Quote: (07-18-2015 08:48 PM)Lou pai Wrote:
A few more thoughts.
Location is really important. They are two types of restaurants either they are local or destination spots.
Local is a restaurant that attracts your locals, they come to the restaurant two or three times a week for dinner, to grab a beer, etc.
Destination restaurants are restaurants where people come once a month for a special occasion. They can do really well but requires incredible food and atmosphere.
If you are looking to design the concept and then have people run it. I would try to find a manger who could put up some money. Or I would give them equity once you recoup there money.
Example you put in 200k, you offer the manager a base salary and bonus. When you are fully paid back offer him 50% of the equity.
This might sound a bit contrarian but overall restaurants are not incredible difficult to run if you open up to make money. Most restaurants fail because owners open it up to be cool or to game broads both bad reasons to open a restaurant.
I would expand upon this a bit.
Location should be specifically targeted to your clientele. Part of any business plan includes a market analysis. Who is your customer, what is their age range, income, etc. Find out where they live and hunt them down for business.
Some restaurants start out as a food truck first which has some benefits, the most obvious and beneficial is mobility. If you set up shop in a downtown area and business sucks, hey, you can move. Try across from a university (for lunch hours), next to a business park (also for lunch), or outside of a nightclub (late night).
Opening a brick and mortar requires a bit more diligence because once you sign that lease and do a build out, you're in.
And on that general theme, have a specific idea of your final product. Imagine you're opening a birthday present and inside is your dream restaurant. What does it look like, smell like, sound like, taste like? The more details you can get on paper and conceptualized ahead of time, the better. Once you have that final product on paper, work backwards. This will also help with your partners so you can all make sure you're on the same page. You don't want surprises popping up with partners once operations begin. You'll have more than enough surprises and unanticipated issues to deal with already.