Chatting again w/Bell-Jeff Mgr. Ruben Alvara

[00:00:08] Hello, and welcome to The Broke Bingo Addict. This is a podcast that ventures through the wild and crazy world of bingo. This is much more than your grandmother's bingo. My name's Shari, and welcome to this week's episode, which as always is for entertainment purposes only.

[00:00:27] Hi, everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of The Broke Bingo Addict. I am so happy to say that I have a return guest here. I have Ruben Alvara from Bell Jeff Bingo, who's agreed to be our guest this week because he's got a lot going on, and I've got some questions for him. So, hi, Ruben. Hi, how are you doing? I'm doing good, thank you. My voice is a little scratchy. I don't know what's going on with that, but anyway, I'm so happy to have you here because, yeah, you are a busy man. Busy, busy, busy. Bingo never stopped.

[00:00:57] I guess not. So, not only are you still hanging out over and managing a lot of stuff over at Cry Help, you are the main man, the big kahuna over at Bell Jeff Bingo. Yep. Yeah, so you got a lot going on. So, I got questions for you, okay? So, first of all, how's it been? This is coming on to one year, correct? One year at Bell Jeff. Yeah, so is it everything you thought it would be and more?

[00:01:23] Oh, starting a bingo from scratch is a lot of work, let me tell you. There's a lot. Yeah, I could just imagine. I was going to ask you. So, I have other things to ask you, too, but my first question is, what has been the biggest obstacle for that that you've had to overcome?

[00:02:09] And if they don't know that much about bingo or anything, are they all parent volunteers or did you have an ad or how did you find these people? Parent volunteers and a lot of the people go to St. Robert's, the church. So, you know, we have a couple of the Knights of Columbus that come and help us and, you know, even have a couple of nuns that are there and Father Marco. The whole parish community helps.

[00:02:33] Yes, I've seen Father Marco myself, but do they have to be obligated? Do they have to, like, I know some places do it and they have to do it because of their kids going to school and they're obligated to do so many weeks or a certain amount of time. Do these people have to do it consistently or is it just when they want to do it or how does that work? With most Catholic schools, I would say that it's just, you know, they only have so many hours per year.

[00:02:58] And once they meet those hourly obligations, then they don't have to do it anymore. But a lot of them do still, they just help out because they know we need the help to run the bingo. You know, you can't run a bingo game with just two people. It takes the whole community to get a good game, put it all together and have everything run the right way. It takes everybody. Okay, so then you also mentioned the fact that then you've got to train these people. So how does that go? Do they have to come in days ahead and is it like a long process?

[00:03:28] Is it like an eight-hour day or is it just a few minutes? How exactly does that work out? It's about a one to two-hour thing. And so what I do is, like, you know, I have some older flash that's already been played and stuff. And then so I have them practice selling. I have them practice selling it with, like, Monopoly money. So I have them go up and down the rows and they'll be like, flash, flash. And I do it.

[00:03:55] And, you know, sometimes I'll have, like, a little mock game so they can get, like, a feeling of what the game will be like. And, you know, it can be overwhelming for somebody that's learning how to sell flash for the first time. They got 50 bingo players screaming at them. Exactly. Yeah. It's a lot. So do you teach them also how to handle those people? Because, yeah, people can be really hostile and they seem to forget sometimes that these are family or just volunteers. These are people who are doing it to support the school or whatnot.

[00:04:24] And I've seen people get pretty hostile. So how do you teach them to deal with that kind of attitude from people? So, it's a thing to have as much patience as they can. And if it ever becomes overwhelming to, you know, get me or Nyree to come step in and help pursue the situation. Because sometimes, you know, bingo players, they do get out of hand sometimes. I understand why they do it because, you know, sometimes they don't want to get skipped. Oh, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

[00:04:54] You know, like, why do you sell my winning tickets to her? I know all that. But she's, it's tough to teach them that. So have you had anybody really give you a hard time with that? Have you ever had any kind of real issue that you've had to deal with? Or is it just basically just saying, you know, just calm down. They'll get to you as soon as possible. I probably have only had to yell at one bingo poker. Oh, really? I'll ask you. Just one. Just one. Okay. That's pretty good.

[00:05:23] Because they, they went, they, you know, these people are, you know, the volunteers are human too. And sometimes they can get, like, you know, really hurt their feelings. I'm sure. I have to stick, I have to stick up for my volunteers because they're coming here. I'm taking time out of their own day, taking time away from their family to come help support the school and the parish. And I got to stick up for them. Absolutely. Yeah. But I was wondering the same thing too. Have you ever had anybody who said, you know what? There's got to be another way I can volunteer for this school.

