This just kind of fell into my lap

with a certified kitchen you can also sell food items online such as on ebay.

Get yourself every episode of Gordon Ramseys Kitchen Nightmares and watch then before you do anything else, then 3 months after you've opened, watch them again.

I don't think firing my wife would be advisable

the wife and me are self employed and she tells me
"" your fired ,,, now get to work ""
a few times a week

.Yeah, I don't think I'd need ebay for that, I think I could sell everything I could make locally. I'm thinking salsa, apple butter, jam, etc.

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Libertarindependent

Good Coffee will make or break you at a VFW
Keep it simple and just a few dishes you excell at for the menu the biggest mistake Ive seen locally is that far too many try to get too many thing on the menu and end up not making them good .

Good to see you, Tink

and congratulations and good luck on your new venture

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"Keep it simple and just a few dishes you excell at for the menu the biggest mistake Ive seen locally is that far too many try to get too many thing on the menu and end up not making them good."

That's what I was thinking when reading Aftermidnight's menu.

I can't add a thing, but control those costs, have no waste, make great food and sell it for a reasonable amount.

There was a gal that opened a restaurant locally. Her food was excellent, but the portions were huge. I like big portions, but her portions were waaaaaaay over the top. She kept complaining about not making any money, and was out of business in about 6 months.

I would rather have 5 items on my menu, and be able to make them great, and sell them for a reasonable amount, than to have 50 items and none of them be good.

I think the real trick to mom and pop restaurants is to keep the menu simple and to cut waste.

Another family tried to start a diner and tried be everything to everyone. Costs and wastes killed them. Forget adding things to the menu that won't sell like wildfire. Take cottage cheese for example. Sure, you might sell a scoop or two a week, but is it really worth carrying on the menu? Especially since it is a perishable, and it ties up your cash flow? BTW, that diner lasted about 4 months.

The bottom line....K-I-S-S, and CONTROL WASTE.

(If you study both Sam Walton and Henry Ford, those two rules were the keystones to their successes.)

Sell quality food prepared well. Soups chili and stews all store and freeze well, Our Farmers market canteen could sell breakfast all day, but they're absolutley stuck on not starting lunch early. Which costs them sales. They also do not offer anything healthy, which is again a real loss for them. The previous crew did up terrific wraps that sold very very well were basically just BBQ kabobs and then you made your own adding whatever veggies you liked. Not cheap but not expensive either.

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Good luck, but be very careful. The vast majority of new food service enterprises fail.

I would start with a very limited menu, and do it well.

I can't find statistic but it seems like something like 90% of new (non-chain) restaurants don't last five years, with a fairly high percentage lasting maybe a year or so.

We had one open here in Waverly. Total county population of about 19K (and it is a big county). Waverly itself is maybe 6K. Called "Your Daily Bread" it was a combined bakery and deli lunch place. Wife of local dentist. Lot use to have a house on it. They bought property for $100K and then razed, landscaped, put up the building and a parking lot. Was tax appraised at $350K. It may have lasted a year and recently sold at auction since they couldn't find a buyer. I suspect there was no business model which would support a local bakery/deli for that money.

You can largely tell how successful a restaurant is by the number of vehicles parked outside. Place in nearby New Johnsonville called Jeffs. Extremely friendly wait staff. Food is excellent and dinner/supper offered in two sizes - half and a full meal. (Half means you get full of everything but the entree). When going by there is always a bunch of vehicles there.

On the other hand there is a restaurant a mile or so from it called Four Seasons. Nice place. They use to specialize in weekend buffets, such as Friday night seafood which kept going up in price to where people just bulked at going there. Simply wasn't worth the cost. Switched to a $4.99 lunch and $5.99 dinner/supper buffet. Fairly large restaurant and if you went in maybe 6-8 people there. Salad bar isn't bad, but buffet is really is. With such a low turn-over food sits on it for way too long. Perhaps a large meeting/gathering room might keep it going, but I really don't think it will last all that much longer as it has somewhat become a once experience. And that is likely to affect the next owner/operator of it.

