Starting, Owning and Marketing A Restaurant Blog|Starting and Owning a Restaurant - Construction, Planning, Marketing, Opening and Managing a New Restaurant

On Wednesday, December 24th, we had four inspections that went very well.  Electrical, plumbing, chemical and HVAC are all done and passed by the county. Tomorrow, Monday December 28th, we have our hood inspection, fire suppression system inspection and building inspection. After all three of those are done and passed, we can get our Certificate of Occupancy.

The final step is to have an inspection by the state of Florida, Hotels and Restaurant Division, which issues the license to operate as a restaurant. We will schedule the state on Wednesday. At that point we need a full week, minimum, in the kitchen perfecting recipes, procedures and prep work.

Its hard to believe that the last six months have gone by so quickly in retrospect. However, it seemed very slow at the time. We are six weeks behind our projected opening date.

Opening a new restaurant is no easy task. If possible, always buy an existing restaurant if remotely possible. You can save time and money in most instances. Of course,  the mitigating factors such as location, amount of remodeling and type of structure must be considered in the equation.