How to open a restaurant?

The secret of starting a business in a restaurant

Many people have this desire to open a small restaurant and deal with food every day. On the surface, opening a restaurant is to find a storefront to build a stove and stir-fry dishes for guests. In fact, even if you open a small restaurant, there are many links and many trivial things.

It is particularly important to make a good opening plan, which sometimes directly affects the success or failure of this restaurant. Taking the investment of 300,000 yuan as an example, this paper dissects several major steps of opening a small restaurant with characteristics, and introduces the secret of starting a business in the catering industry.

Secret 1: Correct and farsighted site selection

The successful experience of how to open a restaurant with rolling financial resources is that it is the most important step to choose the location of investment before operation, and choose the location with appreciation potential.

With an investment of around 300,000 yuan, two places are the best choice. First, there are many office buildings in the company, and second, there are crowded places. Choosing a place with more office buildings can ensure the business at noon. Some restaurants often have too many empty seats at noon, but not enough seats at night. Old catering is very concerned about whether the business at noon can be done well. This can ensure the benign operation of the day.

There are many channels for choosing a store. You can talk to the landlord through media advertisements, pre-store resale advertisements, or directly find a newly developed house. Another way is to contact the store directly after choosing the general location, no matter what the other party is doing now. Although this method is tired, it works well. You can take advantage of the Duo Long effect. Don't think that places with many shops are not suitable for entry. If there are many small restaurants with characteristics in a street, it will cause the Duo Long effect, and it is easier to do business than to go it alone. The key is to distinguish so many stores from other stores.

It is almost an open secret in the catering industry to earn part of the subletting fee by subletting. Therefore, newcomers must be cautious when subletting other people's stores. We should pay attention to some traps in subletting storefronts: First, because the sublessor has encountered the road demolition project, it has been unable to open its own business, and only wants to recover some upfront investment through subletting. Therefore, when looking for a store, you must first carefully ask the nearby stores, preferably to the planning, housing management or industrial and commercial departments. If a place is to be demolished, it will generally notify the local industrial and commercial office. Second, the original restaurant was limited in sewage discharge and fire fighting, and was required by the relevant departments to stop operating, but the lessee did not know the inside story. After paying all the subletting fees, I found it impossible to open a shop here. This situation is most common in the downstairs of residential buildings. Third, if the other party cannot provide the real estate license after renting, the industrial and commercial office will not give the business license in this case. The fourth situation is that the other party sublets the store after the business is booming, just to earn the cost of subletting. Some restaurant owners in Hangzhou like this operation. After taking over, I found that this store has been in recession, and it is difficult to make it prosperous again.

If a storefront sublets one after another in a short time, it must also be very careful. There is a saying in the catering industry in Hangzhou: "The paralyzed restaurant is not good at feng shui", which mainly refers to the kind of storefront that has changed hands many times, and it is difficult to do it well. Sometimes, this storefront seems to have many good functions, but some hidden weaknesses are hard to find. For example, although it is located in the city center with a large flow of people, there are also many business buildings on the side. However, there may be problems such as inconvenient parking and inconvenient access. And the result may be that business is not doing well. Careful investigation before opening will be of great help to the success of a hotel. Entrepreneurs had better visit these stores one by one according to their own entrepreneurial orientation.

Tip 2: "Capture" customers with specialization

The catering industry is also facing market segmentation. If we want to be big and complete, the result may be "four unlike", and investors in the catering industry should consider establishing their own cuisine characteristics.

Take opening a 200-square-meter hotel as an example. A safer way is to follow the food trends in a city. For example, Boiling Fish Town was very popular many years ago. A store of more than 300 square meters can do business of 1000 yuan a day. Gross profit can reach 50% and net profit 30%-35%. In the past three or four years, the business of catering Sichuan restaurant has been very prosperous. Seeing this consumer market, some bosses specialize in Sichuan cuisine and Hunan cuisine with local characteristics, which not only caters to many people who love spicy food, but also has their own local characteristics, so these characteristic small restaurants are more popular. Some are simply named after "Tujia cuisine". First of all, because there are many migrants in the city at present, many people come from all over the world. After opening a small restaurant with local characteristics, you can attract a large number of foreigners first.

If it is a special restaurant outside the province, it is difficult to purchase, and it is difficult to make the raw materials completely authentic. At present, the transportation in the province is convenient and the purchase is convenient. Many small restaurants with local flavor, and even common vegetables are also shipped from the local area.

With positioning, you can determine the name of the store. It is simple and clear to name the store directly with the special main course or place name. For example, "roast chicken", "boiling fish" and "Tonglu hometown dishes", or directly naming the shop after the place name, both of these effects are good.

