PDA

View Full Version : Ideas for starting a restaurant



boogle
02-08-2011, 01:50 PM
Hello all! So my in-laws have been in the food industry for decades. My father in-law has managed 4 or 5 different restaurants over the past 30 years and has even opened up a bar and a breakfast joint. He sold the bar 30 years ago and the breakfast joint eventually went out of business. They might be considering giving it another go around and I am going to probably wind up helping out. So a few questions that i am just looking for some creative ideas.

First... our town is a family oriented town know for having some of the better schools in the state (TN). Lots of suburbs and middle class families. Population of the city is around 100,000, county is around 300000. We are just short of Nashville which is much bigger and has a lot of fancy restaurants. Most people with money that are looking for a really nice meal go to Nashville. We have tons of chains, a quick yellow pages search showed 320 listings under restaurant.

My mother in-law is a very good cook, her main things are good southern cooking (steak, pot roast, mashed potato's etc.) and she makes top notch deserts. There are not a lot of southern cooking type restaurants around here, I am guessing that the main reason for that is the fact we are in the south and that is pretty much what everyone cooks at home, who wants to go out to eat just to order the same thing you cook at home.

Okay, thanks for bearing with me. So here are my ideas, shoot em down, change em, what ever you want.

1. We need to really focus on community. Do not try and have a mega menu and feel like a chain, cook a few things and cook them well. Focus on the quality ingredients, the contrast to the corporate frozen crap. Find ways to help local non-profits and hunger initiatives. Have a good reputation as cooks and as people.

2. If southern food is what they cook well, thats what we need to serve, but we have to find some way to separate it from grandma's cooking. Everyone around here can cook a good pot roast, we need something to make it special to have ours. Obviously it needs to be really good, but I feel like we need more than that, just not sure what.

3. With the economy and peoples conservative spending, deserts seem like a hard thing to focus on. I do not see that bringing people out, but maybe some of you know better. I will say that other than a few catering places no one around here really promotes deserts (maybe for good reason...)

We are obviously just starting to talk, nothing has been put in stone or decided upon. Everyone here has really great advice and I just would like to hear some.

Thanks so much

Reflo Ltd
02-08-2011, 02:12 PM
I've looked into the restaurant business a few times over the years and the advice I always get is "don't go into the restaurant business" lol

I like to cook and always dreamed about a nice diner-type joint with with good comfort food.

I am told it is a tough business and you can't just take a day off. Maybe open 7 days a week and long hours too. Nobody will care for the place like you will so you have to be there a lot for success.

If you enjoy it then that is great. I think i would enjoy it quite a bit. but maybe I only think that because I don;t have to do it every single day.

I also hear that most restaurants fail... although I do not know the statistics on that.

If I had the money to spend so that I wouldn't have to worry about whether I could pay the bills or not, I think I might delve into a restaurant business just because I want to.

huggytree
02-08-2011, 08:35 PM
pick a good theme or style for your restaurant...when i go out to eat its never at a blah family type restaurant....its specific....italian, mexican, german, high end steak

i personally wouldnt be interested in southern cooking type of restaurtant...it would be too boring for me....i never understand why Boston Market is popular....its just basic food....if i want basic food my wife can make a good meal....when i go out its for something she cannot make....im sure your mother in law makes great food, but is it on a high enough level to be unique?....for me Southern cooking isnt a unique enough type of food...id never go out to eat for pot roast or fried chicken

most restaurants do seem to have a short life....

what it looks like outside and inside is very important....just by looking at the building i know if i want to try it or not....it has to look appealing....they can have great food, but if it looks like a hole in the wall its just not appealing....

good luck

ruth
02-08-2011, 09:12 PM
A restaurant with this menu would probably do very well in a downtown location, serving lunch Monday - Friday. Throw in southern breakfast with grits and you'll have a winner for sure! Plus, you'll have weekends off!

KristineS
02-09-2011, 12:31 PM
My thinking was kind of along the same line as Ruth. Maybe a diner type breakfast and lunch thing in a neighborhood with lots of businesses. I know I'm always looking for a place where I can get a good lunch or a quick breakfast that isn't fast food for a reasonable price. That might be a niche you could exploit.

Also, don't forget that just because a lot of people can cook the same food as your mother in law doesn't mean that they do. Lots of people work long hours and don't have time to cook, so a place where they could pick up good, home style food could be very popular.

Blessed
02-09-2011, 12:39 PM
I like the diner idea.

I have to say that sometimes I do go out to eat the kinds of foods I can cook at home - simply because then I don't have to clean up the mess. I love to eat a good piece of fried chicken or chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy that I didn't have to spend an hour in the kitchen cooking and won't have to spend an hour after dinner cleaning up. I do enjoy going to the "specialty" restaurants - especially a nice steakhouse, but I can cook anything I want to at home. I regularly make spicy Indian dishes, savory Mexican dishes, traditional Italian dishes - from grandma's recipes, Cajun stuff my step-mother taught me to cook and good old fashioned southern chicken and dumplin's or pot roast. The lure of eating out for the person in the family who is responsible for getting dinner on the table and the kitchen cleaned up again is often simply a break from the daily work and responsibility of cooking dinner.

boogle
02-09-2011, 01:41 PM
My thoughts were to stay away from the breakfast side of things. They have tried that once and did not succeed, plus we have a lot of Shoney's, IHOP's, Waffle House's and dare I say Hardee's (line is out of the parking lot everyone morning) that have that market closely covered. I do not know a lot about the industry myself but with very limited financial resources it seems to me we should choose are battles and breakfast may not be one we can win. So based on the posts above (much appreciated) This is a tweaked plan.

