Tips for Opening a Small Restaurant?

Already have the premises and a small customer base, I'm pretty good at marketing, love cooking and will employ a waitress. I've already got insurance and alcohol license as it's in a Hotel with bar, etc. I want my place to be really special! I'm most worried about taking ages to prepare the food when I'm busy. Has anyone got any useful tips or tricks?! Is there anything I haven't thought of?!

a few simple rules
keep the food at a high standard (as you would expectto have when eating out)
choose your clientelle base, cater for these, anyone else will be a bonus
enjoy every minute, try not to get too stressed, a problem shared is a problem halved
have the decor as welcoming and comfortable as customers need, doesn't need to be elaborate to make a good impression

Prep time is so important, most your time is preping not cooking, keep your menu small to start, specialise in a type or style of cooking, the main profit is in the drinks sold make sure people drink! they tend to enjoy the food more as well. I have a busy place with only 4 staff. Don't overpay your staff until they are trained and do what you want them too.

you have to prepare your food in your spare time how?? after closing time ,or very early morning, prepare the souces and the garnish and deserts for one week so for the all week you just have to serve the customers and it will be very handy to hire a comychif , it will be very handy for you and it does not cost mutch becouse first year and secound year comychif they get low wage as they are just learning.

Associations may be a good avenue to explore as well. These organizations will address many of the thoughts, questions and concerns you'll inevitably have as well as many you haven't anticipated yet. See the source box for some relevant links.

Research, research, research â€“ this cannot be stressed enough. Read as much as you can about the industry. Here are some book titles that are relevant:

* Restaurants That Work: Case Studies of the Best in the Industry by Martin E. Dorf
* Upstart Guide Owning & Managing a Restaurant by Roy S. Alonzo
* The Restaurant Managers Handbook: How to Set Up, Operate, and Manage a Financially Successful Food Service Operation by Douglas Robert Brown

There are plenty of free informational resources out there. Check the source box for links to articles.

Hope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!

One of the problems of restaurants is the cost associated with waste. Since you seem all set, one of the things you need to start planning is proper purchasing and handling, and careful preparation and storage.

Here are some tips from the California Business Waste reduction for restaurants http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/BizWaste/FactSheets/FoodSrvc.htm

Beverages

- Serve beverages from a beverage gun or dispenser, buy bar mixes in concentrate form, and buy milk in 5-gallon dispenser boxes.

Grocery Items

- Use health department-approved, refillable condiment dispensers instead of individual packets. Buy shelf-stable food supplies in bulk when sales volume and storage space allows.
- Consider buying your lettuce precut during those times of the year when the pre-cut cost is equal to (or less than) the cost of the bulk product.
- Buy meats in bulk or uncut form and cut to size.
- Consider buying shelled eggs, in bulk, if your egg usage for general cooking or baking is three or more cases per week.

Produce Handling and Storage

- Donate unserved food to a local food bank.
- Check your produce deliveries carefully for rotten or damaged product, and return any substandard product.
- Rotate perishable stock at every delivery to minimize waste due to spoilage.
- Clean coolers and freezers regularly to ensure that food has not fallen behind the shelving and spoiled.
- Arrange your refrigerated and dry storage areas to facilitate easy product access and rotation.
- Store raw vegetables and other perishables in reusable airtight containers to prevent unnecessary dehydration and spoilage.
- Rehydrate vegetables (e.g., celery, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, etc.) that have wilted by trimming off the very bottom part of the stalk and immersing in warm water (100Â°F.) for 15 to 20 minutes

Food Preparation and Storage

- Adjust inventory levels on perishables to reduce waste due to spoilage or dehydration.
- Use hourly or daily production charts to minimize over prepping and unnecessary waste.
- Whenever possible, prepare foods to order.
- When prepping food, only trim off what is not needed.
- Use vegetable and meat trimmings for soup stock.
- Adjust the size of meal portions if you find they are consistently being returned unfinished.
- Pre-cool hot foods (in an ice bath) before refrigerating.
- Reuse leftover foods that have been stored at proper temperature within two days of preparation to prevent waste due to spoilage.
- Store leftover hot foods from different stations in separate containers to reduce the chance of spoilage.
- Wrap freezer products tightly, label, and date them. Make sure they are used in a timely fashion, to minimize waste due to freezer burn.

You may want to read the full Restaurant Guide to Waste Reduction and Recycling to help reduce your costs http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Publications/BizWaste/44198016.pdf

Here are some other tips for restaurant owners like you:

Culinary Institute's Food preparation tips http://www.culinary-institutes.com/articles/food-preparation-tips.php
IRS Restaurant Tax Tips (VERY IMPORTANT!) http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/industries/content/0,,id=98720,00.html
"Industry norms" for restaurant expenses http://www.virtualrestaurant.com/spreadsheets.htm
Retaurant Management Tips http://www.allfoodbusiness.com/restaurant_management.php
Restaurant's Voice "First Impression Tips for Restaurant Owners" http://www.restaurantvoice.com/Improving-Customer-Service/restaurant-first-impressions.html
Retaurant Startup and Growth Magazine http://www.restaurantowner.com/mag/index.cfm
How to Create a Winning Restaurant Business Plan http://www.restaurantowner.com/public/552.cfm
Noise Control Strategies for Startup Restaurateurs http://www.restaurantowner.com/public/366print.cfm
The Easiest Way to Cut Your Food Cost 10% http://www.restaurantowner.com/public/211.cfm
Thirteen Ways to Prevent Theft Behind the Bar http://www.restaurantowner.com/public/546print.cfm
How to Conduct Effective Pre-Shift Meetings
Maintaining a Positive Climate http://www.restaurantowner.com/public/104.cfm
Cross-Training http://www.restaurantowner.com/public/385.cfm
RestaurantOwner.com http://www.restaurantowner.com/public/department33.cfm

