Lessons From The Lemonade Stand
by Jenners • 06/29/2012 • BB/The Little One, Lessons Learned • 47 Comments
My blogging pal Kisatrtle at Kisatrtle’s Kreative Korner has a great series of posts during the school year where she posts Lessons from the Lunchlady. During the summer, she shares her Lessons Learned At The Pool. (And just the other day she shared Lessons Learned At the Gynecologist.) I thought I’d shamelessly steal pay homage to these posts by writing about the lessons I learned while supervising a lemonade stand for BB and his friends the other day.
Wouldn’t you buy lemonade from these kids? (Keep in mind, in real life they have actual faces.) (FYI: BB is wearing the tuxedo shirt. Classy … just like his mom.)
- If your staff exceeds your customers by a ratio of 9:1, bickering amongst the staff for the “good jobs” will become fierce and intense. We started out with a staff of five, which was manageable (but still a bit bloated). Two kids manned the actual lemonade table, with the sixth grader being in charge of the money. The other table person poured the drinks. The other kids were staffed with advertising and promotion duties with signs (which I made out of neon poster board and rulers). We agreed to rotate staff every 15 minutes or so. From the start, the “table job” was perceived as the “good job.” However, one staffer proved too clumsy to work the table after almost knocking it down twice and spilling a few glasses of the product. A second staffer had a suspicious cough and was banned by the Health Inspector (moi!) from handling the product. That left BB and another girl to duke it out for table duties. They worked well together at first, but things started to get heated as time went by. When other kids arrived to help out (at one point increasing the staff to an unruly and unmanageable 10 kids), competition for the table job got even more intense, which resulted in excessive whining, screaming (some by me) and threats of banishment.
- Middle school boys who have crushes on female staffers will buy up to five glasses of lemonade each just for a chance to hang out at the stand. The oldest staffer is going into middle school in the fall, and I think her parents better watch out because two middle school boys were our best customers and I don’t think it was lemonade they were after. It was kind of cute to watch this “puppy love” in action.
- It is very hard for adults to resist a bunch of kids running a lemonade stand. Almost everyone who drove by stopped and bought a few cups. And more than a few simply made “donations” to the cause without taking a drink. In addition, almost everyone paid more than the 50 cent asking price. It was touching to see, and the kids were amazed that people would “just give us money.” Greed quickly went to their heads though, and cries of “We can do this every day!!!” were heard. I assured them that it was cute one day but would become tiresome and bothersome if they did it every day. Still, it made me feel good about our neighborhood to watch these harried working folks coming home and stopping to buy an overpriced cup of lemonade or just drop a dollar in the kitty.
- Eight quarts of lemonade is not enough for a lemonade stand that is open for 1.5 hours. The stand was open from 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm and it wasn’t a particularly hot day. I bought a can of Country Time that made 8 quarts of lemonade—thinking this would be more than enough. Turns out, we were barely able to fill cups at the end. Of course, excessive spills and staff embezzlement were a factor, but I was very surprised to find that eight quarts was not enough.
- Second-going-into-third-graders have a shaky grasp of money issues. One customer (one of the staffer’s dads—parental units made up a large part of the customer base) paid with a $10 bill and got $9 back in change. Yet the kids persisted in saying that “Mr. Frank gave us $10!!! We’re rich! We got $10 for a glass of lemonade!!” We tried to explain that he didn’t pay $10 for his lemonade but the sight of the $10 bill was too much for them to handle. I felt bad because later on, one mom paid $8 for her lemonade but it went unnoticed because she paid with $1s.
- Exuberant children who don’t have a good grasp of safety issues shouldn’t be allowed to work “advertising and promotion.” This child repeatedly ran out in the street in front of cars to promote the stand. Of course, this was also the clumsy staffer who was banned from the table so it caused a bit of stress on the adult supervisor who had to keep an eye on him while also listening to other staff complaints (“Why don’t I get to work the table? Why don’t I get to work the table? When will I get to work at the table? When will I get to work the table? Why does she get to work the table so long? Why can’t I work the table now?) I must confess (and I feel bad about saying this), but I was relieved when a major scrape from a pavement mishap sent him inside to get patched up for 15 minutes.
- Kids will fight to the death if they think they are being ripped off from the profits. The closing of the stand, counting of the money and distribution of profits was extremely intense. After taking out my business start-up fees of $11, they had $37 to split amongst themselves. Tired after dealing with these children since 1:00 pm (which is when most arrived at my house to begin asking “When are we doing the lemonade stand? every five minutes), I delegated the money distribution to another mom. I was so glad I did because, despite her clearly counting out the same amount of money to everyone, kids were still grumbling that “So and so got more than me!” My own son was one of the grumblers and had to have it pointed out to him that he got the same amount of money as everyone else and he was mixing up his nickels and quarters!