Tip 3: Practice your internal skills and open the door to welcome guests.

I. Decoration

After determining the storefront and positioning, you can decorate it.

The consumer demand of customers is rising, and the status of storefront environment in restaurants is becoming higher and higher. A good environment can sometimes be a key factor in the success or failure of opening a store. Now some big hotels have won in one fell swoop with cheap and luxurious environment. Many small and medium-sized restaurants with characteristics have also begun to make a fuss about the environment.

What's the store environment like? It's not that the more you invest, the better. It is more about design. Sometimes designing a mud wall that reflects the positioning of Tujia cuisine with little money can attract customers. Since last year, there have been some small restaurants with high grade and exquisite decoration, and their business is doing well, largely because the environment is superior to others.

Decoration is a very complicated process. Restaurant decoration is different from ordinary family decoration, and it also involves professional issues such as kitchen design, environmental protection and fire protection. In the process of decoration, please ask professionals, it is best to find a chef or someone with restaurant management experience before the decoration begins. They can offer many suggestions.

Second, recruitment.

Whether the restaurant is open well or not, talent is also a key link. The staff of the small restaurant is divided into two parts, one is the chef and the other is the waiter, who are responsible for kitchen production and front office service respectively. The number of employees in the kitchen of a 200-square-meter specialty restaurant depends on the number of dishes, generally within 10, including cooking, chopping (side dishes), serving (chores) and washing vegetables. There are four common ways to find a chef: First, the boss orders food directly. This method is mainly suitable for small restaurants. The boss goes to a restaurant similar to his position. If he thinks the food tastes better, he tries to dig people directly in this shop. The advantage of chefs is that the boss can understand the skills of each chef and maximize their respective values. The salary of a chef in a small restaurant is generally around 3000 yuan, and the salary of a chef is more than 1000 yuan. Another way is to contract others to do it. After finding a chef, the chef is responsible for recruiting people. For a 200-square-meter hotel, according to the number and grade of dishes, the monthly contract fee for chefs is 6.5438+0.8 million yuan to 40,000 yuan, which is used to pay the salaries of kitchen staff. The boss will sign a contract with the chef to ensure the output and gross profit margin of the dishes, and at the same time ensure that the health inspection and fire inspection of the competent department must pass. This is more worry-free for the boss, as long as you take care of a chef. The disadvantage is that if the boss doesn't manage the chef well, once the cooperation with the chef ends one day, the whole class in the kitchen will be changed, which will have a great impact on the operation of the whole restaurant. Moreover, if someone contracts the kitchen, the chef can only earn more money by deducting more wages from the kitchen staff. In addition to the above methods, you can also ask the catering management company to do it. With the maturity of Hangzhou catering market, a number of professional catering management companies have emerged. Most of the bosses of these companies are chefs and have good experience in kitchen management. Catering management companies generally have their own direct chain stores, with a relatively stable team of chefs below. Inviting them to manage the kitchen seems to be similar to personal kitchen contracting, and the responsibilities are similar. The advantages are: the salary of individual kitchen contractors to the following employees is arbitrary and often changes, which affects the stability of the chef team. After corporate management, this operation is more transparent, and management companies often bring in some new dishes.

Third, customize the equipment

Kitchen equipment includes three items in the kitchen:

Electrical appliances (mainly refrigerators), stoves, tables, chopping boards, spatulas, etc. Small items mainly refer to hardware, stainless steel bowls and basins, and chopsticks and tableware used by customers can go to ceramic markets and specialty stores. If the restaurant has a high positioning and is good at characteristics, you can customize the dishes and chopsticks that meet the characteristics. If it is a stall-style small restaurant, in order to save the upfront investment as much as possible, some people will buy second-hand goods. Some big hotels often change their bowls and chopsticks. These changed bowls and chopsticks were taken to some small restaurants, and the goods looked good. Some shopkeepers will contact these hotels in advance and can buy them at a very low price.

People who have never worked in the catering industry usually find a chef who is responsible for guiding the procurement of equipment. This is very important, because there are many kitchen equipments on the market. Some kitchen equipment looks very useful, but it is not very useful. An experienced chef knows best what equipment to use.

Another thing to note is that some stores are equipped with kitchen equipment when they are built. Such equipment is not designed and equipped according to the restaurant you want to open. If you rent it, you will often spend a lot of money.

Sublet hotels can sometimes omit this purchase procedure, but many times when they actually run, they will find that some equipment is useless and can only be decided by professionals. Otherwise, we have to throw away the old equipment and pay a large sublease fee for nothing.

