Restaurant business?

Oh shit.

My wife actually learned this as a trade (hotel expert or "Hotelfachfrau"), she worked management in a hotel and managed several restaurants.

Simply put:
If you don't know EXACTLY what you are doing and have a lot of experience in this area, don't touch this business with a ten foot pole.
It looks and sounds easy, but it is not.

Anyone can open a restaurant, but very few will survive the first three years.

Most people don't even know WHAT a restaurant makes money with.

But to let the wannabe experts chime in here:

What do you think is the best moneymaker in a restaurant?

::emp::
 


emp said:
Oh shit.

My wife actually learned this as a trade (hotel expert or "Hotelfachfrau"), she worked management in a hotel and managed several restaurants.

Simply put:
If you don't know EXACTLY what you are doing and have a lot of experience in this area, don't touch this business with a ten foot pole.
It looks and sounds easy, but it is not.

Anyone can open a restaurant, but very few will survive the first three years.

Most people don't even know WHAT a restaurant makes money with.

But to let the wannabe experts chime in here:

What do you think is the best moneymaker in a restaurant?

::emp::
Click to expand...

I'm not an expert, but I'd imagine desserts and/or coffee.
 
winners.

Coffee and tea.

Restaurants (even the fancy ones) make almost no money on food.

::emp::
 
avatar33 said:
^oh for sure! I ain't opening a restaurant unless I have a good amount of dough accumulated from years of IM. I don't even want to borrow from the bank or bring in investors, at least not for my 1st one.

I'm not aiming for something overly fancy either, a small restaurant with a few tables and takeout/delivery service. I just want to provide exceptional food that is up to my own standards...

People forgive bad service. People forgive bad location. People even forgive high prices. People NEVER forgive bad food.
Click to expand...

I totally disagree. 90% of eateries sell fucking awful food. Most people don't have the slightest idea what good food is, because their palates have been ruined by eating high-sugar/high-fat processed shite.

People don't forgive stingy portions. Most of them will take a lot of cheap, average food over a small amount of expensive, very nice food.
 
amateursurgeon said:
I totally disagree. 90% of eateries sell fucking awful food. Most people don't have the slightest idea what good food is, because their palates have been ruined by eating high-sugar/high-fat processed shite.

People don't forgive stingy portions. Most of them will take a lot of cheap, average food over a small amount of expensive, very nice food.
Click to expand...

Well this goes back to my location argument. If you're going to open that type of restaurant in a city where obesity rate is 33% and average income is less than 25k, of course you'll fail miserably. You have to go to a place where people have a minimum food education and are health-conscious...

If you go to places like NYC, Chicago, S.F., Toronto or Montreal, you'll find many eateries that serve delicious food for under $12. These places usually have lineups any day of the week. The portions aren't huge, but the food is so tasty that people almost always go back.
 
OP, sell wieners from a cart. Then after a few years, open a store front, after a few more years, open a full fledged restaurant.

And remember 10 of out 10 times the staff are dredges of society. Felons, fiends, and blacks.

I know all the right wingers wish mexicans go back home (oh whey merica is their home), but they make up 90% of the cooks in the industry.

Oh you at at "chef BAM!' restaurant. Hate to tell you but Jose cooked the food.
 
Before I made it in IM I worked in quick service restaurants as a general manager and also developed new franchise owners.

Be prepared to work 7 days a week/12 hours a day.
Be prepared to be on your feet moving all day long. If you're a fattie you will lose weight.
People are going to try and steal from you.
Customers are going to try and hustle you for free shit.
Restaurants get dirty, you'll be busting your ass to keep it clean.

COSTS - This is where you will lose all your money if you don't know how to run a restaurant. Employees over portioning products, theft, lots of waste, expiring product.

Profit margins are small. Last store I worked in did something like 800,000 revenue for the year and only pulled in 10-12% profit.
What's obamacare say about providing health care to employees? Something like 30+ employees?
Labor laws. You'll likely be hiring kids because they won't bitch about only working 10-12 hours a week.

Having said all that, buying a franchise is my backup plan. If the IM thing falls apart at some point I'll have the cash to open one up somewhere.

I worked for some franchisees once who had bought 3 tim hortons with their dads money and they had no idea what they were doing. When I started they had so much shit in the freezer it was unreal. They had 10 cases of cranberries in there and they didnt even sell anything with cranberry in it! Expired boxes of all kinds of product stacked floor to ceiling. They were clueless about the type of people they needed to hire so it was a constant cycle of firing people for the most absurd shit like leaving their bong on the drivers seat in the delivery van, smoking weed in the bathroom, coming to work drunk, etc..

Those the types of things that destroy a business in a hurry.
 
