Starting A Restaurant Checklist
The restaurant industry is highly competitive, and it can be challenging to open a successful restaurant. If you’ve decided that you want to start a restaurant, there is a checklist you need to follow to make sure you’re set up for success and have every opportunity to thrive. Starting any business is complex and full of challenges, but starting a restaurant has its own unique challenges that you need to overcome.
As a restaurant consulting company, DMD Restaurant Consultants helps restaurants worldwide streamline their processes, create unique concepts, and integrate tactics to operate efficiently. You’ll have everything you need to have a successful grand opening and thrive long after your restaurant launches by following the checklist below.
How To Start A Restaurant
Many restaurants fail within the first year because restaurant owners don’t take an ample amount of time to conduct the necessary research. Follow the checklist below to prepare for every aspect of opening a restaurant, from nailing down a concept to creating marketing strategies.
Step 1: Finalize A Restaurant Concept
One of the first things you need to do when opening a restaurant is to decide on the concept. The more unique your restaurant concept, the more likely customers will be drawn to it. Maybe you want to open a ghost kitchen or perhaps you want to operate a brick-and-mortar restaurant. During this preparation stage, complete market research to help you understand popular types of cuisines in the area, what niche your restaurant could fill, and how many other restaurants are in the area. If it seems like there’s a type of restaurant or cuisine that competitors have purposefully ignored, make sure to find out why. Thorough market research helps you understand your potential customers’ demands.
Step 2: Create A Restaurant Business Plan
To understand your restaurant thoroughly, you need to write a comprehensive restaurant business plan. A restaurant business plan will help you, secure investors, create a one-of-a-kind menu, hire a head chef, and see which positions you need to fill. Your business plan will cover topics such as a business overview, SWOT analysis, financial analysis and projections, a marketing plan, industry research, and a business operations plan. In addition, you can reference your restaurant business plan down the road to stay on track and update it as your restaurant evolves.
Step 3: Choose Your Restaurant Location
If you’re going to open a restaurant, you need to decide on a location. If you have a solid restaurant concept but build in an inadequate area, you’ll have difficulty being successful. Once you’ve nailed down your target audience, use that data to determine where your restaurant has the best chance of success.
Step 4: Secure Your Licenses
As a restaurant owner, there are specific licenses you need to acquire before you can open your doors to the public. These licenses include a liquor license, music license, signage license, health license, fire department approval, lift clearance, and more. Therefore, it’s essential to work with an experienced restaurant consultant to ensure you have all of the necessary licenses.
Step 5: Complete Comprehensive Market Research
To gain an advantage over your competitors, you need to understand the market. Market research involves finding out which restaurants are doing well and which ones are struggling and finding the reason for your competitors’ successes and failures. You will use this information to help guide your decision-making.
Step 6: Sort Your Finances
Opening a restaurant requires a lot of money, and you need to figure out where you’re going to secure the necessary funds. Did you know that it usually takes restaurants one to two years to break even? So, you need to secure working capital so that your restaurant isn’t operating at a deficit for years. You may get funding from private investors, family, and friends, or banks.
Step 7: Hire And Train Your Staff
To have a functional restaurant, you need to bring the right staff on board. It’s always good to start with the head chef and work your way down from there. Once you’ve hired your team, you need to train them properly so that your restaurant runs seamlessly. You should also provide everyone with an employee handbook to have something to reference if they have questions or need a refresher. Make sure also to teach your staff how to upsell diners to help easily increase your sales.
Step 8: Form Your Menu
Your menu items are the face of your restaurant. Therefore, you need to design an adequately priced menu that will draw people in and make you a profit. To be successful, you need your food costs low and your profits high. You can also work with restaurant consultants to design a one-of-a-kind restaurant menu.
Step 9: Order Equipment
Restaurant equipment includes everything from dishes for your diners to kitchen equipment like refrigerators. Naturally, you want to have everything in place so that your team has the tools to serve your diners properly. Once you’ve made a list of what equipment you need, make sure to research what place offers the best quality at the most affordable price.
Step 10: Have A Grand Opening
The opening day of your restaurant is your official entry into the market. Everything on this day needs to be perfect because this is the only time you’ll get to make a first impression. You should divide your opening into a soft opening and a hard opening. The soft opening is for people you know and gives them a chance to explore your restaurant and give their opinions about your food and customer service. Once you’ve made tweaks depending on the feedback, you’re ready for a hard opening. You want to make this day as memorable as possible for diners, so maybe offer discounts or book live music.
Step 11: Invest In Restaurant Marketing
Last but not least, you need to market your restaurant. Explore possible marketing strategies and see which tactics will work best for you. Make sure you take the time to create thorough marketing strategies so your ideal customers can discover your restaurant.
Start A Successful Restaurant With DMD Restaurant Consultants
Whether you want to open a fast-casual restaurant or a fine dining restaurant, following the steps that our team has laid out above will ensure you profitable results. DMD Restaurant Consultants has the knowledge and experience necessary to help make your restaurant dreams a reality.
Our consultants will make sure you optimize your resources to get your restaurant opened as quickly as possible and start your career as a restaurant owner. If you’re interested in learning more about how DMD Restaurant Consultants can help you, schedule a free consultation with us today!
