How to Start a Restaurant
For those with a passion for food, opening a restaurant is the ultimate entrepreneurial dream. Perhaps you've already envisioned it: You start off in a tiny space with a couple of tables and a small kitchen. Before you know it, your eatery has become a beloved local dining establishment with a line out the door every weekend.
Running a restaurant is certainly rewarding, but it's no easy task. Like any startup venture, restaurant ownership takes a lot of hard work, unwavering dedication and a willingness to overcome the obstacles you're sure to come up against along the way. Six industry veterans shared their tips for navigating the business and launching a successful restaurant.
Do your homework
In any industry, doing your due diligence before starting up is critical for success. This is especially true for the restaurant business, where simply knowing good food isn't enough. Even if you have worked in a restaurant, there are still many legal, managerial and marketing lessons to be learned.
One area that many would-be restaurateurs overlook is local licensing and health-department regulations. Michele Stumpe, a Georgia-based attorney specializing in alcohol licensing and hospitality litigation, stressed the importance of knowing the legal policies in your restaurant's location, especially since state (and even county) laws can vary. Aspiring restaurateurs planning a launch should factor in the time various permitting and inspection processes will take, Stumpe advised. Costanzo Astarita ran into this issue when opening his Atlanta restaurant Baraonda in December 2000.
"The first couple of months were hard," Astarita said. "We didn't have
a liquor license, and opening when everyone was busy for the holidays proved very challenging. We scraped through until Valentine's Day, when we received our license and got a review published in the local paper. We had a great weekend, and the restaurant finally took off."