Midwest Coral Farms shutting down.

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Herbie said:
I just think they could have gone out like some sort of hero from an epic poem if they handled this differently. A simpleton could see that all of this angst could have been avoided if they simply had a last-hurrah-going-out-of-business-thanks-for-all-the-memories-party/sale weekend. It just boggles the mind the more I think about it. They could have profited greatly but instead they just anger the masses. You almost have to believe their has to be more too it. Perhaps Coralking has heard more through the grapevine. . .
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This is the proper way to go out on a bang without any fishiness. If they had some sort of customer appreciation day I would have went. But to try to bait me to come on their "last day" for a "sale", I'm not biting.
 
How is a customer appreciation sale any different than a "we're closing, come get deals before its too late?" They are both baits...
 
coralking said:
chaos leads to chaos and in the context of good intentions all hell can get unleashed...absolutely communications got screwed up and then to have those miscues become public creates its own spin..a painful decision becomes more painful. Mcf cares for its customers as part of its mission and also, even more importantly, mcf cares about its employees. You have to own a business to understand many of the dynamics that go into the special relationships that business owners such as mcf's owners cultivated with their employees as well as their customers..most of whom were treated like family...the company isnt closing to punish its customers..its not closing because it has some business plan to suck the hobbyists dry and then build a new entity that excludes the very people who made them .. The company has horror stories from its early years of development that really no one knows about..and in the end overcame all of that..its so amazing that in the blog world so much venom can be spilled and yet many compliments can be shared as well..death by blog is quite the new experience for a non-blogger...suffice it to say, the blog rendition of mcf's mis-cues was not its best moment..too bad it reached the blogs before it got its chance to correct the miscues that occurred... Im guessing that in private the healing will occur and blake and reed will remain a part of the family regardless of what appeared here..as for the sadness of the closing of mcf..so hard to imagine a company in this economy that was climbing the mountain and getting close to the top have to end that journey..but circumstances sometimes dictate..a good guess is that this is one of those circumstances..ill venture a guess blake and reed will be at mcf as it closes and likely be around after that as well..ill read the blogs to see if that prediction is right....all of these blogs are heartfelt in some ways... A bit disappointing in the few that are totally wrong..and to say the least for a novice blogger quite painful at times to see people making things up as they go without any truth whatsoever to the facts..but alas, im a novice and barred from blogging after this response...no one knows what the future holds..word is that blake is studying to be a marine biologist in college and one of the mcf owners is his mentor...blake did get a nasty lesson in communication but in the world of business sometimes the stuff hits the fan and if you dont duck youre going to get a bit dirty..makes everyone better when mistakes become lessons and mistakes get corrected....as for too little too late..the people of mcf are special people who care about their customers, their employees, the livestock and the living material that they cared for and prepared for the market with the utmost of concerns ..these are people who actually care about people..its not always about money..for mcf and its owners its more about integrity and doing the right thing..if anyone on this blog can stand up and say they never handled a touchy situation badly, then i salute them..as for mcf, maybe we will see each other there through the week ending, along with blake and reed and all the owners to share the new beginnings that this ending ushers in.
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what???
 
Will do Eric!

An yes Nino, it looks like Reed and I will be working at GRS despite previous messages that were communicated to us.

Noreen, not sure if you noticed but we will be open Thursday Friday and Saturday. We are on a month to month lease and when the decision was made to close MCF due to the health issue things began to move at a rapid pace. We were fortunately able to get an extension though and hope you will join us for one last visit but can respect your decision if you choose not to.
 
RABBLE! RABBLE! RABBLE! RABBLE! RABBLE! RABBLE! RABBLE! RABBLE! RABBLE! RABBLE! RABBLE!


For real though i used to go in there like every Friday and loiter now hows a kid supposed to stay off the streets? I'm very sad about this. I'm gonna have to throw up a fake website and print some business cards to shop there now. I can be not the public if thats what it takes
 
BlakeT said:
An yes Nino, it looks like Reed and I will be working at GRS despite previous messages that were communicated to us.
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Ok well this changes things, I myself was upset because I know how business works and if something like this happened the way it seemed to be happening(just shutting down without the reasons) the retail employees would be out, Blake and Reed made the store and were the reason I never had a problem when I had to wait for Reed or Blake for 20-30 minutes to be helped. Looks like I will be making the trip out there on Saturday hopefully there are some better looking frags than there have been of late.
 
