Three Hats of a Successful Restaurant Owner

With so many restaurants failing each year, you have to winder what these owners are missing that is causing them to run into such problems. Many times it seems like a restaurant that should succeed, but for some reason, it doesn't. One of the biggest keys for starting a successful restaurant, and staying off of the failure heap, is to understand what you are getting into before you go forward with your idea.

Starting a successful restaurant requires you to focus on three distinct areas. If you look at the business you are getting into, it makes sense, but many new owners miss at least one of the areas. Remember; you are getting into the Food Service Business. That alone tells you the areas you need to focus on: Food, Service, and Business.

Food

First and foremost, your business is food. While for some that means a handful of recipes that your family likes, in reality it is much more complex than that. A running a restaurant kitchen is not the same as cooking for your family.

While a home cook can take the afternoon to prepare a dish that will be served at the dinner table, a restaurant must have food that can be prepared fresh, and made to order. That pasta that was a perfect al dente when it was first prepared will soon turn into a plate of doughy mush before long. What was once a delicious dish becomes something that will cause your customers to leave and not return.

Starting a successful restaurant requires developing a menu that not only has great tasting dishes, but also items that can be prepared to order.

That's not to suggest that items cannot be prepared ahead of time. There is a lot of the prep work that will be done early in the day so that everything is ready to go at service time. When the order comes in, everything is in place and the actual cooking of the dish can proceed quickly. A great example of this is to watch the line at a fast food restaurant. When you place your order the line cooks can quickly get everything prepared to order, and you can be on your way quickly.

You also need to make sure the items on your menu can be prepared the same every time. It can be very disappointing to a customer to return to a restaurant because there was an item they really enjoyed on their last visit, only to find that it isn't the same on this visit. Consistency is crucial to a restaurants success.

Keep in mind that one person's tastes can differ drastically from another person. Spaghetti sauce that you think is wonderful could be either bland or too spicy to someone else. As a restaurant owner that means that there is no way to please everyone. If your recipe tastes the way you like, and most of your customers like that taste, leave it alone. Do not go changing your recipe every time a customer complains. Over time. the people who do not like your recipes will find other things to order, or will find a restaurant that better meets their likes, and the people that do like your food will become regular customers.

Service

The second component of starting a successful restaurant is service. People do not go out to eat merely for food. Part of what they are paying for is the dining experience. Too often service is sacrificed for the sake of savings. Minimal staff is used in serving and in the kitchen in an attempt to save money. Unfortunately, this can be a deadly spiral.

When business does come, the restaurant is not staffed to handle it. The servers are spread too thin, and it takes them longer than it should to greet customers and get their beverage orders. It also take too long to check back with refills. When the order finally makes it too the kitchen, the understaffed cooks begin to fall behind in preparing orders, and when the food does come out, there is an increased chance of there being mistakes. Because the servers are trying to work too quickly, the mistakes are missed and passed along to the already frustrated customer.

This string of missteps will eventually result in a lost customer. Regardless of how much the customer has spent, no one wants to be neglected for a service that they are paying for. Management may try to set things right by offering complimentary desserts or beverages, or by discounting the meal, but that only works some of the time. In the process, you not only loose the customer, you also loose money on the transaction.

New customers cost money to attract. You success is dependent on your ability to get new customers to come back for a second or third visit. In the long run, it is a greater savings to the restaurant to make sure that you are adequately staffed, and that you can build a strong base of returning customers.

Business

The third, and arguably the most important component of starting a successful restaurant is, business. There are far too many new restaurants that are started by people that did not adequately understand the business they were getting into. By failing to grasp this part of the equation, they almost guarantee the failure of their restaurant. At the very least, they have set themselves up for a very expensive education.

There is a reason that some major universities have developed 4-year degrees specifically focused on restaurant operation. It is a complex business. Mistakes in operating a restaurant could be very costly, and could take a great deal of time to recover from.

One of the biggest areas that a new owner should focus on is the food cost. Along with labor, this is the biggest cost your restaurant faces, and can be one of the most difficult costs to keep control of. Many times an owner will have a general idea how much a recipe costs, without bothering to figure out the true cost. While it would be great if six-pounds of pork loin would give you 16 boneless pork chops, and experienced chef could tell you that it is not reality. By the time you clean and trim the loin, you are left with less than 6-pounds to work with. All of the parts you trimmed off are added into your cost, and they are now in the waste bin.

That also does not account of the chop that was sent back because the customer felt it was overcooked. It does not account for the chop that did not get used in time, and now must be thrown away because it is no longer usable. To keep track of all of these additional expenses, you need to cost out every item on your menu to account for a certain percentage of waste, and to get a true idea of what each menu item costs.

After you have costed your menu, you can look at the profitability of the menu. Chances are you will find some items that are very profitable, and other items that are less profitable. This is useful knowledge in knowing which items to run as specials, or perhaps even adjust prices.

It is easy to look at the excitement of owning a restaurant. It is exciting ot think of Friday and Saturday nights with a full house of customers eager to spend their money on your offerings. However, to ignore the other part of restaurant owner ship can be fatal. Owning a restaurant requires paying as much attention to the business end as you do to the quality of your food. You need to know where your money is coming from, and where it is going.

Another aspect of the business of owning a restaurant is marketing. In order to survive, you must get customers in the door. It is a very competitive industry, and you need to consider every other restaurant your competition. You need to be able to successfully capture the attention of you r potential customers, and get them away from your competition and into your restaurant. Onceyou have them, you also need to keep them (that is where food and service come in).

Starting a successful restaurant can be an exciting, and somewhat scary thing. While there are great risks involved, if done right, there can be great rewards. Don't let the fear of failure stop you, but do use it as motivation to proceed carefully. Learn as much as you can before committing your money. The more you know, the greater your chances of being successful.