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What does it take to start a successful restaurant in 2019? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by Cameron Mitchell, CEO of Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, Restaurateur and Author, on Quora:
To succeed in the restaurant business I believe you must have prior experience operating a restaurant at a high level such as a General Manager or Executive Chef. There are so many details to running a restaurant that you can’t possibly know about or understand unless you have that prior experience.
Also, adequate capital for the build-out; furniture, fixtures, & equipment; pre-opening expenses; china, glass, and silver; training, marketing; etc. is essential. Again, there are a lot of details here to consider and it almost always costs more than anticipated so a contingency is also a good idea to have in the budget.
LOCATION – LOCATION – LOCATION. It’s an old adage but very true. This may often affect the rental cost, so of course, that is a factor, but putting a good restaurant in a bad location or the wrong location can be an act of futility and set you on a road to failure.
Sound legal advice is also highly recommended when raising capital or when doing lease negotiations. So many young restaurateurs fail to get good legal advice and end up paying way too much or don’t realize how much is negotiable. Securing good legal advice is money well spent and should come back to you many times over.
Of course, a good concept is key. The concept must be relevant to the marketplace and well understood by the owner and its guest. A concept that is unclear has much more difficulty in succeeding. Concepts almost always need tweaking and can change over time, but starting off with that vision clearly defined is essential.
At my company, Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, long before we open our doors, we assemble a team of our marketers, designers, and operations people who discuss the concept after hours of research and development meetings and trips. That team then develops what we call our brand DNA. This consists of a few concise statements describing the food, ambiance, and feel of the concept in words that we hope will invoke images of what our guests will experience when they dine with us.
Lastly, one must understand the difficulty, and particularly the amount, of work that will be required to launch the restaurant and be willing to put in the time.
This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2019/01/28/what-it-really-takes-to-start-a-successful-restaurant-in-2019/ 2019-01-28 17:23:00Z
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