MCF is not funding their wholesale operation with "capital" from their retail operation. MCF never had a positive month in their entire existence. They were selling below cost to try to put all the other LFSs out of business.

You are all upset because the owner's daddy is no longer paying for half of your reef tank. You people need to get real.
 
What's with all the newbies being hardcore defensive of MCF? Connection?? And I'm sorry, but the markup on livestock is upwards of 2-300%, and we are all aware of it.
 
Agreed. NO BUSINESS is in business to lose money. Period. Even when we were all getting "sweet deals" from the guys at Midwest Coral Farms, they were turning mad profit. If they were losing money every month the doors would have closed a matter of months after they opened for business. No business would sustain itself for nearly 3 years if their books were red every month.
 
EricTheRed said:
I'm curious to hear this elaborated...
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Same here, it should make for quite a laugh. There are other places in the area I have regularly gotten better deals at (no offense to Midwest Coral Farms) who are not absorbing half the cost of my purchases and still making plenty of money on the sale.
 
obligatecorallivore said:
MCF is not funding their wholesale operation with "capital" from their retail operation. MCF never had a positive month in their entire existence. They were selling below cost to try to put all the other LFSs out of business.

You are all upset because the owner's daddy is no longer paying for half of your reef tank. You people need to get real.
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Wrong. I've seen their cost sheet on their computer and we were not paying below cost. The markup was about the same as all the other normally priced LFS's.

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk 2
 
jeppun21 said:
Yeah from their business stand point perfect plan..

But yeah.. It sucks for us... Im just thankful that i found out about mcf while i could..

Now the hunt for another lfs
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You should go to Sho Tank. It's a lot closer to Gurnee than MCF.
 
But im guessing that they weren't really selling below cost. If they were they would most likely have gone bankrupt. It might be a good idea to wait and see what actually materializes out of all this blogodrama. Wouldn't it be amazing if MCF pops up again as a newly invented business without all the critics and all the past histories from its early development?

I bet after the personal situation abates, hopefully successfully, Midwest or whatever entity might be born from it, may just create something the industry has yet to see; a company with integrity, values, customer care, and lastly, how to be more transparent when issuing a painful statement. Kudos to the P.R. person, proving entrepreneurs should be more careful when announcing intentions that have such an impact. Try as MCF did to create an appropriate statement, they failed. As for the bait, I'm guessing that the people at MCF truly want people to come and talk to them, and to get a better explanation than some of the bloggers here have created. It's not a sale and it is for sure customer appreciation. Today MCF and its people are more aware of the impact they have had on the local market and the messages, not just here, but in hundreds of emails from other customers as well, will not be tossed away. Most of all, MCF conveys apologies to everyone that was so negatively affected by this decision and for having been privy to some of the complexities in making the statement of closing. In hind sight, well we all wish for that gift. The MCF story may be far from over. I love blogging. This is the first time blogging and I have read some amazing blogs that I couldn't even imagine where they came from, like this one, and then again, some heartfelt blogs as well. Let's hope the story has a better ending than this week.
 
Ignore the haters and rumor starters. If shady stuff was going on would I be friends with all the staff and the owners?


CoralKing - don't worry MCF did have "integrity, values, customer care."
 
jcohen said:
This is a very very sad day. Mcf was such a great spot to go and hang out, and spend money: it was a destination. The staff was always so cool and laid back, always there to answer any questions. Never felt rushed or pushed and in the end always wanted to spend money to support them. My kids would run in and know where the toys were.....
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I felt that way about Sharky's Reef. It wasn't as big as MCF, or as successful, but it was a friendly place. My daughter was best friends with the owner's kids. Blake worked their part time back in the day too.
 
While it would in now way change my view of the store and Blake and Reed....with all these new accounts and the posts, I REALLY wonder what the hell has happened in the past with all the secrets people have about MCF...the whole RC thing, and I have heard so many say they will not go there because what happened in the past.
 
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