Anyone here own / has owned a restraunt?

[Phanuthier]

I've been looking to get into the restraunt business, and was wondering if anyone here has had experiance in one? (Specifically starting one up)

[underGRADFlame]

I never owned but my best friend does. Prepare to have no life.

[Wookie]

I never owned but my best friend does. Prepare to have no life.


Especially in Calgary, staffing would be an absolute nightmare right now. I've known a few people that have tried. They've either sold it because it was awful, or just closed up shop.

[Flames09]

I know someone who owns a restaurant in Calgary and honestly they've done well for themselves but the odds are against you, it's a tricky business and failing is a way higher probability then success.

[soulchoice]

I agree with what other posters have said. I essentially grew up around restaurants as my family, grandfather, father all ran restaurants for 45+ years in various cities, towns. I also had one for a few years as well, before selling the location to someone.

There is money to be made if done right though, should be able to do 70 percent margins on food for the most part. Though be prepared to put in a lot of time into the business(though that is the same for any startup). Leasing right now is high and tough though in Calgary, so not sure where you are planning to open up shop.

[FurnaceFace]

Articles of interest:

The restaurant industry is:
Showing signs of growth, especially as tourism increases. The take-out sector is also growing, fuelled by a demand for convenience by time-strapped patrons.
Demanding. Expect long days, often 10-15 hours per day. You must excel in many areas such as food preparation and service, management, marketing, meeting people, purchasing, inventory control and personnel administration.
Competitive -- 50 to 80% of restaurants fail within the first three years.
Governed by federal, provincial, and municipal laws. Understand ALL regulations before making any decisions, especially before purchasing or leasing a building.http://www.canadabusiness.ca/servlet/ContentServer?cid=1110887385543&pagename=CBSC_NS%2Fdisplay&lang=en&c=GuideInfoGuide

But according to hospitality management professor H. G. Parsa, who tried to track down the origins of the 90 percent figure back in 2005, it’s a load of bunk: The real failure rate is about 60 percent, the same as the nationwide, cross-industry average for new businesses.http://www.chow.com/grinder/2603

[Phanuthier]

Thanks for the interest, guys. I haven't been responding just because I just want to observe. I know nothing about the business. My intention was to learn a little bit about business to finance a restraunt/bar and let them run it, and wanted to get some idea of what was involved before taking on that endevour. Something like owing a coffee shop always seemed enticing to me, and I had a few other ideas and desired locations on my list. I would be running it completely hands off and let someone else run it.

[The_Dude]

It can be a lot of work. My family as an East Indian restaurant here in Edmonton. We own the building as well. If you have good staff, the place can run like a well oiled machine. My brother works about 7 hours total during the day, but with any business, there are always hiccups.

Customer service is #1, but it all comes down to your food. If you have good food, people will come. Our restaurant holds up top 200 people, so it was quite a bit to start up (Building, renovations inside, etc). It's a risky business, but it can be done. We've been open just over 1 year thus far.

[JohnnyFlame]

It can be a lot of work. My family as an East Indian restaurant here in Edmonton. We own the building as well. If you have good staff, the place can run like a well oiled machine. My brother works about 7 hours total during the day, but with any business, there are always hiccups.

Customer service is #1, but it all comes down to your food. If you have good food, people will come. Our restaurant holds up top 200 people, so it was quite a bit to start up (Building, renovations inside, etc). It's a risky business, but it can be done. We've been open just over 1 year thus far.

Would it happen to be nice and close to the Delta South? I was at a conference there recently and ate at an Indian restaurant nearby. Can't remember the name but the food was just scrumptious.

[JohnnyFlame]

Went and looked it up online and it is called the India Grill. Went on a Thursday night and it was a buffet special. Man I came out of there feeling like it was Christman -- needed to loosen the belt bigtime. Delicious food and now it's 9:18 am and I'm hungry!!!

[Temporary_User]

No personal experience, but some things Ill add that may be useful to you:
-obviously someone running the business for you won't put in as much effort as you would, because they don't fear the failure as much as you do.
-Opening up a franchise might be a good idea as the brand name brings customers in the door from day one. Otherwise you'll have to build word of mouth pretty quickly
-Many people say a restaurants success or failure comes down to these three things:
Location, Location, Location!

[The_Dude]

Went and looked it up online and it is called the India Grill. Went on a Thursday night and it was a buffet special. Man I came out of there feeling like it was Christman -- needed to loosen the belt bigtime. Delicious food and now it's 9:18 am and I'm hungry!!!

Actually it's The New Asian Village on 34th ave. been open just over 1 year now.

[guzzy]

Thanks for the interest, guys. I haven't been responding just because I just want to observe. I know nothing about the business. My intention was to learn a little bit about business to finance a restraunt/bar and let them run it, and wanted to get some idea of what was involved before taking on that endevour. Something like owing a coffee shop always seemed enticing to me, and I had a few other ideas and desired locations on my list. I would be running it completely hands off and let someone else run it.

