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Thinking I may have spotted a missing niche in the local restaurant market, got me thinking about how hard it would be to open and run a restaurant. I certainly wouldn't expect it to be an easy life - at least to begin with - but are there any experiences of it on here?
lots of work, antisocial hours, lots of expense, hard to make profit on food, depends what liscencing is like in your area.
Have you any experience at all?
Irrelevent of experience in food etc, what about in running your own business?
Watch a few back episodes of Ramseys kitchen nightmares 🙂
Unless you have significant experience in the sector I would say don't
The average lifespan of a restaurant in the UK is about 18 months. As above, watch Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - the lessons from this seemed to always be good service, a limited menu done well, and fresh, local produce.
Andy
I've been a chef for the last 15 years in some of London's best restaurants,,,,I have NEVER come across anybody making money from a small/local restaurant, It's super tough,,,,any questions fire away
I have a short spell working in restaurants but as a waiter pre / during Uni kinda thing, no experience running a business. My sister did it from scratch and doesn't make a lot / works very hard, but that was with a chef husband in an unhealthy relationship which didn't help at all. Digress... I am interested (sorry, passionate) about food, genuinely see a gap in the market, do watch a lot of Ramsay-and-the-likes and think a lot of the time it seems like common sense - not wanting to belittle the industry at all. Masterchef, too. Its TV sure, but it all makes complete sense and can see a lot of it coming (other than the TV scripting).
I would fully imagine it to be stressful and hard work. But if it pulled off, I reckon it could be very satisfying...
Do I have any questions? How much does it cost to put a substantial bowl of well-made pasta on the table as described in the menu? If £14, maybe I do have it all wrong. Butt this partly comes about from my lunch today. Never usually buy pasta in principle but 'Orrechiette Cortodina' sounded very nice on the menu. What arrived was bland and not as described; the spicy sausage was not spicy at all, it had half a mushroom sliced through it. So for the first time ever I complained and the manager said they make their own sausages and the piccante varies. Fine, but this had none and he knew it so offered me chilli flakes. For £14 for a bowl of pasta, as Raymond Blanc would stress, why isn't the chef tasting it? He gave a £5 discount on my dish (the price difference between small and main portions). I thought, if it was my restaurant I'd be charging a lot less than £14 for a big bowl of different, freshly made pasta dishes (small menu, well made).
If it costs [i]anywhere near[/i] £14 to make a bowl of pasta, you're doing it wrong.
Then again, I can't think of many places where you'd be able to charge anything like that unless it's a seriously upmarket place.
For a local unbranded unknown restaurant, think more like charging £8-9 for that sort of food, and you'd need to be able to do that for a food & labour cost of no more than around £3. Establishment costs will eat up much of the remainder.
A friend of mine - an ex-chef - described running his own place like this: imagine you're holding a party and you make a real effort, making loads of nice food and decent drinks. You invite a lot of people. On the night half the people don't turn up, and of those who do half don't want what you've made. You then have to throw away everything that's left. And then do it all again the next day.
Sounds like a *lot* of hard work for not enough reward (and I don't just mean financial).
After seeing the plethora of restaurant/chef progs on telly, opening a restaurant would be just below professional dog egg collector on my career aspirations list 🙂
We have friends in the US who opened places that sound a bit like you're thinking of. They really don't make much money and they work hard but they love it and always have a smile on their faces. That said, we know others who did the same and the most talented and able of the lot has gone to drive lorries for a living as he said the stress was going to kill him.
Have you done a rough calculations your costs (all costs including rates, insurance e.t.c) and the rough price per person the local market will except and how many covers other restaurants get on various nights of the week and worked out roughly what the difference is?
Having worked in gastro-pubs as a chef all through university, then a brief (albeit mildly successful) spell as head chef/restaurant manager after uni, I wouldn't wish the job on my worst enemy.
Horribly unsociable hours, too much stress, not enough job satisfaction, barely above minimum wage. The only thing that made it remotely tolerable was the close proximity of free alcohol.
Having said that, it was definitely not my calling. If it's yours, then maybe your experience would differ.
If you want to make money from food open a decent chippy!!
Spent an enjoyable day with some friends on 2nd January, we had not seen them socially for nearly five years. The reason they were running a small restaurant in a very upmarket town. Always busy fully booked every weekend, they were working 12 hours a day 7 days a week just to break even. The only reason that they were able to get out with some sanity intact was that they eventually found someone to take over the lease on the restaurant. Over the time they owned it they survived - just, had no social life, holidays or significant time off and they both encountered significant stress related health problems.
As an outsider looking in you would have said that they were successful and probably making a mint out of it.
They also said that everyone that they knew doing the same thing was in a similar situation.
It's a nice dream but a rotten reality.
Mate of mine makes a reasonable living running a greasy spoon
Works at it mind, as well as the cafe, he posts flyers at local construction sites etc & delivers to them 3 times daily & hits the factories with similar tactics
Most of the failures I've seen on the TV programs seems to stem from the [strike]chef's[/strike] cook's ego rather than poor business practice
£14 for a bowl of pasta
That's where you are going wrong right there. Pasta I understand, and I assume that some sort of crockery will be included so you don't need to be specific. Like 'Oven roast', and 'Pan fried'. It's axiomatic.
And at £14 I think you have spotted a gap, but there is a reason for it.
Maybe it's me being an anti-social f***er but can never see the appeal of opening your own restaurant / B&B etc. Basically you're investing thousands of your own money, to put yourself in a position where you have to smile and bend over backwards to please even the most awkward of customers, often for the sake of £10 profit each time. Admittedly those £10's may add up, and you may make some cash, but only by biting your tongue and being walked all over by a**holes on a regular basis.
I work as an accountant with many restaurants as clients. To say they are having a tough time at the moment is an understatement. Getting the food and setting right that attracts talk and further clients is only part of the problem, the costing needs to be spot on with Gross Profits (excluding kitchen labour) of 70% plus and Net Profits of around 10%. Most ventures fail from the start if these aren't correct as the overhead costs in restuarants are so big mainly due to staff costs. The setup costs are also huge with 6 figure sums easily reached.
HMRC are also very active in checking restaurants due to them being a cash business as well as the implications on under taxing employees due to tips and cash in hand.
With any business make sure you do your research well, any skills that you're lacking in either get training or a professional to do the work for you. A good accountant will tell you if the business is viable from the start and it might not be want you to hear but they have no interest in an unprofitable business that won't be able to pay it's fees.
If you need to talk to my email is in my profile.
Mrs rkk01 used to be a hotel & catering manager. Worked in various places, good hotels, chain restaurants and eventually in one of the posher universities.
Unremittingly hard work and little reward - and as others have said, that goes far beyond the lack of financial reward...
After we got married she was working from 07:30 to 17:30 every weekday to keep up with the admin of running a number of university catering / conference / entertainment outlets, working again weekday evening if there were any uni or outside functions going on (typically 18:30-03:00) and managing weddings at the weekends and other outside contract events - again typically until very late at night.