I think a seasonal restaurant would work well around here. No one is really doing it and we have 100+ degree summers, ,-0 winters, and well defined spring and fall. Winter time focus on soup and sandwich style lunches (my mother in law makes some wicked soups) and dinner be warm comfort food, i.e. meat and three etc. Over the summer focus lunch more around fresh cold sandwiches and salads with locally grown veggies (we have a killer farmers market around here) and dinner be slightly more grill themed, i.e. good burgers, veggies and chicken, etc.

These differences do not seem strong enough to confuse costumers and there would obviously be some stationary staples year-round.

Secondly, I am closely connected with a lot of the local non-profits. I think the #1 image I want to convey with the restaurant is a community diner. I would like to make 1 week of each month up for bids to local non-profits and then offer a % of the sales from people there for the non-profit to them. If we can get the local churches, youth and health organization, etc. behind us and promoting us it gives us a good affordable way to get the word out. I also want to focus on supporting the local farmers market Beef from Tommy's farm, Tomato's from the Smith Family, even showcase some of their farms and history on our walls.

Since we may be up against a challenge serving food that people cook at home, give them another reason to feel good about coming to our restaurant.

Thoughts?

Blessed
02-09-2011, 02:22 PM
There is a newer diner-type restaurant around here that is doing exactly what you are talking about with the menu and it's #1 an awesome place to eat and somewhere I try to meet clients/friends for lunch and #2 seems to be doing well - even though the atmosphere is less "diner" and more "tea room". I like the concept and think it's a good one.

I also like your second idea too - that sounds like a great way to get some low-cost marketing that at the same time benefits the local community. Community pride and supporting the home crowd are both powerful forces and if you can harness them in your favor you will do well!

As I said earlier - I don't think the challenge of serving food that people can cook at home is as big a deal as you might think - there are reasons beyond eating something exotic or that you don't normally have that weigh in on people's decision to eat out. We hardly ever eat out because my husband hates to spend the money - but we have several friends who eat out almost every Sunday - simply to save the hassle and mess of having to fix dinner at home after Sunday Morning church.

Spider
02-09-2011, 02:24 PM
Although there are a lot of restaurants around, where I live, only one cooks plain old healthy "grandma's" home-cooking and that's the one regulars go to. I'll bet none of the specialty restaurants have regular customers. I think serving a regular clientelle every day is more lucrative in the long run than serving "special night out" meals. That way, you can vary the menu, and varying the menu means using produce as they are in season - when they are better, fresher and cheaper. I tend to think of these type restaurants more as "cafeteria" than "diner." They are also longer-lived.

As for specialty restaurants, the short life can be solved by changing the specialty every year or so - be an Italian restaurant for a year, then Mexican for the next 6-months, then Indian, Irish, German, whatever you fancy. Especially if you can bring in a specialty cook of that specialty and you can use the cook's résumé as advertising material. That allows you to change to suit the whims of the public - if Italian slows down, change to somethibg else - if that packs the crowd in, let it run longer. During the changeover, you can make a big deal of the week-long redecoration period accenting the secrecy of it, Guess what it will be - competition, Nighly News "What we learned today about the new restaurant coming to town... etc.

J from Michigan
02-09-2011, 08:33 PM
Population of the city is around 100,000
1. We need to really focus on community
Small population. I'm curious to what surroundings your location might have: Maybe community doesn't have to be the only 'focus.'
Will you be located near freeway off-ramps?
Any truckers/families "driving through?"
Landmarks or places of commerce near the site?


Focus on the quality ingredients, the contrast to the corporate frozen crap.
What if your only (or least expensive) source of lettuce, pickles, etc... IS frozen?



2. If southern food is what they cook well, thats what we need to serve, but we have to find some way to separate it from grandma's cooking. Everyone around here can cook a good pot roast, we need something to make it special to have ours.
"Like Grandma makes" and "Authentic Southern" might work for people driving through?
Besides Pot Roast, what is your future competition offering?


3. With the economy and peoples conservative spending, deserts seem like a hard thing to focus on. I do not see that bringing people out, but maybe some of you know better. I will say that other than a few catering places no one around here really promotes deserts (maybe for good reason...)
Do the catering places offer free Wi-fi?
How's their coffee?


Just random thoughts... :)

Patrysha
02-10-2011, 02:17 AM
Bwa ha ha...cracks me up to see someone calling 100,000 small. I live in a town of 10,000 (service area of around 35,000 in the surrounding areas...cuz we're the biggest town within an hour drive of our feeder towns) and have 47 restaurants at last count...

Business Attorney
02-11-2011, 01:32 AM
Even though breakfast would not be your focus, I would keep it in mind. Thirty years ago, none of the fast food hamburger chains (not even Hardees) offered breakfast, but now they all do. Two basic reasons: #1: the margins are great (what are the food costs for 2 eggs? 2 slices of toast? a cup of coffee?) #2 you are paying rent 24 hours a day, have equipment sitting there 24 hours a day, so those costs are really sunk costs. Only your variable costs (food, labor, utilities) need to be covered before you start dropping cash straight to the bottom line.

I would also note that there are many people who don't want a Hardees or an iHop for breakfast. Whether it is for a business meeting or just having a regular place to go where you don't feel like an anonymous customer, there are definitely reasons to choose a "homey" place to eat your grits or biscuits and gravy.

jamesray50
02-11-2011, 08:06 PM
I think if home cooking food or comfort food was cooked well, had good flavor, was really home cooked and not prepackaged, then it would be good. Like real mashed potatoes and gravy. Fresh not frozen foods. I live in Lexington, Ky and most of the restaurants are chains. I don't mind eating at some of them, but I would prefer more family style home cooking and they aren't available. I usually go to Cracker Barrel if I want home cooking in a restaurant. There are a few other small diners in strip malls with a limited menu.
Just my 2 cents.