[00:05:51] Because I don't think I can handle these crazy bingo players. I've had people like, you know, I'll come in after bingo and help clean up the place and set up tables and chairs. I have all kinds of people that help. Not just running with the game, you know, getting the bingo hall ready the week before. Or they'll come in during the week and count tickets, you know, put them in the little 20 stacks. Aww. Make programs and staple tickets, the raffle tickets onto the top of them. All kinds of people help me out throughout the week.

[00:06:21] So it's, if selling flash isn't your thing, we'll find something else for you to do. Now, do you have to have a minimum or something? For you to have a productive night or an effective night to get everything done properly, do you have a minimum of volunteers that you have to have? I would prefer like seven to eight. I can run with less than that because, you know, Father Marco is always willing to go out there and help us out.

[00:06:51] That's, you know, he leads a lot by example. Yeah, he's like a really nice guy. Yeah. Yeah, he's great. And I don't, you know me, when I first started doing bingo, I never remember me. I used to go out and sell flash. That was the first thing I ever did. So I don't mind taking that bucket, going back to my roots. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You got to love it sometimes. But now on the opposite end of that, if you ever had a problem where you've had too many volunteers, you say, oh, thank you so much. But, you know, you're not needed right now. Oh, no.

[00:07:20] I always find something for them to do. At least it's good at Belgev because I can tell them, you know, oh, go down to the kitchen and help them run food up. Because, you know, we do table side service at Belgev. Right. The ones in the blue vest. You know, so I was like, you know, now we can get food out really fast to the players. Because our kitchen staff, they have like a little pond pilot. And it's like a real restaurant point of sale system.

[00:07:46] So as soon as you order with a person upstairs, it prints a ticket downstairs with your seat and your table number. And the kitchen starts cooking your order right away. And then I have runners come run and take it right up to you. And we're trying to get you served as fast as possible. Well, good. That's another thing I wanted to talk about, too. Then how did you set that up? Everybody, you know, every bingo hall's got like different kind of food service type situations going on. How did you guys come up with your food service? Yeah, it's run by the parish.

[00:08:17] And believe it or not, we even have two nuns that be working in the kitchen, too. I think I've seen one of them. Yeah, I'm sure you've seen Sister Alma down there before. She'll go down there and take orders. And they do a really good job down there in that kitchen. They make, you know, a lot of that Mexican food is all homemade. Because I went in the other day, they make homemade aguas frescas every week. They make homemade salsa. They season their own carne asada. They do everything down there, yeah. So that's nice.

[00:08:46] They do a lot. Yeah, they seem to do a really good job. But who comes up with the menu and who decided that? Was that on their own or there's something that you guys all decided, okay, this is what we think will be good for people? You always, you know, most places always have like a hamburger and stuff. But who came up with that menu for you guys? That's mostly the kitchen. The kitchen, you know, they come up with their own menu. I may give them a couple like, hey, you might as well do like a little bit of finger food, you know, like nachos, hot dogs, burger. You know, the bingo hall staples.

[00:09:14] But, you know, they do that all on themselves. And they do a really good job down there too. Well, and I want to give you a quick shout out because I know this is something that kind of bothers me sometimes. But at least you guys also have the coffee, which is so greatly appreciated. You have a nice little coffee thing there. You can get it in this nice hot coffee. In fact, I got the other day and it was really hot. I almost burned myself.

[00:09:35] But that's always appreciated because I know there are a couple of places that, one, either don't have coffee or make you actually pay for the coffee, which is like always boggled my mind when people are spending so much money. So I think you guys have a nice little setup there. It's like, really? The bingo halls that charge you for coffee? Yeah, well, actually, I won't speak for everybody, but I know there was one in particular, one that I go to and one in particular. And they, until recently, it's only been like in the last few months that they finally stopped charging for coffee.

[00:10:04] But the only problem about that is, is what they do do is they'll make one large pot of coffee. You know, the one, the silver container. And when it's gone, baby, it's gone. And it's usually gone before, you know, you're halfway through the night. So that still kind of bothers me. But at least I can't say anything. At least they've gotten to the point where they're no longer charging for the coffee. But anyway, yeah, I'm sure there's some other places that still do too. Or there are places that probably don't even have coffee.

[00:10:29] So I appreciate it because, as you know, in some of these locations, we're there for a long time, you know. And you don't want to waste your money on anything other than buying pool taps. And coffee is a big, is, you know, it's quite a big expense. Have you ever gone on the market recently? I know you've seen the price of coffee. It's expensive, especially when you're serving, you know, 120 people coffee every single week. But, you know, Mike always told me, you know, that's where I learned how to do all this from.

