So you’ve decided that owning your own restaurant is the right avenue for your business. Great! But now you have to figure out how to build a restaurant from scratch.
Whether you’re opening a fast-casual establishment, an upscale fine dining establishment, or something in between, there are many aspects to running a successful and profitable restaurant.
This article will cover everything from choosing a location and developing a financial plan to marketing your new venture and hiring the right staff.
Build a Financial Plan and Data Base
You’ll want to get the financials of your new restaurant off to a strong start by establishing a financial plan. This plan will show your bank and other investors how you expect to make money and cover monthly expenses. It will also help you to gauge how successful your new venture will be.
You’ll want to look at the following areas to create your plan:
- How much do you want to make?
- Monthly expenses you expect to incur.
- Your sources of income.
- How much cash do you expect to have on hand?
- Your expected return on investment.
- Where do you plan to get the money?
- How long do you plan to run the business?
You’ll also want to collect as much data as you can in order to have a good idea of your customer base before you even open your doors.
This will give you a better idea of the market demand for your product or service.
- What types of foods and services do your potential customers like?
- Where do they go to get those things?
- What are their demographics?
You’ll get a better feel for your clientele when you look at this data and begin to adjust your menu and staffing accordingly. You should also try to get as much data on your competition.
- What are the menu items of your closest competitors?
- Where do their customers go for food and drinks?
- What are their prices and how often do customers visit?
You can find a lot of this data free online. You can also ask your existing and potential customers for their help.
Location, Location, Location!
When it comes to finding the right location for your new restaurant, you want to find a location that is easily accessible to a large number of potential customers. This is because you need to make sure that your restaurant will be able to turn enough of those customers into repeat customers.
The best way to do this is to make sure you have a location that fits the needs of your customers. This could mean that you need to be near a road that’s highly traveled, near a train station, or near a major highway.
It’s also important that your new location is near a large enough population that you have a good chance of drawing in customers. Your best bet would be to look at the size of your potential customer base. If most of your customers live within a five-mile radius of your new location, then you may want to look at expanding your search area.
Hire the Right Staff
Even if you know exactly the perfect location for your restaurant and have a robust financial plan, it won’t matter if your staff is bad. Before you hire any staff, you want to make sure that you’re hiring the right people. You do this by first hiring the wrong people and then firing them.
Start with hiring the wrong people by hiring people who aren’t qualified for the positions you have open. The worst thing you can do here is to hire a friend or family member because they may not have the skills necessary to do the job. It would be much better to hire a qualified professional.
A qualified professional can help you avoid hiring the wrong person and then firing them when they don’t do the job. To hire the right people, first, you want to interview all candidates. Make sure you take some time to do this and don’t rush through the interview process.
Make sure that you’re asking the right questions and that you’re getting the right answers. Once you’ve got the right person, you want to make sure you have a written job description that includes everything that the position requires.
This way, you know that the person you’re hiring has the skills necessary to do the job. You can also use some of the data collection methods mentioned above to help you out with determining what the position requires.
Stay on Top of Your Day-to-Day Operations
Once you’ve finally moved into your new location, it’s important that you don’t get too comfortable. You’ve got to stay on top of your day-to-day operations, which means that you’ve got to make sure you’re operating efficiently and that you’ve got the right staff in place.
This will involve some benchmarking with your closest competitors. You want to make sure that you’re operating at maximum efficiency, but you don’t want to be too far ahead of your competitors. You can find some benchmarking data online or by talking to your existing customers.
Develop a Marketing Plan
Once you’ve opened your doors, it’s time for the real work of marketing your restaurant. There are many marketing strategies that you can employ, but the most successful ones combine the following:
- A clear marketing message
- A commitment to being consistent
- A solid marketing strategy that is proven to work
- A solid marketing budget that is committed to the strategy
- An efficient marketing plan that is committed to the strategy
- A strong commitment to the strategy that is proven by actions
- An effective strategy based on real data
- An effective strategy based on data collected from your customers
You’ll want to learn as much as you can about your target market. This will help you to develop a clear marketing message and message that will resonate with your customers.
You’ll also want to develop a marketing strategy and strategy based on your data. This will help you to determine how best to reach your customers based on their demographics and what they like and dislike.
Wrapping up
Running a successful restaurant can be challenging, especially if you’ve never done it before. This article will help prepare you for the challenges that lie ahead. When it comes down to it, though, you’ve got to have a passion for the business and enough gumption to succeed.
There’s no point in trying to build a restaurant from scratch if you don’t have those qualities. So take your time, do your research, and make sure you hire the right people. When you do, you’ll be well on your way to opening a successful, profitable business.
