Opening a restaurant is easier than a restaurant because the capital is small and the scale is quite small, but the level of competition will also be higher, forcing you to have an effective business strategy to be able to stand firm in the market. , earning high revenue. Let’s take a look at the 9 secrets of opening a restaurant and tips to help the restaurant get crowded below to apply successfully with your model.
1. Come up with an idea for a restaurant business – restaurant model
To get a unique idea to apply to an effective business model, you need to know the customer’s tastes, the best-selling items, the profit rate, and your experience and financial capacity to make a proposal. appropriate investment decisions.
For example, selling with little capital, available selling points near schools, office areas, you should open a breakfast restaurant, where there are many students, students, and office workers. The restaurant also does not need to invest too much in space, decoration, and food is also simple and easy to make. Just ensuring the speed of service and reasonable price is a big advantage.
Currently, there are many popular restaurant models for your reference such as: Breakfast restaurant, vegetarian restaurant, fast food restaurant, cafe combined restaurant….
Restaurant business experience for beginners
2. Make a detailed restaurant opening plan
Don’t think that a small restaurant doesn’t need to be properly planned, when you have a business plan and a list to prepare, you will be more proactive in all situations. Each step of the way will definitely be a good start for a stable business.
Before “down the money”, please estimate the cost of investment in each item such as:
- Procurement of equipment and materials
- Hire workers
- Utility costs
- Risk provisions: Fluctuations in gas, oil and raw materials prices, unexpected employee leave, customer complaints, shop overload at peak hours.
Although it seems to be far away, all the initial plans always make the operation process smoother and more efficient.
3. Up the cost of opening a restaurant in detail
After making a plan, you need to continue to estimate the cost of opening a restaurant, including:
- Rental cost – ground improvement
- Restaurant decoration costs
- Expenses for purchasing equipment (Tables and chairs, cooking utensils, storage of raw materials)
- Cost of raw materials
- Labor costs: Waiters, cashiers…
- Cost management: Restaurant management software
These are the most basic costs to start a business, you need to estimate the number according to the market survey, and also calculate the excess to anticipate the risk.
In addition, if you are planning to open a snack shop, you can refer to the article below to estimate the exact cost:
Read more: How much capital does it take to open a snack shop, what does the cost of opening a snack shop include?
The cost of opening a restaurant is usually not too big
4. Provide full restaurant business license
Before opening a restaurant, you need to apply for a business license, a certificate of food safety, a certificate of eligibility for fire prevention, and an alcoholic beverage business license (if any).
The preparation of a full license helps the shop operate more stably, avoid interruptions due to the inspection process of the authorities, and create trust for customers.
5. Unique restaurant decoration
This is a factor that greatly affects the restaurant business because customers not only want to spend money to buy food but also want to enjoy in a comfortable space, according to their preferences and requirements.
Therefore, you need to focus on decorating the shop so that it shows the idea that the shop is aiming for, and at the same time attracts customers.
Although you don’t need to be as sophisticated as decorating a restaurant or cafe, you should also create more accents such as decorating the walls with pictures, decorating the doors with logo stickers, decorating the cashier counters by placing orders. on it a mini fish tank. Just the simple details can make customers excited and visit your shop again and again, pay attention.
If you are planning to open a snack shop, here are some interesting decoration suggestions:
Read more: Beautiful and creative snack bar decoration ideas to save money
The restaurant decoration is simple but impressive enough to attract customers
6. Design a restaurant business menu
Restaurant menus often have fewer dishes than restaurants, but do not forget to group and classify dishes for customers to choose easily. For example, if your restaurant sells broken rice, you can divide the menu into categories of beef rice, chicken, pork, drinks, soup, side dishes…
Maybe customers going out to eat will bring small children, so you can also add mini servings to the menu to save money for parents and avoid wasting food because children don’t eat much.
If you still don’t know what to add to the menu, you can refer to the article below:
Read more: Restaurant business: What products should be sold that are easy to attract customers and earn the highest profit?
7. Make a marketing plan when opening a restaurant
Do not think that just a small restaurant does not need marketing, without sales promotion tools, your restaurant will certainly find it difficult to compete with a series of competitors in the market. Especially when the restaurant is located in the patisserie, there are hundreds of similar restaurants of all kinds.
No need to be too big, a simple way of marketing for the restaurant is just setting up a fanpage for the restaurant, introducing the menu, posting pictures of attractive dishes on it, surely someone will know through this channel.
In addition, the trick to help the restaurant get crowded when it first opened is to do some small marketing programs to help get the initial number of visitors. These programs can be handing out flyers, hanging advertising banners, discount programs, gift vouchers, etc., depending on your budget.
Running a crowded restaurant with a simple marketing method
8. Learn more cooking skills when opening a restaurant
Even if your restaurant already has its own chef, you should learn more about cooking skills to be able to appreciate the dish correctly. In addition, experience in cooking will help you quantify dishes better, know the preparation time – how much time each dish takes.
How many people do you need to do, what skills and tools should be used to fully prepare and arrange the work schedule for employees in a reasonable way.
9. Restaurant management by software
Restaurant management software is an effective tool to help shop owners control daily revenue, manage personnel and materials effectively. In addition, the software also supports ordering at the table via phone, ipad, fast payment, avoiding congestion at the cashier at peak hours.
In addition, the software also manages sales results on many food delivery apps on your behalf, aggregates revenue by day and month, avoids errors caused by manual data entry, and saves time in compiling reports. Take 15 minutes to experience the software to see its great benefits.
Above is the entire experience of opening a restaurant for your reference as well as effective application to your business model. Opening a restaurant is not difficult, but to compete well in the market, you need to prepare a good plan, apply technology in restaurant management, and bring the best service to your customers. Good luck!