I came up with the idea of a restaurant from the desire to get into a somewhat challenging business, and at the same time enjoyable and one that will give me the opportunity to network, I had an out of the box idea, but from what you guys are telling me and the amount of work involved, I guess it's not in the cards for me.
Seems like I'll just have to wait for danke to deliver...
 
emp said:
winners.

Coffee and tea.

Restaurants (even the fancy ones) make almost no money on food.

::emp::
Click to expand...

For some of the really fancy restaurants, the answer is nothing the restaurants sell.

They're run essentially as advertising, and the proprietors make their money from book deals, TV spots, consulting, product tie-ins etc.

(I'm talking El Bulli, the Fat Duck etc, the Michelin starred places. The Fat Duck has lost money since it started, but Heston Blumenthal does very nicely from TV ads and supermarket sponsorship. )

Low-end places are far more likely to make a nice profit.

@avatar - depends on the jurisdiction. Over here, beer price is mainly duty and tax, so pubs & restaurants don't make much money on it. Again, soft drinks are where the cash is at.


@nomak - it's not completely un-doable, just very hard. You need to be a certain sort of person to make a restaurant work (my friend's military background was very good preparation for him).

If you're sitting around posting on an online marketing forum, it's most likely you're not that sort of person. And there are far, far easier ways to make money.

Definitely read Kitchen Confidential. As well as being educational, it's a very entertaining book.

And a final thought - there are other ways to make money out of food besides restaurants. Would your idea work as home delivery?
 
amateursurgeon said:
For some of the really fancy restaurants, the answer is nothing the restaurants sell.

They're run essentially as advertising, and the proprietors make their money from book deals, TV spots, consulting, product tie-ins etc.

(I'm talking El Bulli, the Fat Duck etc, the Michelin starred places. The Fat Duck has lost money since it started, but Heston Blumenthal does very nicely from TV ads and supermarket sponsorship. )

Low-end places are far more likely to make a nice profit.

@avatar - depends on the jurisdiction. Over here, beer price is mainly duty and tax, so pubs & restaurants don't make much money on it. Again, soft drinks are where the cash is at.


@nomak - it's not completely un-doable, just very hard. You need to be a certain sort of person to make a restaurant work (my friend's military background was very good preparation for him).

If you're sitting around posting on an online marketing forum, it's most likely you're not that sort of person. And there are far, far easier ways to make money.

Definitely read Kitchen Confidential. As well as being educational, it's a very entertaining book.

And a final thought - there are other ways to make money out of food besides restaurants. Would your idea work as home delivery?
Click to expand...

not to derail, but that sig is hilarious lol
 
I'd honestly never bother with a restaurant unless there was an opportunity to open more locations/franchise and even then I probably still wouldn't bother.

My friend had a fantastic idea, great location, high profit margin and a willing audience. Then he found out about stuff like liability insurance and a 100 other things and found out he'd need to sell more than twice his projected totals before he could even think about paying himself.
 
I own a coffee shop. Hit me up if you have any questions. Wife's family also started a restaurant chain with I think 28 stores open at one point.

I would go with the coffee shop instead of restaurant. Especially if your a newbie.

On my iPhone otherwise you would a big post from me. Will try to get on comp later write more.


On the coffee shop note I wouldn't mind raising 1.5-2mil to get a chain going. Anyone interested him me up. Would have to remake and update my business plan.
 
nomak said:
I came up with the idea of a restaurant from the desire to get into a somewhat challenging business, and at the same time enjoyable and one that will give me the opportunity to network, I had an out of the box idea, but from what you guys are telling me and the amount of work involved, I guess it's not in the cards for me.
Seems like I'll just have to wait for danke to deliver...
Click to expand...

If you can be swayed so easily by a bunch of gay webmasters to change your mind to not open a restaurant, I would wager that you never REALLY wanted to open a restaurant in the first place.

From what I've seen, people who are passionate about food and drink can be successful because part of their success is doing what they love to do. If you are looking to get rich and enjoy your time, be thankful that these fuckers care enough to weigh in.
 
avatar33 said:
I also want to get into this space in the future... I love food, and I definitely don't want to be watching Matt Cutts' tweets waiting for the next Google update when I'm 50 years old. In fact my plan is to completely give up the IM business at that age, as I think it's unhealthy both mentally and physically for an old guy to be sitting in front of a computer every day. Owning a restaurant will force me to be active and socially involved.

I think the way to succeed in this business is to come up with a totally original idea that doesn't exist in your area. The formula is quite simple: great location + uniquely great food = success. Now of course if you're in a bigger city like New York or Vancouver you will need hardcore marketing as well, but hey... that's our forte!
Click to expand...

The coffeeshop fallacy
 
My grandma owned a restaurant for years before she passed and I saw firsthand that restaurants fucking blow. Margins are shit and any slip up with the health department and you're fucked.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom