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

The opening of Maggie Mae’s on the Bluffs in Belleair Bluffs, Florida has been a six month rocky road. The many posts on this blog have detailed the problems, hurdles and emotions of trying to open a new restaurant. The last thirty days have been intense in terms of time committed and concentration of resources to accomplish flipping on the ”OPEN” sign.

The new facility officially opened on Friday, January 9, 2009, more than six weeks beyond our projected opening date when the project was started.

Below is a day by day recap of the first four days of operations.

• Day One —  We turned on the open sign at 6:30 AM on a Friday. Our first customer didn’t come through the door until about 7:30 AM. It was a long hour with the entire staff waiting and wondering if we were ready and if anyone would come in at all. By the end of the day we had managed $550 in sales. However, it was clear the new servers had to do more training on the menu and the kitchen needed some procedural changes. The breakfast and lunch business parts were about equal in the number of customers.
• Day Two — Saturdays are the second biggest day of the week for breakfast guests. We had spent the overnight hours adding some enhancements to the kitchen such as shelves, moving the order printer and getting some utensils that escaped our initial inventory. The photo in this post is the kitchen line. Barely shown is a double oven followed bt the stove and salamander combination, the griddle and fryer. You can see a portion of the server window in the middle right of the photo. Second day sales were a respectful $850. The procedural and kitchen modifications clearly helped food delivery. However, the servers were still not trained well enough on the menu despite our request to study it closely overnight.
• Day Three — As usual, Sundays start lowly. People get up later and eat breakfast as a treat they may not enjoy during the week. Overnight we had compiled a new server menu test to force familiarity with the menu. The questions were based on what had been experienced in the last couple of days. The servers each took the open menu test before starting their shift. By the time customers finally showed up, the apprehension about the day was shown by servers, staff and management. I had been confident that we would have a good day, but the minutes between orders were starting to wear on me. Watch what you wish for! When guests started coming in after 8:30 they didn’t stop. At one point we filled every seat and ended the day with good sales of $1650. The kitchen, servers and procedures went extremely well. Ticket times were good with only minor anticipated problems.
• Day Four — A Monday. This day would tell the story. If our word of mouth opening had been successful, we would have a decent day. Of course, we didn’t expect a repeat of Sunday, but customers did respond and we ended the day with $900 in sales. A a business day as opposed to a weekend, we had a good business lunch crowd that exceeded breakfast.

Overall, we are extremely pleased with the results of our very “soft” opening. Part Two of this post will recap how we got this far from a marketing perspective. Marketing for a new restaurant is always a challenge, but our plan was in place and working so far.

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.

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.