How To Start A Restaurant
If you’re into food and you want to start a new business, the best option you can try is to start your own restaurant. While the concept is simple enough, hard work, patience, and money is need in order to become successful in this business venture.
What You’ll Need:
Money
Staff
High-traffic location
Patience and creativity
Determine Your Target Market
Deciding who your target market will be will help you determine numerous aspects of your restaurant, including the type of food to be served, the ambiance and your operations (Mondays to Fridays or weekends included? Will there be 24-hour service?). The fact is, no existing restaurant is universal; you can’t please everybody. Just choose a target market whom you’re familiar with and at the same time, you think would help your restaurant become lucrative.
Target market can be determined according to social status or age brackets. Examples of target markets are:
Teens and yuppies
Baby boomers
Seniors
Professionals
Settle On A Restaurant Type And Food Concept
Restaurants can be classified into three types: upscale, midscale, and quick-service. Upscale restos are the fine-dining types, where the ambiance and sophistication of the food greatly matters. Midscales provide full meals at a more relaxed setting and are more reasonably priced than upscale types. Quick service are the fast food types, with limited menus and takeout service. Which type you choose depends on your budget and the people you’re expecting to dine in.
Aside from this, you also have to determine the food concept itself. Are you planning on serving steak or seafood, or just the usual hamburgers and fries? Do you want to focus on a specific cuisine, such as Japanese, Italian or Greek? Is the resto all about food or would you like to have a bar with alcoholic drinks in it? Would a simple coffeehouse with pastries be okay?
The trick is to choose a food concept that you’re comfortable and familiar with. As a first-time restaurant entrepreneur, it’s a risky idea to venture into a food concept that’s entirely new to you.
Secure Your Capital
You can’t earn money without spending some first. Once you’ve estimated how much you need to buy or rent the location, redecorate the place, buy fixtures and pay your staff, secure a reasonable, but sufficient capital (For more information on business funds, read The Guide to Funding). Getting a restaurant loan from a bank is a good idea. You’ll need to have good credit to do this, though. If you have bad credit, but still want to pursue this business, here are some tips to help you.
Find A Feasible Location
They say life is all about location and the same can be said about a restaurant. You need to find a suitable area where your restaurant will fit well and be profitable. Settle on a high-traffic place, near various establishments where people go to. Picking a spot inside a mall is also all right. Also, make sure the type of restaurant you have fits its location well. For example, a posh upscale resto would be ideal in a white-collar business area. A diner would be suitable downtown.
Once the location is secured, plan how the restaurant will look. Where will the kitchen and dining area be? How many tables and chairs do you need? Is there room to fit a dance floor or a bar? Once you’ve got this sorted out, you can now ask professional decorators and handymen to create the interior design, as well as install various fixtures and appliances (stoves, ovens and refrigerators).
Hire Your Staff
Select a handful of competent and trustworthy staff, including waiters, cleaners, cooks and chefs. The amount depends on the restaurant’s size. Train them a few months or weeks before your opening day. During the first few years, you should also expect to spend time in the restaurant, whether out on the dining area or in the kitchen (especially if you know how to cook).
Complete All Necessary Paperwork
Secure sanitation and work permits from the right agencies, before you start operations. This will help you avoid mishaps later on.
These basic tips should be remembered when venturing into the restaurant business. Once everything’s set, get your stoves cooking and prepare a smile on opening day! For more information regarding this article, read how to start a business.