Roughly how much does it cost to set up a restaurant?

Answer 1

Hi Rock Star,

setting up a restaurant has wildly differing costs according to the area, the size, the type of restaurant and the standard of furnishings. Added to this is the varying costs of paying staff. If you wanted a Michelin chef to cook for you you would be needing at least £100,000 a year for that one person's salary.

Fitting the kitchen would be expensive, too (see Gordon Ramsey's 'Hell's Kitchen' where the competitors compete to be able to run a $1,000,00.00 restaurant in Las Vegas, for instance.)

So that's one end of the spectrum...at the other is the smaller and more intimate resataurant scene where you could, perhaps, use a parts of your own home, or a cheaply rented smaller place and furnish it very cheaply. The restaurant size will have a big influence on the final costs.

If you cook yourself (perhaps I should rephrase that?) then costs will be lower, and if your family act as waiters etc. again the costs will be lower.

As an example here where I live in Pruna, Spain, a friend has opened a restaurant (around seven months ago) He pays 600€ a month for his premises. He has space for around 90 covers. He had to fit out the kitchen himself, which cost him around 6,500€ for the extra equipment. He made no money for the first four months, but slowly he has built up his clientele and now operates at a profit. He is the chef, his wife takes orders and serves food and he has one other person to serve and prepare drinks. (with occasional help from his wife's mother)

Furniture for the restaurant was bought second hand from the coast and the total cost was in the region of 4,000€.

So...it CAN be done cheaply, but it will depend very much on where you wish to set the restaurant up. Any City centre will have MUCH higher property prices and/or rental costs.

Good luck with your plans,

Cheers,

BobSpain

Answer 2

Depends upon what you eat. You can get a bag of chips (fries) and something, like some fish or a pie or sausage for just a couple of quid, maybe 4 pounds now. Or you can get a kebab or a pizza slice in Camden costs one pound.....or at least it used to last time I was home last year. Then you can pay upwards to ridiculous amounts. I would recommend you find a nice warm pub and get a sit down pub meal. Maybe that would cost about 8 pounds plus drinks. You don't need to tip unless you really want too.

Answer 3

The following should help you to set up a business plan to do this, and will then estimate those start-up costs:

http://www.virtualrestaurant.com/sample.htm