I would like to open a restaurant in the future. Any suggestions on getting started? Thanks..?

Answer 1

The best routes to take are to research the process of starting a business as well as the industry you're interested in.

I recommend checking out the SBA, Entrepreneur, The Start Up Journal & Nolo. All 4 are great informational resources for the new/small business owner. I posted links for you in the source box.

Associations may be a good avenue to explore. These organizations will address many of the thoughts, questions and concerns you'll inevitably have as well as many you haven't anticipated yet. See the source box for some relevant links.

Research, research, research – this cannot be stressed enough. Read as much as you can about the industry. Here are some book titles that are relevant:

* The Restaurant Business Start-up Guide by Paul Daniels
* Restaurants That Work: Case Studies of the Best in the Industry by Martin E. Dorf
* Restaurant Financial Basics by Raymond S. Schmidgall
* Opening a Restaurant or Other Food Business Starter Kit: How to Prepare a Restaurant Business Plan and Feasibility Study by Sharon Fullen
* Upstart Guide Owning & Managing a Restaurant by Roy S. Alonzo
* The Restaurant Managers Handbook: How to Set Up, Operate, and Manage a Financially Successful Food Service Operation by Douglas Robert Brown

There are plenty of free informational resources out there. Check the source box for links to articles.

Hope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!

Answer 2

You have selected a goal that is formidable. Food service is one of the more competitive business operations that exist in today’s world. Only the very smartest among us are successful.

My suggestion is to get very very smart. Spend at least a year working in a restaurant of about the same size and type you want to open (yes this is an area where size matters). During that time work hard but spend an equal amount of energy studying the operation. Select an established restaurant with a history of success. Studying a failure won’t help. It may teach you what not to do but you are still at a lose about what you should do. I recommend you get some college classes behind you. Things covering "Business Plans", "Food Service anomalies", "Employee Relations" and anything else that appears appropriate, not necessarily interesting. Be advised, paper work will bury you if you aren't smart. Hiring out the books may be money well spent.

A franchise may be the way you would want to go. You start off with name recognition, corporate quality control, a business plan, established standards, in short a lot of the foundation work is done for you. The down side is you start off with name recognition, corporate quality control, a business plan, established standards and so on (yes, I know it is a copy of the good side). My point is it is a two edged sword, a franchise will probably stifle any attempt you might want to make to better serve the clientele at your particular location in order to maintain uniformity across a much larger customer base.

Be ready to loose everything you are planning to invest. Use other people’s money. Incorporate ASAP, it protects your personal property. And be ready to operate at a 100% loss for a year. Also, make "business" decisions, I know it is difficult to separate your emotions when it is a dream but if you let emotions rule, you will probably fail. Last time I looked, more than half of all restaurants fail in the first year. The statistics I reviewed, in a class, indicated to me that many of these failures came from inadequate startup monies. That’s more advice restated.

Advertising is crucial. Get some professional help in this area. I made an absolute mess of some business cards thinking I was equipped to design them myself. I am equipped to design someone else’s but not my own, go figure. I think it has to do with being too close the issues. And, as always, FREE advertising is the best money can buy. One happy customer can gain you from zero to as many as 20 new customers. One dissatisfied customer will tell everyone they know about how you treated them. It isn’t fair because your side is never told but then few things are really fair. One more customer relation issue. When a customer wants the boss, they want you. Be in the store as much as possible and delegate absolute authority to someone you trust when you can’t be there. And I do mean absolute authority, and you back those decisions no matter what they are. After all the dust clears from a bad decision, and only after, then correct the problem.


Wow, this is a big subject. I think I have scratched off enough of the mystery so you can see the real color of your dream. Let me restate that "SMART" is the secret, book smart, school smart and street smart. The more bases you cover, and the better you cover them the better your chances of success.

OK. I tried to scare you a little tiny bit. Give you some insight into what you need, and a suggestion or two on how to get there. Did I get it done???

I really hope it helps. Best wishes and Good Luck with your dream.

Answer 3

I once worked for a bookkeeping company and one of my clients was a semi well-known chef. He started up a new restaurant in a very bad location and I suspected the business would fail because of it. He had a very classy restaurant, and true to his reputation, the food was excellent. It came as a great surprise to me when he closed the restaurant after two months citing poor sales.

There are some good things to learn about this short true story:

1. I don't know everything. Location is important, but his reputation and classy atmosphere may have overcome his bad location. People will go out of their way to find a good place to eat, so I could have been dead wrong about thinking his business would fail simply based upon location.

2. This guy obviously had very little working capital. He should have planned to have no income for alot longer than two months. He should have gone into business with enough money to buy inventory and supplies, pay employees and expenses, and be able to cover his personal debts for at least a year. Part of his expenses should have been for heavy advertising due to his poor location.

3. He should have had some sort of business plan or at least someone giving him some expert advice. Sure, he was a great chef and knew his way around a kitchen, but that doesn't necessarily make him a great businessman. There's more to operating a restaurant than cooking good food and schmoozing the customers. He could have found some inexpensive help from a retired executive at SCORE (Senior Corp Of Retired Executives) for example.

Good luck to you!

Answer 4

First, start researching the SBA (small business Association) to get information on loans. Second, start looking at demographics such as population, culture, etc in the area you want to open your business. Then, put a business plan together (Business Plan Pro is very easy and is in SBA format!). That way if you talk to a lender it looks like you know what you're doing and have done research. Last, a restaurant usually takes 2 years to turn a profit and you will likely be working 60-70 hour weeks...if not more...as you try to cut payroll costs. It's not easy at first, but when it takes off, you can sit back a bit more and make the money without all of the hard work. I know, I had three successful pizzerias and it was quite a challenge.

Answer 5

Don't. Buy a good one instead. There are plenty of successul restaurants owned by old people whose children, having worked there throughout their teenage years, want nothing to do with the place. Let the old guys retire in comfort and buy yourself a great venture.

Answer 6

Location, location, location.

Answer 7

Yes go work for one until then.