Thinking About Opening a Restaurant? Here’s What You Need to Know

Have you always been thinking of opening your own restaurant? Serving delicious food to the people and make it your bread and butter!

Here I will be sharing with you what I wish I knew before I opened my first restaurant and what I would do differently if I had to restart my business from scratch.

Starting a restaurant is an ambitious undertaking. It always starts with a dream of serving a delicious menu with gorgeous décor and cozy music blend with an inviting atmosphere. But for many, this dream is shattered within a year.

To some, opening a restaurant is the most exciting niche to invest in but for others, it’s the most competitive business. Both are correct in their understanding of this business and it really boils down to your passion and commitment.

It does offer a wide array of opportunities for foodie entrepreneurs and can be a rewarding way to make a living – if you go into the food market with the right planning and preparation.

Here’s what you need to know to start your restaurant and get off on the lucrative foot.

Planning is Key to Ensure Success

Needless to say, but I will mention anyway that a well-thought-out plan backed with a practical framework is indispensable to get your restaurant off the ground. You need to set immediate to long-term goals that should cover financing, potential investors, location, staff credentials, types of dishes, service style, and most important of all, marketing.

Opening a restaurant is not just about delivering some specific dishes – you’ll need a coherent plan of getting regular supplies with no interruption, leasing or purchasing a location, buying kitchen equipment, training your staff, internal décor of the restaurant, and friendly customer service and feedback system in place.

Hit the Target Market

We know restaurants are a dime-a-dozen and how much the food industry is saturated. So, you have to offer something new yet delectable to make your own base of customers and stand out from your competitors. Take some time to create a buyer persona for your business to help you get a better understanding of where to focus your efforts.

What you should offer boils down to your local market and what type of restaurants are there. For instance, if your market is saturated with restaurants offering delicious pizzas – make sure you offer some new flavors as well instead of just emulating the traditional menu.

Look for the niche missing from your local market. Online reviews and feedback of foodies will go a long way to determine what new wishes you’ve to introduce - along with authentic traditional ones.

Select a Food Niche and Service Style

What’s the lifestyle of foodies in your locality? Are they more interested in sitting at food cafes in the evening or have a penchant for delicious breakfast and brunch? So, you have to decide on which service style would attract more customers.

If it’s your first restaurant you can’t specialize in all three meals and have to focus on one – given financial and other resources’ constraints. Also, you have to evaluate the status of your potential customers like should your restaurant be a

• Midscale (values prices)
• Upscale (high prices with high-class ambiance)

You may offer any of the below service styles:

• Fast food like burgers, fries, hotshots
• Traditional dishes blend with new dishes

Choosing the service style goes in hand with your choice of dishes.

Estimate the Costs of Doing Business

Unlike many startups, opening a new restaurant from scratch isn’t a small investment. That’s why it is vital to estimate the cost of doing business by making a detailed estimation of all your initial expenditure and monthly spending since then.

You’ll be renting or buying a location, commercial kitchen and cooking equipment, expensive inner decors, and paying your employees. Cost of doing business will give you an idea on:

How much financing do you need?

Should you rent or buy the place and other equipment ?

What should be the price range of your dish and more?

Remember, don’t just take a rough estimation from the internet as the cost of doing business varies significantly from country to country, city to city, and food menu to food menu. So, conduct a detailed survey of your local market, gather prices of all the products/services you have to rent/buy, and make informed decisions accordingly.

If you have difficulty in accessing capital from financial institutions, you can either bootstrap or growth hack your early growth to help get the business off the ground.

Location, Location, Location!

No matter what business you’re in, the one thing that significantly determines whether or not you will succeed is location. Likewise, you have to decide where your new restaurant be so that it’s easily accessible to customers throughout the year. The quality food you offer at a discounted price won’t make you any benefits if it isn’t visible to the customers.

If you’re confused, bear in mind the below considerations while scouting a restaurant location:

Accessibility: Your restaurant should be accessible to all public, whether old or young. Also, it should be easy to find on GPS or Google Maps.

Parking: It should offer a decent parking facility for patrons, vendors, and suppliers. If you can’t, then make sure it’s near to a public parking facility.

Population: It should be in proximity to any business hub or educational institutions where patrons keep coming for refreshments throughout the day, if not for a full meal. Else, you should open it in a densely populated area.

Visibility: it’s a thumb rule if your restaurant is highly visible from places such as traffic signals, street corners, it would attract more customers. There’s a plethora of ways you can enhance the visibility of your restaurant.

The Fine Art of Marketing

You’ll have to attract new customers as you can’t solely rely on repeat customers. For that to happen, you can use social media, publish ads in the local newspapers, use banners and vouchers, and encourage customers to leave their online feedback. Most people search for restaurants online so make sure you have a strong online presence.

You should be super active on social media, have some directory listings, a professional website, etc. A strong online presence can give you credibility and social proof.

Although building a dominant online presence can be quite costly, the good news is that there are always ways to get things for free on the internet. For example, you can use platforms like FreeWebDesign to get a free website and domain name.