Written by Andrea Estrada
One of our favorite things to do is to eat, be it eating at home, going to a restaurant, getting takeaway, or just ordering in. So, if you have ever stood outside a restaurant with a half-hour waiting time on a Tuesday night, you probably found yourself wondering just how much they might be making a month or even annually for that matter, and judging by the fact that the restaurant is packed and with a waiting line on a weeknight, it is safe to say they are probably earning well. The restaurant business can be a very ludicrous venture if you are successful at it, and it can also be your downfall if you do not know what you are doing.
Planning and setting up the restaurant is just one aspect of things. Starting formal operations after opening is a completely different ball game, so the work does not end once you open for business, it just gets different while still being challenging. The first few months are very crucial and you will need to have savings that you can fall back on to keep operations going for a while. If you do not have that caution money, your chances of sustaining yourself as a business will most likely not succeed.
For the sake of this article, we are sticking to the getting your restaurant set up and ready phase. So, we will be talking about the different things you need to do, and we will be talking about the role aesthetics and things like the choice of your restaurant chairs can factor into your restaurant’s likelihood of success.
The planning phase of getting a restaurant going involves hiring staff, recipe and development, creating your menu and pricing, figuring out your vendors to get your supplies from, cutting costs, marketing, and of course, designing the actual restaurant space.
You do not have to hire a full staff right now. If you are keeping your operations small initially, you just want to go the bare minimum. If you hire too many people from the get-go, it will only come back to haunt you when you have to pay too many salaries every month. So, you can expand your staff once you need to keep up with the scale of your operation.
If you try to buy the supplies, daily proteins, fruits, and vegetables from a random supermarket, it is going to cost you a lot of money. You want to cut costs where you can, and finding a vendor that deals with restaurants and provides daily supplies at a lesser cost is very important. You can ask around other people in the food business and do your scouring before you find the vendors you need that are willing to give you your daily supply at a cost that works for you.
Always start marking before you open up your restaurant. You want people to watch the space before it officially opens, so this can include sneak peeks, behind the scenes, secret menu items, and so on. You want to start generating some interest before you officially open your doors to customers because that is what draws them in on an opening day.
Now, we will be talking about just how important of a role does the way your restaurant looks when it comes to its success. We all know a couple of very beautiful restaurants that closed too early, and we also know of a bunch of small hole-in-the-wall type of food setups that manage to draw in lines almost every other day. The answer is a little complicated, but it depends. A lot of hole-in-the-wall places are serving traditional or just very good food that draws in locals, for instance, there are famous and authentic Chinese restaurants that do not have the best interior but they draw in a huge crowd, especially Chinese locals and tourists that want a taste of home.
The way your restaurant looks will draw in customers the first time, and the food and service are what usually make them decide whether or not they want to come again. If you are planning on opening a mid to upscale restaurant, then you want your interior and exterior to complement the prices you set. This does not mean that you have to get the really expensive leather seats and mahogany tables, but it does mean making your space look worth the price.
If you want your space to be trendy, you need to have trendy decor and a menu that attracts your target demographic. If you are relying on social media traction and on becoming famous because of how your space is designed or your unique menu, then you have to put in the efforts of making your space look well-designed with the right color scheme, and proper tables and chairs. There are plenty of designs and options when it comes to choosing your chairs and restaurant furniture, and you can take your time to explore these options before the right one comes to you. If you do not know where to look, you can hire a consultant who can give you potential design options and stores you can check out. You can also make use of the internet and find smaller furniture and decor shops and check them out.
It is strongly recommended that you do not act hasty and buy your furniture quickly. You want to make sure the furniture you select is sturdy and will be able to withstand the daily stress of multiple people of different sizes coming in every day and using them. So, get strong chairs, make sure they will look good in your restaurant space, and also check to be sure that they are comfortable enough to be seated for an hour or two. No one wants to sit in a restaurant that has bad and uncomfortable chairs regardless of how pretty or trendy it might be. So, aesthetics are an important factor when it comes to forming an initial impression, and then everything else is what helps people decide whether or not they want to come to your restaurant again.
