3 Bountiful Business Lessons For Budding New Restaurants

One in three restaurants fail in their first year. That may sound like a great amount, but it’s important to note that the restaurant industry is often highly competitive, and so if you can get past that initial hump, cement your idea, find your groove, and appeal to your market, your chances of success from there are more than possible.

In some respects, restaurants are equal parts art and science. The concept, the theme, the customer service, the ambience, the creativity and freshness of its food, the names behind the title, and the homely feeling you provide is all art. But it rests on very essential business acumen – the science of this journey.

As such, essential, foundational business advice for budding new restaurants is essential. In this simple guide, we hope to give you three measures that have helped every restaurant succeed, those principles that helped even Michelin-star-rated enterprises cement their fame.

Without further ado, let’s get into it:

Design Your Kitchen Correctly

It’s all about the kitchen. Without a good, well-formatted kitchen, it’s harder for your back-of-house staff to properly communicate and operate, and that becomes a nightmare for your front-of-house staff trying to organize which dishes are going out where. Moreover, good kitchen design makes it easier to stay hygienic and put solid cleaning and inventory rotation rotas in place. With commercial kitchen design software, you can more easily plan out your daily operations before they begin. You can also implement neat features that bring interest to the restaurant, such as visible kitchen spaces, a chef’s table, and multi-floor service with dumbwaiter lifts.

Make Your Concept Accessible

Sleek, interesting, and often “vague” restaurant descriptors can seem like the height of hipness, but even the most interesting and exclusive restaurant brands hide this one thing from you – once you know the concept, the concept is simple and can be communicated. It’s very inspiring for new restaurants to try and break the mold, but sometimes they can get ahead of themselves when introducing who they are to a new audience. Simplify your concept, make it accessible, work on your brand identity, and bring on people who can fulfill that vision with authentic experience. This beats any attempt to artificially gain interest through mystery, because ultimately, audiences see through that sleight of hand and the magic only works for a little while.

Take A Proactive View Of Online Life

Unfortunately, many firms operating in the hospitality space, especially restaurants, ignore ongoing internet chatter and referrals to their business. This is a mistake. It’s important to host a good website (even if through a template builder), to take professional photographs of your space you can host online (outsource this effort), and to respond to reviews, good and bad, with grace. This way, you can help curate what people see when they Google your restaurant, aim to book a table, know what your menu of the season is, and if you welcome children or not. A proactive approach to online life nestles you in the community, or at least provides the precursor to it. It may also distinguish you compared to the competition.

With this advice, you’re sure to have a better chance of making your restaurant a success.

3 Bountiful Business Lessons For Budding New Restaurants