Something must have attracted you to the restaurant business. Was it the money, the lifestyle, the desire to serve others? All three are certainly draws, although the first two are a bit of a stretch as attractions—at least in the beginning. The truth is, there probably won’t be a lot of money at first, and as for lifestyle—well, let’s clear up some tee time and regular dinner date issues. If you start a restaurant, you need to reconsider your social life. Sorry, but that is a fact. You’ll hardly have any leisure time at all.
First, the money issues: If you are good at what you do, the restaurant business is a great place to make a healthy and substantial living, but huge profits don’t often come quickly. As with any form of entrepreneurship, a long period of time, often many years and even decades, passes before a person hits it big. Many entrepreneurs never do. There are no guarantees. Thus, you’ll need lots of patience.
Still, don’t stop yourself from dreaming big and don’t allow anyone else to stop you either. But understand that you have to do an awful lot of work before wonderful things can happen for you. Too often I see a new owner acting like he has reached the pinnacle of success by just opening a restaurant. He forgets that opening a restaurant isn’t the objective; building a profitable restaurant is.
As for lifestyle, owning a restaurant is more than a full-time job. When you start a restaurant, your free time becomes limited like never before. There is always more to do: organizing, ordering, cooking, cleaning, and on and on. And just because you have employees doesn’t mean you’ll be able to delegate everything. People can be unreliable. You will, at times, do every job in your restaurant, and often the times you have to do these jobs will be just when you want to leave for the day.
To be successful in the restaurant business, you have to enjoy serving people. Serving people is what a restaurant does, after all. People come to your place for food, but they won’t come back if the service is bad. If serving others is something that is in your blood, then you will be passionate about the restaurant business . . . And your customers will notice.
Tip Jar The 90/10 Rule is a variation of the 80/20 Rule, which states: Spend 80-percent of your time on the 20-percent most important things. The 90/10 Rule is to spend 90-percent of your time on the 10-percent most important things. Starting a restaurant takes supreme effort and focus. To do it successfully, you must clear as much of your schedule as possible and stay focused on the task at hand.
Wet Floor! As a restaurant owner, count on being “hands on.” There are things you will be unable to avoid—washing dishes, mopping floors, unclogging toilets. And, oh, by the way, someone spilled a soda at table 27. Can you grab that?
