expectations.
• Get insurance. Restaurant hood systems include automatic fire systems with some pulleys and pins in the hood framework. If you were to set one of those off cleaning, its thousands of dollars and days of lost revenue for them to reset. They’ll almost certainly be going after you for it.