5 tasty tips for starting your own restaurant

Starting your own restaurant is a delicious dream. There you’d be, sauntering triumphantly through your eatery, surrounded by packed tables and excited chatter, stopping only to count your profits and shake hands with appreciative diners.

Then you wake up.

Whilst owning a restaurant is an undeniably romantic fantasy, the reality requires countless hours of hard graft, innumerable dissatisfied customers and a smorgasbord of financial headaches.

Depressingly, two thirds of new restaurants won’t survive past their first birthday – which is a statistic likely to put you off the idea for good …

… but don’t give up too soon, my entrepreneurial friend.

As Theodore Roosevelt said: “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain and difficulty,” so hang on to your restaurant vision and read our five tasty tips below …

#1: Do your research

Opening a restaurant and making it a success depends entirely on how well you know your potential customers and how best your spanking new eatery can cater to their tastes.

Consequently, it’s important to do your homework and find out what style of food the area is crying out for, as well as formulating a plan to ensure your business stands out from the competition.

#2: Find a great chef

Any restaurant owner worth his or her salt will invest plenty of time and money into finding a chef that jives with the eatery’s business objectives AND cooks food that’s out of this world.

When looking for a chef, make sure they have the ability to lead and motivate other members of the team. After all, the quality of the grub and service will keep your customers coming back for more.

#3: Invest in top notch facilities

Aside from doing your research and finding a great chef, your restaurant must be spotlessly clean, as hungry customers will refuse to eat in surroundings resembling a dilapidated prison canteen.

Therefore, ensure you have a first class cleaning rota, relevant hygiene certificates and washroom services that’ll leave customers feeling assured your restaurant is a sanitary place to chow down.

#4: Keep your menu simple

Sit down in a restaurant that offers 300 different options on its menu – accompanied by several unappetising pictures – and you can bet your bottom dollar you’re not in for a culinary master class.

So, avoid this type of scenario in your own eatery by kicking things off with a simple menu, which should ensure everything is well cooked, resulting in a dining area full of happy customers.

#5: Never surrender

Admittedly, opening and running a restaurant is far from easy, but if you don’t have the doggedness to follow through on your dream and overcome hurdles, the hospitality industry isn’t for you.

Yes, the seas will get choppy, but by assembling a good team, serving food you can be proud of and not getting ideas above your station, a restaurant can be an extremely tasty business venture.