Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Diane Schindlbeck. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Diane, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

In 2019 my husband Eric and I purchased a restaurant located in rural Michigan. We did not own the real estate, we leased the building but owned the restaurant operations. This restaurant was located at a golf course with a long history owned by the Gerber Family in Fremont Michigan. My husband left his job of nearly 40 years and I left my secure career in sales and marketing to own and operate this restaurant. 6 months later – the pandemic hits and our business was forced to close its doors to on premise dining. We were a steakhouse and never did takeout service. We were put in a position to re-invent our business plan with curbside pickup. But what was important to us was helping our community and our employees so we created “Serving those who serve” by providing free meals to the first responders and law enforcement throughout our county. This was a win/win as it kept our employees employed during the pandemic and provided meals to our first responders throughout the shut down. We did this through donations only. We provided over 4000 meals during the 12 week period.

After the shut down, our state opened back up for a short few months then we were forced to close again in November of 2020. At this time we knew we would not survive another shut down so we walked away from our lease and sold our food operations to the golf course.

In February of 2021 we found a new opportunity. We learned during our experience at the golf course that we would never own another business without owning the real estate. That is when we found our current building located in Diamond Lake. This building has an amazing history. It was originally built in the 1930’s by the Love family as a gas station and general store located on the lake. In the 1970’s the Thompke family purchased Love’s Resort and ran the business for another 10 years until they did a control burn and built the current building in 1981. The Thompke family renamed the store to D&D Grocery and sold the business in the early 2000’s which it exchanged hands multiple times until we purchased it in 2021. We completely remodeled the building, adding a full kitchen, bar, indoor and outdoor seating and expanding on the general store by proudly carrying (almost exclusively ) only Michigan made products. We believe the success of our business is our support of our community, treating our customers like family and making them feel at home, and proudly supporting other small businesses. We continuously promote our vendors with our “Support Local T-shirt Campaign”. Where our staff wears t-shirts from these businesses, we market the products of these businesses on our social media and within our store by educating our customers on their product and the history of their business. We will always choose local and veteran businesses before any other business.

This was a risk because we were still feeling the impact from the pandemic, the restaurant industry was one of the largest industries impacted by the struggles of the pandemic – and we took the risk of purchasing a closed business, that was neglected, did not have a liquor license (which in the state of Michigan is a long process. In fact, our liquor license was a new opportunity in our state because of the pandemic – so we were the very first business in our state to receive this newly formed license and to date, we are only 1 of 4 that have this license in Michigan).

We invested every thing we have into this project because we believe in our mission, we believe in the support from our community, and we know it’s the relationships that we build along the way with other small businesses that will help us succeed.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I always say someone has a gift to bring to the party. When you build your team you need to build on their strengths. Everyone is motivated differently and everyone has a talent that you need to embrace. This is very crucial when hiring your staff. It is also what makes my husband and I great partners. Each of us have a different gift. My gift to the business is my nearly 40 years in sales and management. I have the creative thinking of how to promote and market a business and attract the consumer. My husbands gift is his sincere love of people. He truly gets to know everyone that walks through our doors. He’s the one that keeps our customers coming back. Our personalities together know that it’s all about helping others that will in return help you. I help the other businesses, my husband helps the. customers. It’s a perfect marriage.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I love everyone of these questions and there are only 2 that I don’t do or have not done. We do not sell online – YET. It is something we want to do especially with our logo wear. Everyone loves our logo wear and I need to research how to do that and find someone to partner with. This is definitely in our future business plan. The other thing we have not done is manufacture something. Another wish on my list. I would love to own a vineyard or a distillery. Something else I would like to learn.

But to answer this question is what I owe all of my successes to. I have had a very eclectic career. I have worked in many industries. Within the food & beverage industry I have been a server, a bookkeeper, I’ve worked for a beer wholesaler and many years doing gorilla marketing. I’ve managed a full service salon, 15 years in real estate development, managed a crematory and political campaigns. I’ve always held the same position in all of these industries and it’s always been the same goal in each of these positions. To build brand awareness and increase sales. What I owe my knowledge to is the people I have worked for. I have worked for some of the best people in their industry and they have taught me so much. They taught me how important it is to build relationships. Never use an ATM machine, go inside and meet your banker. Time management, don’t do emails during the day when you need to be face to face with your customers. Always enter your business through the front door. See what your customers see when they come in. Always be informed on your industry. Go shop your competition. But no need to reinvent the wheel. If something works well. Why change it. Just put your own twist on it.

To emphasize even more how passionate I am about who I worked for and how valuable other business owners are to my success I have created “Cocktails and Couches”. Where I regularly host a group of business owners, in all industries, get together and talk about the rewards and challenges of being a business owner. We all need mentors and can learn so much from each other. On good days and bad.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

This is where I struggle. Inflation and funding opportunities are very hard to come by for small businesses. Someday when we have the money, I would love to be able to help other small businesses who are faced with what we have and continue to go through.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: schindysatdiamondlake.
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Schindys
• Twitter: @SchindysDiamond
• Yelp: Schindy’s at Diamond Lake

Image Credits
I took these photos with my phone