business resources
Arthur Deibler on the Hidden Costs Small Restaurants and Gyms Never Budget For
16 Sept 2026
The costs nobody puts in the business plan
Most people starting a restaurant, tavern, or fitness facility budget for rent, equipment, and payroll. Those numbers are easy to find. What is harder to find, until you are living it, is the cost of time, attention, and the small repairs that never stop coming.
Arthur Deibler owns Prima Pizzeria and Lucky Horse Tavern, both in Valley View, Pennsylvania, and Bullpen Fitness Recreation. Running food service and a fitness facility at the same time gives him a wider view of where the real costs sit in both businesses, not just the ones on a spreadsheet.
Money costs people plan for, and the ones they don't
A new owner usually budgets for the obvious line items: lease payments, inventory, insurance, a point-of-sale system. Those get quoted early, so they get planned for.
What gets missed is the cost of downtime. A walk-in cooler that fails on a Friday. A treadmill belt that wears out during a busy month. Deibler has said that going with the flow matters as much as any plan, because a schedule only works until something breaks it.
Costs that show up after the ribbon cutting:
- Equipment repair on a timeline you didn't pick
- Staff turnover during your busiest season, not your slowest
- Small maintenance that gets deferred until it becomes a bigger bill
- The hours an owner spends covering shifts nobody else can cover
None of these show up in a startup budget. All of them show up in year one.
Time costs: the ones that hit owners hardest
Money is the cost people expect. Time is the one that surprises them.
Owning a pizzeria, a tavern, and a fitness facility means Deibler's week does not run on a single schedule. A kitchen has its own rhythm. A gym floor has another. Bar service on a weekend night has a third. There is no single calendar that fits all of it.
The time cost that catches new owners off guard is not the hours spent working. It is the hours spent switching between problems that have nothing to do with each other: a vendor delivery in the morning, a staffing gap in the afternoon, a piece of equipment that needs attention that evening.
What this costs a new owner who isn't ready for it
An owner who expects one kind of problem and gets three different kinds in one day tends to react instead of plan. That reaction eats more time than the original problem would have taken to solve. The cost isn't the broken equipment or the missed shift. It's the hours lost bouncing between them without a plan for either.
The cost of being the only person who knows how things work
Small operations often run on one person's knowledge. If only the owner knows how to close out the register correctly, or how the kitchen line is supposed to flow during a rush, that knowledge becomes a hidden liability. The business runs fine until that person is out sick or stretched across two locations.
This is a cost that never appears until it's tested. Deibler's businesses depend on staff who can run a shift without him standing there. Building that takes time up front, which is itself a cost most new owners underestimate. It pays back later, but only if someone puts in the work early.
Ways to lower this cost before it becomes a problem:
- Write down the steps for the tasks only one person knows
- Cross-train at least one other staff member on anything critical
- Run a shift occasionally without stepping in, even if it's slower
- Treat a smooth shift without the owner present as a goal, not an accident
The cost of underpricing your own attention
A gym membership or a bar tab looks cheap to price. What is harder to price is the owner's attention: the time spent checking on a facility, talking to a regular customer, or noticing a small problem before it becomes a big one.
New owners often price their product against competitors without accounting for how much personal attention keeps a small operation running. Cut that attention to save time, and the quality drops before the owner notices why.
What this means for someone starting out
Anyone opening a restaurant, tavern, or fitness facility should budget for three things beyond the obvious: downtime on equipment, the time cost of switching between unrelated problems, and the risk of knowledge sitting with only one person.
None of these show up on a lease agreement or an equipment invoice. All of them show up in the first year of actually running the place. Planning for them before they hit is cheaper, in every sense, than discovering them the hard way.