Added: Restaurants are a funny business. You only have to serve someone a bad meal (food quality or price) one time and not only will they not come back, but will tell others about their experience at every opportunity.

Meant to add .
The lunches were not all on the menu at once ..I rotated them out
I had one hot plate lunch for $5.95 and one sandwich with fries for $5.95 each day ..
Also the overlord (sorry but he thought he was back in the feudal times and acted as if kitchen staff were his serfs hence the moniker)..had a set menu that you could order from ..
The homemade plate lunches were my biggest sellers ...
and most customers wanted a set day for certain items so they could plan when to come ...

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Ken, what is so attractive about this deal is that I can do it debt free. Instead of having to serve a hundred plates just to cover the debt load I just need to cover a very small lease. Utilities are covered under the lease. I mean DIRT cheap lease. The profit from 4 or 5 plates will cover the fixed expenses. After that just food cost and hopefully a buck or two for me.

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Libertarindependent

Tinknal,


We are right in the middle of doing the same think. Except we bought a building cheap, payment will be $150/month. Our town doesn't have a American sitdown type of restaurant. It will be mainly family run, but we have hired a few high school kids. Portion control and labor are what will kill a restaurant, get a good scale to figure out portions. WA is a killer on small businesses, there is a 6.5% litter tax, workmans comp rate is 40% (this should go down after the first year of business). If labor costs are too high we will just be a family run business, that eliminates the need for us to pay workmans comp. Check and make sure that you can utilize locally produced meat and eggs. Most states require that they be USDA inspected. One of the most important things is work with Food Services of America or URM if they service your areas they have chefs on staff that will help you.

Bob

While buying local sounds nice and can be done on some things,you will most likely in the end be using either US Foods or Sysco,and the one thing to remember is.....don't get terms!!!Write a check as the order comes in.

As to specials,my thoughts have always been specials are what is on sale from your purveyors for that week,you want to make the most $$$ for the least outlay.

Soups are easy enough but you better be prepared to make large amounts if you have any volume at all.Where I am right now we make at least 5 gallons of soup a day of various sorts.

When we do Prime Rib night(100+ people) we cook off at least 6 whole ribeyes...that would be about 90 pounds total of meat at around $6-7 per pound.

While the profit from breakfast might be higher(simply due to the lower costs of the product,afterall a 'normal' breakfast plate is only three pieces of bacon,two eggs and some other side) you have to do a lot of volume to make money.
I think for the effort it isn't worth it myself but then I hate getting up early.

The old rule of thumb was to triple your cost as to the retail price so as to cover everything and make some $$$,not sure if the ratio has increased...

Good luck and be prepared to not have a life....

I am waiting for the day to be done with Food and Beverage and live a 'normal' life.

Unioncreek I'm fortunate that my state has a thing called "Minnesota Equal". It is a processing scheme for small processors and the result is a lot of small meat and produce farms can sell retail or to restaurants. The one weak spot for me is bakery products. The local bakery just closed down.

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Libertarindependent

Sounds really great, there is some excellent advice from the others who have BTDT.

Blessings on your endeavors.

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This is EXCELLENT advice!!!!!!!!

I think having terms extended from suppliers to business owners is like playing business suicide for anyone that struggles with cash flow or not having sufficient cash on hand to run a business.

In my own business, BTDT. After fighting cash flow for years, I finally quit all terms with my suppliers, and am on a cash basis only. I write a check the minute that the supplies or order is ready. Not because I had to do so, but because I wanted to change how I ran my business.