- I will not be heading up the next kid money-making
scamventure. By the closing of the stand, I was pooped. The kids—high on the thrills of capitalism—were thinking of their next money-making event. The words “car wash” were bandied about—to which I said “Hell no. If you want to do a car wash, you’ll have to get Mr. Frank to run it.” Somehow, I doubt the car wash will be happening any time soon. If it does, however, I’ll be sure to share all the lessons learned as I observe from my lawn chair in the shade.
LOL!! You are a great mama! Love the excitement over a $10 bill
I AM a great mama, aren’t I? That is what I tell my kid all the time. I say “YOu don’t see other mothers doing this because they are not NUTS like your mom.” HAHA!
This is a good experience for them at such a young age. I do like the tuxedo shirt.
It comes full circle for someone like me who just scored a first pay check after years in school. And yes, it did all start with a lemonade stand. But not one quite as successful as this. We never went through so much in a short amount of time. However, my tortilla and tamale business paid for many years of cheer camp.
Love this post!! Hope you had a great 4th!!
This makes me smile! I bet these kids will never forget the summer they had a thriving business/lemonade stand!
I’m so glad that I’m not the only one with a 2nd-going-into-3rd grader who can’t distinguish coins. It drives me crazy!
LOVE it, you free-enterprise-teaching-mom, you. And, may I say, the kiddo looks JUST like you!
I am SO glad that it’s summer and all of the parents are doing their official duties while we teachers come to you and buy the lemonade with a smile!! Isn’t it better now that it’s over??
PS…never trust that puppy-love stuff either. Just wait til it’s your kiddo. It makes me crazy! Look out too…it starts earlier and earlier. It started hitting some of my 4th graders this year. But I nipped that right in the bud and told them to get real. Done.
oh too funny, and cute too! $37 isn’t too shabby at all.
Also, be careful about using rhapsodyinbooks’ trick. That’s how the dude in “Bleak House” thinks, and it leads him to Tragic Ruin. TRAGIC RUIN, Jenners!
I’m usually hustled by the little lemonade sharks when I’m running, exactly the last time that I’d want to toss an acrid, sour, acidic blast of high-fructose corn syrup down my gullet (lemon juice in water with a couple pounds of sugar is pretty good, but I don’t think that’s usually what’s on offer). “Lemonade!” they shout at me. “Lemonade!” And where exactly do they think I’m carrying my wallet? Little kids, man. They just don’t get it.
The bit about the 10 dollar bill is pretty interesting, actually.
Your faceless crew is very M. Night Shyamalan.
I know it’s a lot of work, and even more patience required when you “step up” Look at it this way, you know what, where, and with whom BB is doing everything. And as long as you keep stepping up, you’ll be accepted by his friends, and that won’t change when he’s older, because they’ll be use to you being around. My eldest often invites me when his friends and he are having stuff, I always suspect it’s because I bring food, but he doesn’t expect me to leave when the adventure begins. So I still know what, where and with whom he is doing stuff. It’s a good way, you actually become invisible. Good luck, and keep on being mom extraordinaire. Suggest they postpone the car wash until they are older.
I can just imagine myself ready to pull y hair out after 1.5 hours overseeing this event…LOL
Oh yes. I was the hair pulling stage for sure!
Embezzlement seems to be a common pitfall of kids’ business ventures
You may be THE funniest person I know!! 
I know!! I kept telling them “Stop drinking the lemonade! We’re going to run out.”
I love the bit about the $10. I use similar reasoning on my husband all the time. For example: “Guess what, Jim? I saw a thing I really wanted for $40 but DIDN’T BUT IT so now we have a FREE FORTY DOLLARS to spend!!!!!!”
Oh I love it!! I’m going to have to start using that on Mr. Jenners!!!
EIGHT QUARTS?! That’s a whole lotta lemonade- can’t believe it wasn’t enough! And $37 is impressive! Also, I love your son’s shirt! haha! keeping the lemonade stand fancy!
I know!! I thought 8 quarts was way too much! Of course, they drank a few glasses and there were spills…
And my son is just the epitome of class. : )
Okay, you kill me. But they really did pretty good with 37$. And $10 for a glass, that was great. Needless to say they need to not skip Math. I have a sudden craving for lemonade. Do sit in the sidelines sometimes.
