The Heritage Diner opened in Mount Sinai in 2000. My father and I built it, and I have worked in it ever since.

That is the short version. The long one has more jobs in it, and most of them involve a screen sitting somewhere near a fryer.

The diner

The Heritage Diner is a family-owned restaurant at 275 Route 25A in Mount Sinai, New York.

A family restaurant teaches what no classroom does. Payroll arrives whether the week was slow or not. A supplier moves a price, and the menu has to answer for it. Thin margins are not a figure of speech when you are the one reading them every Monday.

I write about those things because I have paid for them.

Nanos Media

I owned Nanos Media, a technology integration and consulting group for the restaurant industry. I installed point-of-sale systems in restaurants, and I consulted and developed training sessions for managers and staff on a range of business matters. I was a reseller of NextPOS, which later became Aldelo, and I ran Aldelo in the diner for more than twenty years.

Aldelo was a server-based system. Square is cloud-based. That difference is why the diner moved, and Square is what it runs on today.

I resold the first kind and lived with it for two decades, so I do not say this lightly. Years of use are not a reason to stay.

Queensborough

In 2008 and 2009 I was an adjunct lecturer at Queensborough Community College, teaching an introductory information systems and technologies course. The department left the direction to me, so I taught new media in small business. I came to it with a BA in philosophy of science from C.W. Post and an MA in Media Studies and Sociology from The New School.

I was asked back for another semester and could not fit it around my other businesses. I wanted to.

What you will find here

Three things, all from the owner’s side of the counter.

  • Running a food business: costs, staff, suppliers, the systems behind the register.
  • Selling online. Since 2010 I have made bespoke leather briefcases and sold them through my own website as Marcellino NY, one person and no one to hide behind.
  • Using new media and technology in a small business without paying for what you do not need.

Everything here comes from something I installed, sold, ran or got wrong. Where I have not done it myself, I say so and link to where I looked.