If you want to save more money on buying three big items, one way is to go to the flea market on Shaoxing Road in Hangzhou, which depends on luck. Sometimes there are complete sets of kitchen equipment here, some in stock and some second-hand. Another way is to find the kitchen equipment manufacturer directly. At present, many kitchen equipment manufacturers recycle some old hotel equipment while selling new goods. By buying these second-hand goods, they save two-thirds of the money compared with buying brand-new equipment.

The above steps are only the basic operation steps in the operation. It must be remembered that in these operating procedures, the approval procedures to the functional departments are carried out at the same time! Moreover, it is best to apply for consultation in advance for some approval procedures, so as to avoid going the wrong way when opening a store and spending money.

Pre-approval is required to apply for opening a restaurant, that is, the industrial and commercial department must obtain a hygiene license and a pollution discharge permit from the environmental protection department before obtaining a business license.

Take the small restaurant opened by individual industrial and commercial households as an example. The specific process is as follows: first, take the original and copy of your ID card to the local industrial and commercial office to register your name. Remember that this is only a name registration, and it is not time to apply for an industrial and commercial business license. Because before obtaining the industrial and commercial license, you must first apply to the environmental protection department and the health supervision office within your jurisdiction for a sewage discharge permit and a health permit.

Application for pollutant discharge permit: firstly, apply to the permit office of the environmental protection bureau of the jurisdiction, and after acceptance, the staff will come to inspect and guide. The two necessary conditions for obtaining a sewage permit are: there can be no residential buildings upstairs; Sewage should be included in the municipal sewage pipeline. On-site inspectors will decide which range hood to install according to the size of the business area. I bought my own range hood or a range hood that has not been recognized by environmental protection. The staff of the accreditation office reminded that it is best to consult the environmental protection department before deciding whether to rent a store or decorate it. For example, some shopkeepers open stores for decoration, and the smoke outlet or kitchen window is just aimed at the residents behind. Even if the management department doesn't know for a while, the residents behind will still complain and often have to spend money to adjust.

Application for hygiene license: apply to the health supervision office within the jurisdiction for acceptance, and then let the restaurant staff have health examination and receive food hygiene knowledge training. On the premise of passing the inspection and training, it mainly depends on the following aspects: first, whether the sanitary facilities are complete, mainly referring to disinfection and cleaning facilities; The second is whether the area ratio of processing site and business site has been reached. The proportion requirements of restaurants in different locations will be different, so you need to consult in advance.

Industrial and commercial business license: after obtaining these two certificates, you can apply for industrial and commercial business license at the industrial and commercial office with these two certificates and the corresponding house lease certificate and ID card.

According to the regulations, you need to apply to the fire department for approval before opening, and you need to apply to your jurisdiction when decorating.

Tax registration: within 30 days from the date of obtaining the business license, you should apply to the local tax bureau for the local tax registration number. Bring a copy of the business license and a copy, as well as the operator's ID card. Small restaurants opened by individual industrial and commercial households have to pay 5% business tax. In addition, urban construction tax and education surcharge have to be paid. The tax amount is 1 1% of business tax, and other taxes account for a small share.

Before the official opening, there are several steps that cannot be ignored that must be planned in advance.

First of all, grasp the procurement link. In the catering industry, the boss pays the most attention to purchasing. In many small restaurants, the boss also serves as a buyer and cashier, which ensures the entry and exit of money. Even if you can't do it yourself, find a close friend to do these two jobs.

Drinks and seasonings can be bought in food markets and supermarkets. There is more freedom of choice, because sometimes you can choose some cheaper prices for cash settlement. It is also the most common practice to let professional companies directly contract. All drinks and seasonings are contracted and supplied by a company, which is responsible for delivery at any time. One of the main reasons why bosses take a fancy to this method is that they can pay their bills. The general practice in the industry is to settle accounts one to two months after delivery. Professional companies also have a certain sales rebate, which depends on the difference in sales. If you add a sales rebate, the purchase cost will not be more expensive than going to the vegetable market and supermarket. The rebate rate ranges from 5% of sales to 12%, which depends on your own discussion with suppliers. Some restaurants don't take back the deduction, but ask the supplier for the entrance fee. Some insiders believe that this practice has many disadvantages, the interests between suppliers and restaurants cannot be tied together, and cooperation will not be as close as rebate sales. The waiter is happy to accept the delivery from a professional company, because he can get the corkage fee, which is a commercial bribe stipulated by the industrial and commercial department. In a small restaurant with four or five salespeople, if the business is good, a waiter can collect seven or eight hundred bottles a month. In some big hotels, the waiter can't collect the corkage fee by himself, but in this small hotel, the boss will ask the waiter to collect the corkage fee directly, in order to stimulate the enthusiasm of the waiter.