This does a couple of things:

1. I always know exactly where I stand money and cash flow wise.
2. I don't lose sleep at night worrying about how I am going to face the next invoice that is due or the next cash flow crisis.
3. I don't have the clutter of mail and those bills due on my desk.
4. Paying on a cash basis shows vendors that you are in business to stay.
5. Paying on a cash basis eleviates hard feelings from vendors. Since you pay in cash, you will become a prefered customer.
6. It saves time in the long run.
7. It saves money on postage.
8. This is a big reason: Paying on a cash basis keeps you from making crazy mistakes when buying. When you buy on terms, you are much more likely to order stuff that you will never use or from buying items that not profitable. It really does make you access your financial risk, and I think you learn your business and the profits better. You get to know your product better, you understand how it sells, how often it sells, what buyers want, and how much your margins are on each item. Avoiding the use of credit of any type also keeps you from buying 92 cases of pinapple syrup concentrate or 900 purple and yellow hooded sweatshirts in size XXXL, even though you live in the skinniest town in America.

I would never go back to terms with any vendor, even though they all offer terms to me, and offer them nearly every time I pick up an order.

I would rather not accept an order from a customer than to accept an order and have to rely on other peoples terms. 99% of business people will howl at the moon at my philosophy, but it works great...I never have cash flow issues....and my vendors love me.

Clove

I forgot to ask.... about the economics of the deal.

Add up rent, utilities, food, consumables, insurance, taxes, permits, yada yada yada... How much food do you have to sell just to cover expenses... and at what point do you make a profit, if said profit would be above whatever wages you pay yourself.

I assume your doing this with the goal of making money...

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I assume the lodge/hall already has employees (e.g., bartenders and janitor). Can they pay any employees you might eventually have and then you reimburse them? Hiring them through a temporary staffing service (even at a slightly higher cost) saves you the paperwork. BIL employeed two sons on that basis.

Someone with employees can likely tell you the rule of thumb, but actualy employer payroll is something like 130% of base pay due to the various taxes the employer has to match. At least in TN unemployment insurance is variable due to the status of the fund. As you can guess, they have had to raise it lately. If the health care bill now before Congress mandates small businesses to provide health care insurance, look for costs to go up even more.

As I recall typically wait staff is only paid about half of minimum wages with the rest expected to be tips.

Several years ago a farm worker mentioned his wife worked as a carhop and averaged taking home about $50 a night in tips. If eight hours, just that's $6.25 hour. I have no idea if the employer or employee has to report tips to the IRS.

If you only have one wait staff and one kitchen assistant what will you do when they either don't show up or need to be off? And employees not showing up can be a significant headache. Say you hire high school girls as waitresses. Likely they want to date/party on weekends.

How many hours a day are you looking at for yourself? If you are going to serve three meals that might be from 5AM until 9AM. You might have to forget about vacations.

An excellent cook can turn a restaurant around:

Local one called Townhill. Diner more than a restaurant actually about a half mile from town on the major highway. Originally offered three meals, then only breakfast and lunch. Widening of the highway took so long it was closed. Then rented out to someone who opened an Italian restaurant - Bella Luma's or something. Nothing special about the place, didn't really offer anything you couldn't get elsewhere, a bit pricey and there was still the road work. Closed. Sat empty for a couple of months then it was reopened as Townhill by a woman who had cooked at a number of area restaurants. Now does a thriving business with a reputation as serving the best hamburger plate in town and AUCE fried chicken on Friday evenings. Chicken is VERY good. Also service is fast which helps in two areas. People who have only a short lunch period and table turnover. On the latter in one of Gordon Ramsay's KN's program he mention often a restaurant breaks even on the first sitting, it is the second and possibly third which make the money.

Another was Carol's for many years. Decent traffic but you seldom had to wait to get a table. Sold and became David's. Now it isn't unusual to have to do so.

Another local one has a reputation for high prices for what you get. I suspect part of that is due to low patronage. Sort of a vicious cycle. You have to charge a high meal price to cover fixed expenses among few patrons, then you lose patrons due to high prices. Food is so-so. A cheeseburger plate (with state taxes) was about $10. For $10 it needed to be a truely outstanding one and wasn't.

On location, location and location. I see one of the three pizza places in town closed. Rather hole in the wall place in a strip with a liquor store and physical therapy outlet. However rather than facing a street which gets a lot of traffic it ran along a side street. You pretty well had to stumble upon it. Other two places are along a highway and on Main Street. I'm guessing they just couldn't build up a customer base.