[00:10:58] You know, he's the master Yoda of bingo, but, you know, sometimes you just do it because it's the nice thing and it's the right thing to do for the customer. Yeah, it is appreciated. I'll never charge for coffee or nothing like that. That's nothing I would do. But I understand why maybe some smaller games would do it, you know. Maybe their finances aren't as stable. But it's the right thing to do is to pay for the coffee for the customers, you know.

[00:11:28] Yeah, it can be expensive because not only is it the coffee, which, again, is very expensive, particularly right now. But you've got to get the cups, you've got to get the sugar, the creamer, the stirs and all that stuff. So I get it. But at the same time, like people are spending a fortune these days with pool taps. I could understand it more if you didn't have pool taps where you're making that extra income and when you're just paying four or five dollars to play bingo. So I can understand that. But anyway, I just wanted to say you guys do a really nice job with that.

[00:11:55] But I also, again, I'm switching again, Ruben. Pool tabs or flash. You guys have a nice system set up. I like how you guys do it. So for other people who don't know, you guys tend to sell your pool tabs in groups. Like you don't pull everything out at once. You don't do one at once. You just have like four or five that you take out at a time. And then you have your nice people who have it in a bucket and they go down particular rows and everything. So everybody gets a chance to buy those pool tabs. I think I'm saying this correct.

[00:12:23] If I'm not explaining it correctly, you correct me. But how did you come up with that system? It was mostly because I didn't have enough time to sell all the tickets I wanted to sell, selling them one by one. And so once, you know, when we first opened up, that's what we did. We did it one by one because you have to remember none of these people had ever done bingo before.

[00:12:48] But, you know, as the months went by and then they got more comfortable doing it and selling tickets, you know, yeah. That's one of the things about managing people. You know, you have to use your people's strengths and their disadvantages to your advantage. You know, you have to learn how to manage different kinds of people. And so once I finally got them trained up enough and they became comfortable selling that many tickets, I started bumping up the amount of tickets. So, you know, we do groups of four at a time.

[00:13:19] And it's as long as I don't do, you know, mix $1 and $2 tickets together, they do just fine. Yeah, it's nice. I like the little buckets. I don't know if people have seen those or know the nice little, what is it, utility type like buckets. So they're right there. It's nice and easy for them to walk around with, I think, other than a lot of places have them in aprons or whatnot. And it just seems like it's pretty easy to do when you've got that like that. And I'm sure for people, again, who are not familiar with doing this all the time, it makes it a lot easier for them as well.

[00:13:49] Just to say, boom, boom, boom, here it is. And they can set their little buckets or whatever down on the table and you can see and whatever. So I really like your system that you have. I know when you put them out there, you put them out there four at a time. But how do you determine how many pool tabs you're going to sell each night? I usually do 16 to 18 tabs a night. If the people are asking me for more, I'll put more out there. But I don't really go over that limit.

[00:14:16] The only times I might change it up is if I'm selling a $2 ticket. And I usually do two at a time. But there's a few instances where I'll do just one $2 ticket at a time. It honestly just depends on the crowd. Because you can have a crowd of 100 and they're eating the flash alive. And then you can have a crowd of 150 and you can't even sell a box out. It just depends.

[00:14:46] There's different kinds of bingo players. There's players that only play paper. There's players that only play strips and paper. Then there's your people that play like a couple of bit of flash. And then you got people that come in and buy 100 of every cab. It just depends on what kind of crowd shows up. It's not, you know, you can't put it all, you know, they don't all fit into one little box. So do you think you're pretty good at kind of when the night's getting ready to start? Are you good at kind of feeling that out and saying, okay, this is the crowd I have tonight.

[00:15:15] I've got some TikTokers in here that I know are going to spend a fortune on tabs. Or I have the little old ladies, you know, myself included, who are not going to spend as much. Do you kind of judge that at the beginning to decide that? Yeah, it's a feeling thing. It's like, you know, it takes experience. It's not something that I can, you know, you can teach somebody how to do. It's just, you know, it's a feeling. You can feel it.

[00:15:41] And I'm like, I'm walking around and I'm seeing how many they're buying and things like that. But I take all those into, and head count and who's playing and what tickets we're playing. And all those kind of little things go together. And then I add it all up into my head. And then that's where I'm deciding what kind of tickets we're going to play. Okay. And again, you also have the strips you mentioned a minute ago. So same kind of question. Is that how you decide how many strips you're going to have? Or do you guys have a set number of strips you play every week?

