Thinking of starting a restaurant business but no background...risky?

**hedgehog88** · 01-06-2012 11:53 PM

Hi,

First off, just want to say thank you to all for your inspirational and valuable posts. I must say I have learned quite a bit within the last half hour after discovering this forum.

As my title says it all, I'm interested in starting a restaurant business but have no background experience, so like no business or restaurant experience. Would such a quest be that much more risky?

My uncle owns a restaurant and I have picked his brains over family lunch-in, and have received great feedback about my informal business plans that I have presented.

To myself, not having the experience that have been recommend by many entrepreneur sites, I feel I may not be cut up for this industry. However, I really feel great about the plans I have and very ambitious to get it started as I greatly fear that location or lot could be lost due to the same business plan. The location is great though, customer volume is still increasing due to uprising condos and business buildings literally a block away. I believe this is a prime gold mine for profit.

Any comments and/or feedback would be greatly appreciated.

PS: Any great websites anyone can recommend to me about opening business in general, or even restaurant business?

**Jefferey13** · 01-07-2012 06:53 PM

Don't do it. That't just my advice. Most failed business. You will invest 200K easy and then if it goes under you maybe be able to get 50k back out of it. I would also say to do it you need bare minimum enough money to last for a year without taking in a single dollar. That's a lot of money and a lot of risk. Go work in an restaurant and try and manage one first. your uncle should be able to help with that.

**ErikaSolores** · 01-08-2012 01:11 AM

Don't doubt yourself that is not the best thing you can do. Have 100% confidence that you can do it. What I would do if I were you is look for a mentor who has done it and let them guide you.

Erika Solores

**Samen** · 01-08-2012 03:00 PM

Hi, I hope that you are not against some amount of criticism here, but it is impossible to advise something from information what you gave. In order to open something like that you need to know this sphere excellently and also you need to be a good marketing manager of your business in case you can't hire a very good one at the beginning. We can't provide concrete answer for you about the idea to open new restaurant because it is not enough information in your post. You need to measure a lot of figures in order to estimate all inputs and future results. I know that it is tricky business and there are a lot of other types of business activity, but it is up to you and might be you are going to have the best place in your City. In order to advice something we need to know traffic around this place, your ideas about how you're going to engage clients, main parameters of the business plan, your advantages against competitors and amount of them around your place and so on. In case you have great idea that confirmed by marketing researches and a lot of people in your City just waiting when you open it and want to go there you can open it without any doubts, but only if you really heard from a lot of people that they will go there gladly.
For example, if you implement marketing research there and ask people concrete questions about your restaurant and a lot of them will show concrete interest then it is a good idea.
I hope it helpful for you. Feel free to contact me if you need.

**mcd0n** · 01-09-2012 06:16 PM

My initial reaction is don't do it, way too risky! You say time may be an issue as you don't want someone else jumping in there and taking your location, however, if you are serious you may want to think about a franchise because they offer tremendous support on opening a new location and they have a vested interest in making it succeed....BUT not just anybody can call up XYZ restaruant and say they want to open a new one, most of the time they require prospective franchisees to have worked for them and succesfully managed their own store for at least one year.

Jefferey13 had it right on.

**Paul Morgan** · 01-10-2012 05:40 AM

Do it! But Prove it first. Having an idea is one thing, proving your concept is viable is another. How do you prove it? Fully develop your concept to the point where you can "see" yourself in the business as it is operating, then complete a detailed financial forecast - customer counts, average spends, cost of goods sold, labour cost - and the bottom right figure on that spreadsheet will speak volumes to you.

Don't move forward and spend any money until you feel confident that IF you spent it, you will be successful. It is work and time but you have the time now and work done now will save you many dollars down the line.

**spencerg** · 01-26-2012 09:44 AM

Keep in mind that restaurants are the riskiest business according to the SBA and 75% of non-franchised ones fail within 3 years. Banks are reluctant to lend and will want you to put in 50% equity at least.

The biggest thing you need to ask yourself is what are you going to do different than the competition. There are already enough restaurants so what is going to make yours a better experience than the others in your area.

I would also recommend talking with your local Small Business Development Center or SCORE office as they provide free counseling on starting a business.

**yourhostingspot.com** · 01-26-2012 10:42 AM

Everyone is looking at this from a business point of view. Look at it from an operational point of view as well. I have 11 years of Restaurant experience, if you have not worked every position in a restaurant, EVERY position, don't open one. You wont know how to run it. I've worked for restaurants with owners who had experience and ones where owners had none. Needless to say the owners with none couldn't handle any kind of volume to the restaurant and the staff always resented them for the multiple bad decisions.
If you are serious about opening a restaurant, spend a year working different positions at your uncles restaurant. Really get to know how everything is run. Then go about opening your restaurant.