RESTAURANT BUSINESS PLAN

RESTAURANT BUSINESS PLAN

A business plan is described as a thorough research and analysis of what one intends doing in the market that comprises customers and competitors. Thus, an entrepreneur needs a business plan in order to know the in depth of his business, ranging from sales, financials, market surveys and others.

Restaurant business plan helps the prospective entrepreneur who wants to go into the restaurant business to bring his ideas and concepts on sheets. This helps the restaurateur to express his conscience and passion for the business.

The main purpose why every prospective entrepreneur should draft a business plan is to;
v Call for investors (banks, suppliers and private individuals) to look at your ideas and provide their support.
v To know your market as well as your competitors.
A good restaurant business plan should consist of

v EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This portion of the plan describes all sections of the business briefly. It thus outline the ideas, concepts and passion you for the restaurant. It talks about the general overview of the business, business name, address and phone number, brief description of managerial and key people.

v VISION AND MISSION STATEMENT
Investors and others are interested in how you wish to run your business. Therefore, be specific about your vision and missions, your objective and future of the industry should clearly be stated.

v THE ECONOMY
This section of your plan explains whether the economic situation at the time of establishment will support your ideas and concepts. The inflation rate of the country of establishment should be stated as well as the contributions of the food and non-food groups to inflation. This will help you analyse and best suit yourself in this saturated industry. The population of the country as well as that percentage who are in your area of interest. This research will help you know the number of people to target as a business oriented being.

v COMPANY DESCRIPTION
This part of the plan outline how you want your business to be. By this, the restaurateur need not to forget the current state of the restaurant industry since it will serve as a foundation for building up. The category you want to fit and suit yourself – thus, is your restaurant a local or continental that makes you odd from your rivals. Identify your major customer groups, barriers to entry and the life cycle of your restaurant (start-up, growth, decline).

v MARKET ANALYSIS
This section of the plan describes how you want to place yourself in the market. Know your pricing policies, promotion strategies and others that contribute to your restaurant’s success. Know who your potential competitors are, their pricing policies strength and weakness which will give you an opportunity to capture them quickly. Do proper marketing analysis by knowing how much your sales will be, the advertising policies to be implemented, the distribution channels etc.

v BUSINESS OPERATION
You must have a detailed plan of how you will operate the restaurant in a continuous manner. Include in this section your products and services, what benefits customers and consumers of your product and service should expect, measures or what makes you unique from your rivals. Talk about your suppliers and people you think can provide you the needed materials for your daily operations. Tell them about your brand options.

v MANAGEMENT AND OWNERSHIP
This portion should describe your management team and other key people whose quota contribution towards your industry will best fit your success. Insert in this section your organizational structure by making customers your major focus since without them you do not exist. Make sure to add to this section, the background of your team members, their fields of experience, skills and capabilities. This will make investors eager to invest in your business since without good management team, your restaurant cannot run profitably.

v DEVELOPMENT PLAN
The restaurant’s plan should read to the minds of potential investors how the funds being requested for will be allocated and distributed to their various sections. Be specific about the amount needed and its use for pre-opening since its first existence. The cost of opening a restaurant will be low or high depending on the class you want your restaurant to be, it is therefore necessary to including costs such as labor, sales and marketing, menu design, public relations and other developments to be initiated.

v FINANCIAL ESTIMATES
The he financial estimate of tour restaurants business plan should consist of cash flow statement which will tell the investors about the inflows and outflow of cash, profit and loss statements showing whether your operation will yield a profit, a balance sheet showing the amount of capital to be carried forward to the following year. Include your mode of financing the restaurant either through debt or equity and the schedule for payment.

v TIME TABLE FOR IMPLEMENTING PLAN AND LAUNCHING OF BUSINESS
This section outline when you want your plan take effect and the time you will like to bring the business to customer view.

v HIDDEN TREASURE IN RESTAURANTING
Should you serve great food before your restaurant will be successful?
Obviously you are contemplating on whether to serve fabulous meal or marginal meal. It is good to serve great food but remember that will not earn you much hence the success of your restaurant does not depend largely on just great food. You can check for yourself those restaurants, spots and others that are serving great food aren’t very lousy. To be successful offer products and services that best suits your customers and their ability to buy..

Is it true that spending on advertising makes a profitable venture?
This is something that is running through the minds of many restaurateurs. They are confused as to whether make costly adverts or minimize it. Yes if you are not careful you will run into the hands of these salespeople who are now in abundance and reinforcing this to restaurant owners. These people from TV, Radio, Coupons Newspapers, Advertising people as well as website developers will run to your door steps when you open your new restaurant. Do not think that your competitors are doing so and it therefore affords you the privilege to do so. If you do this in business, you will fail. Never respect the saying in business that ”JUST BECAUSE” its what everyone is doing, you will fail. There are several ways you can run your own advert that can lead you to successful venture which is cost effective.

Will word of mouth advertising make your restaurant profitable and successful?
It is however stated above that, do not spend too much on advertising but it doesn’t necessarily mean that one will not spend on advertising. Many restaurateurs believe in this myth. You don’t have to depend solely on your one to one advert alone since the days of old are gone. In this global economy, busy customers will not have time waiting to listen to your word and as such will cause you to close down your restaurant since it will not be profitable. Anticipating that your restaurant will be profitable just by word of mouth isn’t productive. It’s a passive way to run a restaurant. Relying on word of mouth advertising to build your business is the kiss of death. It’s a great way to increase business overtime, but it isn’t something to base your restaurant’s business plan and success on.

Must one acquire a different skills and capabilities to be a successful restaurateur? If you are great with people, a great chef, a real motivator, good at accounting and a hard worker, you have an advantage. But the truth is that even if you have none of those skills or attributes, you can still be an extremely successful restaurateur. One thing in this word I will always not forget is the addict that two heads are better that one. Let face the fact, there are people you can hire to do almost everything in your restaurant. You can even find someone who can do things better than yourself. Your competitors will make you believe you don’t have much skills to be successful.

Is opening a restaurant costly?
There are many ways to open with no or very little money.