[00:16:11] Yeah, we usually do four to five strips a night. It's, you know, I'm not on the front lines like that. You know Alex. Alex will usually tell me, he's like, yeah, I think they want one more. And, you know, he's been selling strips for such a long time. I usually take his advice. Yes, Alex is the strip man. He's out there, and he could feel it. He knows what they want. You can ask him. Half the time, the strips that we play is the ones that he picks because he knows what you guys like. I'm a strip person.

[00:16:40] I love the strips. I really enjoy it. Well, because, yeah, you know what you're going to get. You're spending the money, and it's like, I'm going to get something for that as opposed to, you know, spending $40 on tabs and you don't get one. But, yeah. A serious strip. Do I have a favorite strip? You know what I like? I like the X game. Oh, X game. Yeah. I like the X game. But I also like the ones that are, I don't know how to describe them. You know, like Lucky Penguin.

[00:17:09] Yeah, like a five-card double action. Yeah, exactly. Like a five-card double action. And I like those because you generally don't have any free. So, I feel like everybody's on the same playing field because you have the other strips like the… But doesn't the X game have a free card? Yeah, it has some little free spots. But I'm just saying I like the other. But why I like the Lucky Penguin is it does, and everybody has the same amount of thing. Everyone has the same amount of free spaces.

[00:17:33] Yeah, as opposed to what was I thinking about when you get things like the ones where you can have a free block. You know, like most of them have five… V and stuff like that. You have a whole free card. Exactly. Exactly. So, I feel like that kind of changes up. A couple of them, too. You know which one I'm talking about. It's a triple dot. Burn and Bacon. They got two free cards. Yeah, exactly. Burn and Bacon. You know, you'll see the game. Well, you know, they're calling the numbers, and they call being on like 15 numbers. Like, they haven't even called any N's or O's. Exactly.

[00:18:02] You know, you go through it. Card number three, free card. Card number five, free card. And they're like, well, that's how they won. Yeah, yeah. But in general, like I said, I am a big fan of the strips. And you've had a couple of strip nights. Do you prefer those? I like strip nights. You know, I never got to do one at Cry Help yet. But I've done them at Bell Jeff a couple of times, and people really like strip nights. Oh, my gosh.

[00:18:33] You know what I'm talking about. I'm a big fan. You know. Oh, my gosh. But it takes a lot of work. I'm usually planning strip nights a month to six weeks in advance. Wow. That's a lot of extra work, you know, because I want to get enough time to promote a strip night. I want to make sure that I have everything put together and give people enough time to reserve their seats. And it's a lot of work. Well, it's a lot of work.

[00:19:00] But my other question is, I know that people like them and everything, but is it more profitable than your regular nights? As long as you have enough people to show up. You can actually lose money if you don't have enough people to show up. If you don't price it right and you don't have a decent turnout, you can lose money, for sure, for sure. And you can lose a lot. Okay. So that was my other question. Do you have like a quota or how have you guys been doing? It's now a year. You've got the hang of it. You're doing a wonderful job. I go there. I see a nice crowd.

[00:19:31] How are you guys doing? Are you doing pretty well about keeping, making sure you get your quota? Yeah, we're doing good. And, you know, all the money we're raising right now from the bingo is going towards the elementary school. It's an elementary and middle school. So they really appreciate it over there because, you know, there's not so many students there as I used to have, you know, back in the 80s and the 90s. Back then.

[00:19:57] But, you know, it's worth taking care of the school and they greatly appreciate it over there. You know, the principal from the school helps us every week and the parents over there coming over and helping us. So, yeah. Well, is that how you got started with them? I'm just wondering, is that what you, how you got involved was wanting to help with that or did you, what was your connection initially? I did my catechism at Belges. Oh. That's where I did. Yeah, I did my catechism and that's where my, yeah. Well, that's nice.

[00:20:27] Yeah, their family over there, I love helping them out as much as I can. Yeah, you're doing a great job. Moving on to another one. I'm doing terrible on my shifting, my segue. Go ahead. But I wanted to ask you another question about your callers because I see now, but Petra's going to be one of the new callers and you have other people that are regular. So how does that work with your, your bingo callers? Yeah. Everybody knows Cisco. Cisco's been calling for a long time.

[00:20:56] Cisco's been calling for a long time. Ruben had just barely, I don't think he maybe called once or twice before he started calling with us. You know, we call him Ruben Jr. Because I guess I'm Ruben Sr. Exactly. Exactly. The boss man, Ruben. But, you know, we call him Ruben Jr. or Baby Ruben. Or, you know, they just call me Ruru. Now, I don't know how that name came on, but everybody and everybody and their mama has been calling me Ruru. Oh, good to know.

