When I wrote my first book, Finding a Location for Your Restaurant: How to Scout the Perfect Location for Your Dream of Opening a Restaurant or Other Hospitality Business, I thought it might be helpful to create some self-scoring forms for people who have been thinking about or dreaming of owning a restaurant, to make sure they knew what they were getting into.
Last year I wrote Outsmart, Outserve, and Order Up!: Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for Culinary Operators, which has ideas for inexpensive or free marketing for restaurants, as well as revenue strategies, incentive systems for staff, and a list of great descriptive words for menus. At a recent book event, a book purchaser asked me to explain specifically why I had included the questions in the forms and why they were important. I will try to add to this as I can.
Here are the assessments:
- Are You Ready to Own-Run a Restaurant
- Additional things to think about if your dream is opening a restaurant.
- Drill Down: Are You Ready to Own-Run a Restaurant
From: Are You Ready to Own-Run a Restaurant
Q. Are you prepared to be on call 24/7?
A. If you own a restaurant, you should be prepared to be on call 24/7. As the owner, unless you hire an excellent general manager (who is prepared to be on call and available 24/7—and be prepared to pay them well for it), you are going to be the one the restaurant calls when there are issues, anything from a grease trap backing up to the police being called for a disruptive customer. Even if you have and/or can find that manager, you are still going to be the main point of contact for most issues.
Q. Are you prepared to cancel vacations/family gatherings and other events at the last minute and deal with friends and family fallout from it if you own a restaurant?
A. In 20 years in the business and another 20+ years working with restaurants, I know for a fact that the restaurant business is on par with having a spouse or partner in the military or law enforcement, where a call that comes in can’t be ignored, even on days off or while on vacation. Many breakups have been caused by the restaurant coming first in a relationship when you are the owner.
Q. Are you prepared to potentially not make much of a profit, and if you do make a profit, it might take more than a year before your books are out of the red?
A. Realistically, in the restaurant business, it can sometimes take more than a year to turn a profit. Restaurants typically operate on razor-thin margins. Depending on the building or space you are moving into, startup costs can vary dramatically depending on the equipment you need (both large and small), renovations, marketing, and other expenses.
Answers Coming Soon:
- If you don’t yet have a family, are you prepared to make sacrifices in your personal life for your restaurant when you do have a family?
- Are you prepared to work most evenings (or other day periods if required), weekends and most holidays?
- Do you handle stress well?
- Are you in good overall health
- Can you keep your head in an emergency or under extremely stressful situations?
- Are you prepared to ask for and seek help when you need it?
- Have you ever written a business plan?
- Have you ever written a marketing plan?
- Have you ever gone to a bank or other source for commercial financing?
