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

On Friday, January 23, 2009, we established a high sales number for a weekday. Sales reached over $1500 as weather improved in Florida, we got to seat outside. Customers enjoy our patio seating.

On Saturday, one of the busiest days of the week in the breakfast business, sales reached almost $2500. This business level tested our kitchen, the wait staff and all of the procedures we hoped we had in place. Several customers mentioned an ad we started on Friday and will continue in a weekly newspaper for 30 days. That is one of the steps in our marketing plan.

Today will be busy again, but all of us need to focus on improving small details that take time and reduce the time in front of the customer and focusing on faster, more efficient service. Servers will be briefed on our objectives to eliminate bottlenecks. Some of those include;

• Improving knowledge of the menu, so there are less questions.
• Consistency in entering orders in the POS system so the kitchen clearly understands what the guest wants and there are no mistakes.
• Location of kitchen ingredients, take out supplies and things that cause crossover paths on the line.

The switchover from breakfast to lunch was a little disorganized at a very busy time of the day. Take out orders are problematic, but should be fewer on a Sunday.

The weekends look very good for the future. Next week we begin building our weekday sales through marketing plans we are ready to implement.

Our first $10,000 week is on the horizon. Today we should easily achieve that milestone for a new restaurant in the breakfast and lunch business.

As a restaurant owner, author and entrepreneur, I get dozens of questions about various aspects of owning a restaurant. Invariably, the questions that come from people who have never been in the hospitality business revolve around food. They want to know about competitive pricing, menu ideas, food suppliers, inventories and how to get guests in the door to taste their creations. Sadly, most of these well intentioned entrepreneurs are asking the wrong questions.

When you start a restaurant, no one expects you to serve “bad” food. Few new restaurants ever do. Customers assume you know what you are doing in the kitchen. They may not like your type of food, your concept or your interpretation of a particular menu item, but it is rare when a new restaurant misses the mark on the food itself.

The questions a new restaurant owner should be asking are about structure, service and cash flow. These are the subjects that will put you out of business - not bad food.

Structure creates consistency, which brings people back. Service is part of marketing. If you can’t deliver your product (food) properly, it makes no difference how good the food is or is not - the guest won’t be back. Cash flow is the life blood of your operation. More restaurants fail because of the owner’s lack of understanding their cash needs to keep the doors open. Profitable restaurants can, and do, fail because they didn’t understand cash flow.

While construction slows to a snail’s pace as we wait on permits and inspections, we are working on some of the mundane and admittedly boring parts of starting a new restaurant such as:

• forms and procedures like server guidelines, inventory sheets, server sidework, work flow and employee packets when they start employment.
• a marketing plan that will encompass the first six months of operations.
• new products for cleaning and sanitation.
• producing our kitchen recipe book.
• cash flow needs in the best case and worst case scenarios.
• procedures for the most efficient method to get food to the table and be able to turn tables.

The projects listed above are not fun. They are repetitive, common sense and in some cases, I have to almost be strapped to a chair to keep focused long enough to complete the task. However, each of these areas will impact the success or failure chances of any new restaurant.

If you are following this blog to learn about starting a restaurant or keeping your operation alive, pay close attention to the details of structure, service and cash flow. Collectively, they are more important than the food you will serve. There are a lot of restaurants who get away with mediocre food because they have all the other details perfected with consistency, good service and cash flow to meet their needs.

Those of you dreaming of your own restaurant or trying to find ways to improve the one you have, learn as much as you can about each of the subjects above. If you want some help buy the comprehensive guide to operating and marketing a restaurant The Restaurant Ebook. Yes, this is a blatant advertisement for one of my books, but it is a very small investment in your future. If you don’t get this book, buy a few others on the subjects discussed here. The knowledge will save you thousands of dollars and increase your chances of success.