Whether the raw materials are well purchased and the prices are cheap is very important for the operation of a restaurant. It is important to have professional knowledge. Some bosses don't know the quality of raw materials at first, so they have to take a chef as an assistant. Especially when buying seafood, experience is very important. For example, if different people buy the same amount of prawns, the price per kilogram may be different 10-20 yuan. People who are good at it can see that they can keep these for a few days after buying them back. Many restaurant purchasing veterans will buy a small amount of seafood near the end of their lives when purchasing seafood, because the price of this kind of seafood is two-thirds or more lower than the normal price. Buy it back as a promotional item and sell it to customers at a very cheap price. The result is often happy, which is also a business trick. Frozen shrimp, fish and other aquatic products, if you want to choose good quality aquatic products, you can go to large supermarkets, such as Metro and Trust-Mart. Fresh aquatic products are mostly purchased in Jinjiang agricultural and sideline products market and Nongdu aquatic products market. For a small shop, the daily consumption of vegetables is not large, and the owner will go directly to the nearest farmer's market to purchase goods. After a long time, the stall owner is relatively fixed, allowing the supplier to deliver the goods to the door. Some shopkeepers want to do business with regular stall owners, deliver goods to their homes and pay the bill. However, it is best for the boss to go to the market often in person, not only to replenish the goods, but also to look at the new raw materials on the market and understand the price.

In fact, there are many restaurants with various flavors. How to make them authentic? Everyone began to open competition in raw materials, not only to see whose approach is authentic, but also to see whether the raw materials are authentic. In some flavor restaurants, except for some ginger, pork and common condiments, the raw materials of common vegetables such as radish, lettuce, cabbage, onion, garlic, spinach and green vegetables are all purchased from the local countryside. These dishes are all grown from soil, fertilizer and water, with rich flavor and guaranteed quality. Buying directly from farmers is at least one-third cheaper than buying in the city. Small restaurants that don't use a lot of raw materials every day may wish to refer to their practices.

Secondly, there should be a set of good financial management after opening a store, and it is best to have financial statements every day, so as to track the daily gross profit changes and adjust the price of dishes in time. Every store will set a gross profit for itself, and the gross profit depends on the positioning. When making a menu, there should be a basic control direction of gross profit. In a store, the gross profit of each dish is different. Some dishes may not be profitable at all, just to attract guests, while others may be very profitable. At present, the comprehensive gross profit of small restaurants with hundreds of square meters mostly reaches 40% to 50%.

The pricing of dishes is also tricky: all restaurants, big or small, understand that you are cheap and practical; Never be more expensive than the peers next to you; You don't know what it is by name, which can increase gross profit. You can raise the price of a special dish with a unique recipe that only your chef can cook. In a word, printing (or writing) beautiful menus pieced together is a major event before opening. As for when the customer pays the bill, whether you give the discount or not depends on when you treat what customers, which is a temporary decision. During the opening of the store, it is still necessary to promote profits. Home cooking has the highest gross profit margin, and coarse grains and local dishes are home cooking. The chef has a shortcoming: the turnover is not high, and the net profit is not much in the end. Therefore, many restaurant owners will introduce some high-end dishes with a price of more than 20 to 30 yuan in the menu, such as special pots and seafood.

In addition, people in the industry believe that to make a restaurant successful, eight elements are indispensable: location, positioning, price, environment, service, advertising, marketing and financial control. Among them, service refers to comprehensive service, including what kind of food service is provided, not only paying attention to the quality of the food itself, but also providing customers with a cultural connotation with the help of the food itself, and so on. Opening a restaurant is more than just offering a few delicious dishes. Every detail should be very humanized, so that customers really feel comfortable. When you open a shop, you should consider the problem from the customer's point of view. Recently, I have been cautious in the catering industry. And you must have enough money on hand. If the business of the new store is not good at first, it will involve many problems, such as insufficient capital turnover, low enthusiasm of employees, and inability to guarantee the quality of dishes. It is often difficult to operate normally again.

Experience manual:

200 square meters local restaurant, 120 seats. The restaurant is two stops from Wulin Square.

Initial investment: the transfer fee is 80,000 yuan, the decoration fee (including the purchase of kitchen equipment, dining table, chairs and tableware)/kloc-0.53 million yuan, and the rent/kloc-0.00 million yuan (paid quarterly), with a total investment of 233,000 yuan. Working capital is 20,000 yuan.

Business situation: the daily operating cost of the store is 2200 yuan, and the average daily attendance rate is 80%. For example, the average daily turnover is 3,800 yuan, and the per capita consumption is around 30 yuan. So after one year, we not only recovered the cost, but also made money.