Being hands off in an operation like this doesn't work. There isn't enough revenue to pay others to run it at the beginning, especially a coffee shop. You will squash your margins. A restaurant takes a ton of time, like someone mentioned earlier 10 - 15 hours a day especially at startup.

Maybe you should look at investing partially into someone elses venture. That way you could be a 10% owner (or more) and pay your partner a salary to run it. You would in turn be a silent partner.

The only time you can have someone else run a restaurant is after you have been established and the original start up costs have been paid for. Then you can step back and let others do the work but it takes years to get there.

Good luck in whatever you choose.

Cheers

[Super-Rye]

I worked in a kitchen for 2 years as well as helped bartend a couple times. These are just my observations on running a successful restaurant. Some of it may be very "well duh!" but you'd be surprised at how many people ignore the simple stuff.

The first step would be to knows the rules and regulations that the government requires you to follow. Once you know those and have yourself set up accordingly the next step is to target what kind of age group you're catering too. The best way to do this is to know the area that you're opening your restaurant in. Observe, are there a lot of teens? Is it more of an older community? Set up your atmosphere accordingly. If you have heavy metal playing on the background and sports on the TV and have everything dark lite, but your customer base is like people in their 60's you may want to change your decore. Also don't offer something that's already offered in your area. Tons of viet and asian restaurants? Might want to stay away from that. Missing a place with a good burger? or a great pizza? Specialize in something, and make it something that no one does, or if they do at least not very well.

Obviously as people have stated location is key and so is having good food. As far as the people you'd use to help start up, surround yourself with people who know what they're doing, a chef who's good, a manager who's done it before. No newbies, if they're new they have no idea what they're in for and the last thing you need is one of the people you look to for advice crashing or stressing out.

If you by chance opened a restaurant keep an eye on the staff that do come through that kitchen, be a good judge of character. There's a lot of good cooks to be had out there, don't settle for someone who's ego is bigger than their skill, and don't settle for people who seem to hop from job to job every 3 months. I say this from my kitchen experience. A lot really good people can come through a kitchen and get chased away by 1 "bad apple" as it were. You don't need a staff turn around every 3 months.

If, hypothetically, you decided to open a bar, you can save yourself a lot of headaches by putting a bathroom in the back where the kitchen staff can access without going through the restaurant. Now this isn't because "going through the front is such a hardship." but having a bathroom in the back opens up the ability to hire people under the age of 18. Why's that a big deal? Well generally people who are 18 have working experience and aren't very open to starting up, say washing dishes. It's a step down. You have a bathroom in the back it allows you to take any 16 year old kid who's looking for an afternoon job to go back there and get work experience.

Obviously with people around you who know what they're doing, not everyone will agree but make sure that these people will be able to deal with any decision you make for better or worse. In the end it's your call and if you take all their advice that they give you and you pump out option a instead of option b, make sure they'll give it their all instead of being pissed that you took option b.

Customer service is key, hire waiters/waitress' that are good at their job, just not look pretty. I was at an un-named chain for lunch yesterday and my waitress was terrible. We waited so long for drinks and when it came time to bring us the bill it took 20 minutes to get it to us. Unacceptable. Hire people who are very sociable. When I go in and get the same speech out of so and sos mouth I roll my eyes. Customer's want to feel special, they want to feel like their table is the one that matters. Having waiters/waitress' who like to chat it up a bit while taking orders and someone going around (usually the manager) asking how the food is and how they like the restaurant is a good way to do this.

Be prepared to do whatever is needed of you on any given day. Someone calls in sick and you have to come in at 10 to help run food for the lunch rush that falls on you, or one of your managers (if they aren't working). Now if you have a well built up staff from top to bottom this usually doesn't become an issue too often but it does happen, and will happen a lot until you get yourself established.

Always make sure the kitchen is getting cleaned constantly. Period. If you have a good chef this should never be an issue. If it is an issue you have a bad leader in the kitchen and it falls on you to make a judgment call for a change back there. There is NO EXCUSE for having a disgusting kitchen.

As I stated before keep an eye on your employee's and if you see some who are going above and beyond duty, obviously reward them. It keeps your staff feeling good about themselves even when things go wrong, and things will go wrong, never kid yourself about that.

And just keep your staff organized. Your manager should be the person who keeps things organized so make sure you have a manager who's a good leader and knows how things work in the kitchen and in the front house. If everyones running around with no destination in mind and your managers off "talking it up with people" you have to step in and get them through it but again a judgment call would have to be made about that managers abilities.
There's four things you need to follow to keep people coming back. Obviously good food, good service, great atmosphere, and the key to it all:

Happy staff.

If the staff is happy the customers are happy.

If you have all these things then you will be successful. There's no luck too it. The reason restaurants fail is because people get in over their heads. It's a very tricky business and I'd suggest associating yourself in one for a while and learn some of the steps. Even if you plan on being a hands off owner (eventually cause it most certainly won't happen right off the bat) you still need to know everything that goes on in your building, and how to do everything. How everything works. ect. ect. ect.

Wow, that's...well that's a lot and I'm not even sure if that's the kind of information you're looking for but it's what I got so I hope it helps.