Here are some recommended books:

Opening a Restaurant or Other Food Business Starter Kit: How to Prepare a Restaurant Business Plan and Feasibility Study (Paperback) by Sharon Fullen http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0910627363/ref=nosim/powerhomebizguid
The Restaurant Business Start-up Guide (Real-World Business) by Paul Daniels
Restaurant Financial Basics by Raymond S. Schmidgall
Restaurants That Work: Case Studies of the Best in the Industry by Martin E. Dorf
The Restaurant Managers Handbook: How to Set Up, Operate, and Manage a Financially Successful Food Service Operation by Douglas Robert Brown
Good list of must have books for a restaurant owner http://www.winecountryjobs.com/amazon_rest_mgmt.htm

If you're looking for ways to create consistency in your operation, to make it run without you the same way it runs with you, you should focus on setting up your management systems.

* Operations Manual (the biggest key to consistency)
* Marketing Manual
* Menu Engineering Workbook
* Employee Policy Manual
* Training Manual for every position
* Human Resources Manual

The majority of people, whether it's school or a job, are visual learners. Most people have higher comprehension rates from seeing and/or reading how to do something than with hearing how to do something. Putting your business on paper gives you the most effective method possible for teaching your staff how to operate your restaurant, setting standards by which their performance can be measured, and setting policies you can use to coach and reprimand your staff. All these things build the consistency you can't find in a business without these tools.

Your Operations Manual, for example, will provide your staff with a written method for doing EVERYTHING in your business. It will include things like:
* Daily/Weekly/Period/Yearly duty checklists for all positions
* Daily/Weekly/Period/Yearly record keeping and bookkeeping functions (sales, employee hours, restaurant expenditures) with standards for your business
* Daily/Weekly/Period/Yearly Reporting functions (your record keeping compiled and formed into comparisons and reports you use to make your business decisions)

It will also contain much, much more. In some businesses, the other manuals I listed are part of the Operations Manual.

Maybe the most important management system to develop up front is the Menu Engineering Workbook. This is where all your recipes are categorized, your build sheets are created for every menu item, prep lists are developed, line setup diagrams are shown, and your every system used in regards to food is contained from:
* Inventory procudures
* Purchasing procedures
* Receiving procedures
* Guidelines for menu change
* Menu Item Analysis
* Method for comparing Ideal/Actual cost of goods sold
* Gross profit dollar per person analyzing, budgeting and reporting

The place to begin structuring with any restaurant, after the menu is made, is by putting all your recipes into spreadsheets, so they can be linked and updated automatically by your inventory. With a properly organized financial reporting program, these numbers can be used to let you know exactly how your business is doing on a weekly or even daily basis and whether or not someone is stealing from you or wasting your product.

You have a big challenge operating a restaurant in a hotel location. Aside from those found in the "Ritz Carltons" of the world, hotel restaurants are usually very difficult to operate at a profit. The general public sees hotel restaurants as somewhere you eat when you're staying at a hotel, not someplace everyone eats. It's a mental hurdle you have the challenge of overcoming, and it's not an easy one. Not many do. Typically, hotel restaurants, like country clubs and other "captive audience" locations operate at a loss, and do so at the expense of the bigger business they compliment. These food services are seen as an ameninity, something the hotel utilizes to sell more rooms, not a profit making business. This is why you see a large portion of hotel restaurants operated independently. The hotels know they are not money makers. It's also why you don't see a lot of national chains in hotel restaurant locations unless they have a subsidation deal negotiated with the hotel, or the hotel happens to be in an incredible location on a busy intersection with a lot of the restaurant visible from the road.

Good luck. If you need more specific help, feel free to contact me.

Free initial consultations.

Brandon O'Dell
O'Dell Consulting
Restaurants/Retail/Bars
bodell1@cox.net
(316) 361-0675
http://www.bodellconsulting.com

YES. ONE TIP. DON'T DO IT! BEEN THERE, DONE IT! IT WILL KILL YOU. LOTS OF HOURS, LOTS OF MONEY AND LOTS OF BULL S T!

Check out Channel 4's Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen nightmares.

This will give you some idea of how not to run a business.

The website also includes a section "Set up your own restaurant" and this may provide you with some useful information.

Good luck.

Keep your food quality high.

Expand your customer base with things such as free nights for local guest houses, business groups etc. They may not bring you any income that night, but if your food is up to scratch they will return and recommend you to others.

Look into the possibility of an early bird menu, or special offers such as free bottle of house wine for parties of four or more.

Have offers for slow nights like Monday.

Depending on your type of restaurant, maybe a special children's menu to attract parents with young children?

Loyalty system for repeat customers?

All-in accommodation and dinner deals with the hotel?

Do not do everything yourself. Employ washer, cutter, preparation of all the necessities personnel in accordance to your menu, so when the order comes, you will just do the cooking.

You should prepare a business plan before you start. It needs to ask questions like:

What happens if the restaurant is too successful?
What happens if the restaurant is not successful?
What are my exit strategies?
How will I obtain finance?
How will I find employees?
What clientele will my restaurant cater to?
What are possible substitutions for eating at my restaurant?
What are some economical factors which will affect my business?
Who will handle, payroll, accounting, employee training, etc?

Go to your local bookstore and purchase a book on how to do business plans and it will get you started right away.

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