[00:21:25] And Petra, I actually caught Petra. So I would have Petra come in, you know, two hours before the game would start and I would just turn the machine on and I put a program in front of her and I just let her call. I said, just call every single number. You know, she knows how to play bingo. Right. It's like a fish to water with her. And you've heard her call before. She has a really great voice for calling. I know. And she's so excited about it. Yeah.

[00:21:52] You know, some people are meant to be callers and that's one of them right there. That was a, you know, that was a great find getting her. And, you know, it's about, you know, now that she already knew how to play bingo and she had the great voice to do bingo. It was just teaching her how to use the machine. That was the only thing it was.

[00:22:16] I wasn't teaching her how to do anything else other than operating the machine because she's played bingo for such a long time that she already knows what needs to be done. Yeah, she's a massive bingo player. And she's a good supporter of your group because I know she's always putting out flyers or advertising and everything. And on TikTok, she makes some TikTok videos too. She makes some TikToks, yeah. So I think that's really great.

[00:22:42] But so now, again, coming up to your one year, you've got everything in control. Big anniversary day is what, next Tuesday? July 1st. Tuesday, July 1st. Oh, Tuesday. So you got a couple of weeks to do that. So do you guys have any big plans for that particular night? Yeah, we're going to do a $500 special. So all the games are going to pay $500. I think it's only a $65 buy-in for three packs. You get three packs for $65.

[00:23:12] You're going to get, everyone's going to get a free meal. So we're going to do a taco dinner. So I think it's going to be Mexican rice and tacos. Nice. Tacos and drinks. Drinks included too. That's all free. All the games paying $500. We got the strips. All the strips are going to pay $500, $750, $1,000. We're going to do $1,199, $1,500, $2,000. Wow. Double $1,199.

[00:23:42] We got a ton of gift cards we're giving away for our intermission drawing. We got door prize giveaways we're giving away to everyone that comes in through the door. One bingo player is going to win free bingo for a year. Wow. Gosh, yeah. It's, yeah. We're going big and we're going, it's our first anniversary. Everyone's worked really hard this last year. And we're super excited for this coming up Tuesday game. Okay.

[00:24:11] So I'm definitely going to be there. But my question is, you guys are not on bingo me now. What's the best way for other people to reach out to make sure that they can get a seat for that night? Because I have a feeling it's going to get crowded. Yeah. So you can follow us for our email blasts that we do every week on burbankbingo.com. And you can click on the tab on the top and enroll for our email alerts. And we send out an email every single week.

[00:24:38] And then if you want to do a pre-buy-in to reserve your seat for that night, you can call 818-968-2890. That'll take you to Nairie's. That's Nairie's phone number. And then she'll be able to take down the pre-orders and save your seats. So for the big game, because, you know, we started selling pre-buy-ins last week. So. Wow. I'll get in. I'll get in now. You don't want to wait till the last minute.

[00:25:07] I'm just saying, put me down. Put me down. I got you. I am absolutely coming. I'm probably going to bring a friend, too. So put me down for two. Okay. Shari plus what? Shari plus one. We're absolutely coming. So anyway. Well, I'm so excited for you. I'm tickled to death that you were kind enough to come back on and do this episode with me. So. I always love coming on your shows. You have a good time. Don't we? You're the best. You're the best. You're my. You're the huge reason we came back this season, too, by the way. So anyway. Yeah. So.

[00:25:37] I'm glad you told me. I'm happy to be here. Happy to have you as my guest. We definitely will. I'm sure down the line we'll do it again. But I want to thank you this time. I don't want to say looking forward to coming to your anniversary party and all the other times going ahead in the future. I wish you guys the best of success because I think you're doing an incredible job. And yeah. So thank you so much, Ruben. And so are you.

[00:25:58] I mean, your show is so important about letting people that are still playing bingo and people that are learning how to play bingo. You do your information services to the bingo community are invaluable. And that's why I wanted to come back and do your show because it's really just a fantastic, you know, great production over there. Oh, you're so sweet. So anyway. All right. You guys have a great day. Thank you again. And we'll talk to you soon. We'll talk to you later, guys. You take care. Bye, Ruben. Okay.

[00:26:28] So that's it for this week's episode of the Broke Bingo Addict. Again, my thanks to Ruben. My thanks to you all. And I hope you'll come back and listen to my next episode. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.