I’ve learned that if I keep stepping up, no other parents will. (But I suspect they might not anyway. It is kind of sad sometimes.) I thought $37 was quite impressive!
Great post! It always sounds like such a great idea: kids doing a lemonade stand (or whatever). Then the parent makes the lemonade, funds the seed money, supervises and deals with employee issues. Hmmmm, maybe not, but it’s still fun!
That is exactly why I took out the “start-up” costs!!! It just wasn’t right for them to walk away without realizing that it didn’t come from nowhere.
This reminds me of my kids. They’re always cooking up schemes to make money. Usually it involves charging me to eat the food out of my own fridge by making a “restaurant.”
Good for you for being a vigilant health inspector. I will admit that I don’t buy lemonade from kids because I’m a bit of a germ-phobe. I should do like some of your neighbors and just donate money and not take the lemonade.
I have to admire your kid’s creativeness. Now if only you could get them to make all the household meals that might be worth paying a few dollars for!!! And yeah … this was not the best option for a germophobe!! One guy told me later he found fingerprints all in his cup!!
I had a Kool-aid stand when I lived in Hollywood and a cop tried to ticket me because I was doing business without a license. That was the end of my Kool-Aid career.
Glad it’s over, huh? I’m sure you are.
And you were a kid and the copped ticketed you!! That is just grumpy and unwarranted. And yes … I’m glad it is over. Not planning to do another one any time soon!
Oh my. That sounds like hell.
It was, at many many levels, a glimpse of hell.
This is hilarious. As for Mr. Frank who gave them $10, I know adults who go to Vegas and say they won $1,400 when they really spent $3,000 to do so. By the way, that photo clearly shows that those kids are already a bunch of shady characters.
I hear you!! I hope this doesn’t follow them into adulthood!
Congratulations on your major self-restraint and freedom from child abuse charges! My kids tried lemonade stands a couple times, but the concept of “overhead” was beyond their comprehension. Also “You can’t stick your fingers in the lemonade even if you were picking out a bug” seemed to be a tough concept. Much easier just to give them a couple bucks to go away. May have been the start of the college kid “I spent all my money on beer and shoes. Can I have money for rent?”
Well, we did have bugs in the lemonade problem. And one guy told me later there were fingerprints all over his cup. Still, people were brave to buy from our less than hygienic stand!
I admire you for doing your part in this venture! I’m also impressed you taught them about real life by taking your start-up costs out of their profits! Of course there’s other real life they’ll still have to learn about (such as all the other stuff taken out of a paycheck), but it’s a great start!
I know!! Mr. Jenners was really insistent on that … and I felt like I earned my “cut” of the profits. I explained it to them and said how this was part of running a business. They didn’t fight it so I think they got it … kind of.
Interesting and yet fun. This sounds like such a great way to spend the day.
I wouldn’t describe it as a “great way” to spend the day — it was a “way” to spend the day. I could think of much better things I wish I’d done!! ; )
You are a brave, brave woman!! The middle school boys made me laugh. The thing is, they probably thought they were being subtle.
I know!!!! It was hilarious to watch. I couldn’t stop giggling when they kept coming back for more cups. Subtle they are not!
Wow what an adventure. I’m impressed. There is NO WAY I’d be able to do this!
Let me tell you, it brought me to my knees. It also convinced me that I would be a failure if I worked with kids full-time. I don’t have enough patience.
I wish the kids in our neighborhood would think like this. NONE of them grasp that money is the result of work. mow my lawn? Wash cars? walk my dogs? scoop the poop? not a chance.
That is kind of sad. There are lots of industrious kids in our neighborhood — shoveling snow, raking leaves, mowing grass. I love it!
You make me laugh with every post you do, this one is no exception. And I say that you will have a special place in heaven for doing this. I’ve been knee-deep in my kids activities since they were toddlers, including boy scouts, girl scouts, etc. and this stuff is not for the weak spirit. (Vote NO on the car wash.)
No — it isn’t for the weak spirit. Whenever my husband doubts that I “work,” I try to let him have a few hours alone with BB and his friends. That always brings him to his knees!! And I know that a car wash would be a disaster in the making!!
I never had a lemonade stand…maybe because I grew up in Newark, NJ. I might have need a guard..or a gun.
and I have never brought lemonade from a stand…maybe because the kids in my now upscale neighborhood have too much money to want to earn any.
I could see you with your armed guards selling lemonade in Newark!! And that is sad that your neighborhood kids don’t sell lemonade. Maybe they could sell more upscale drinks!