6 Signs You’re Ready To Open Your Own Restaurant

Have you always dreamed of opening a restaurant? Have you grown up cooking delicious meals that you want to share with your community? Have you had the name and menu of your dream restaurant picked out for years? These are obvious signs that you are ready to open your own restaurant, but starting a successful restaurant requires other characteristics that go beyond that. Opening a restaurant can be an intimidating business venture that is not for the faint of heart. You need the right personality, resources, and dedication to open a restaurant that will be successful and profitable. You Love Food While loving food is certainly not the only thing you need to open your own restaurant, it would be very hard to do without it! If you find yourself constantly thinking about new recipes to try in the kitchen, watching the Food Network instead of Game of Thrones, recommending the best new restaurants to your friends, and hoarding mountains of cookbooks on your bookshelves then opening a restaurant could certainly be a good option for you! In fact, the hardest part may be trying to nail down a practical menu and theme for your restaurant because you have such a wide variety of food interests. You Have Good Stress and Time Management Skills Owning and operating a restaurant is extremely hard work that will take up a lot of your time. While owning a business of any type is undoubtedly stressful, the restaurant industry is particularly known for its intensity. You need to be able to roll with the punches, adjusting staffing issues at a moment’s notice. At the same time, you need to remain calm and pleasant when dealing with staff and customers to keep everything running smoothly. While you will need to put a lot of time into your business, it is still important to maintain a realistic work-life balance in order to ease some of the mental stress that can afflict you. Some people thrive in fast-paced environments and love the hectic nature of a kitchen – others not so much. If you enjoy a work environment that is constantly changing and can work to find solutions to unexpected problems, you can run a very successful restaurant. You Have Patience, Perseverance, and Humility Food is important in the restaurant industry no doubt, but service is also equally as important! If people are unhappy with their service, it doesn’t matter how good the food is – they will not be back. You need to show patience when a customer is being particularly unreasonable about a complaint. You need perseverance to deal with the inevitable speed bumps that will pop up along the way. You also need a whole lot of humility by not letting your ego get in the way of pleasing the customer. After all, the customer is always right! If you can combine these characteristics with good food, there is no doubt that customers will be pleased with their experience and your restaurant will be well on its way to success! You Have Several Different Skillsets As a restaurant owner, you are not only involved in the culinary aspect of the business but all the other aspects of running a business as well. You need to be interested in marketing and social media in order to effectively bring in customers to your business. You will need to handle the bookkeeping and accounting for the business as well, especially in the beginning when you might not be able to afford to bring extra people on to specifically handle these tasks. You will also need to be concerned with aspects of human resources, as you will be the one handling all your staffing issues. In short, you will need to be able to wear many different hats in addition to the chef’s hat if you want to open your own restaurant! You Love Interacting with People As previously mentioned, people are a huge part of running a successful restaurant – whether it’s staff, customers, or suppliers, you need to be able to deal effectively with all different types of people. If you are an extreme introvert who hates interacting with people or dealing with conflict, opening a restaurant is probably not the best idea. On the other hand, if you love chatting with all sorts of people and are good at building rapport and positive relationships, then you would be very successful! Building good relationships with your staff will make your life a lot easier, as people tend to work harder and better for people that they like and respect. Building pleasant relationships with your customers will also work as a marketing tool for you, not only will they be back, but they will tell their friends about their experience at your restaurant! You Have A Solid Financial Plan While good food and appropriate personality traits are certainly important in opening a restaurant, it can’t happen unless you have a proper business plan and have secured adequate finances to open your restaurant. Opening a restaurant requires a substantial initial investment and constant cash flow in order to provide customers with good food, a good environment, and a good staff. Since the restaurant industry is so demanding when it comes to temporal investments as well, it may be necessary to have a reserve to cover your own personal expenses until you start making a profit. Restaurant financing is a good option to ensure that you have adequate financing to cover all these aspects and put you on the path to success in your restaurant business.