1. Location – when you are choosing the location for your restaurant you should know that every single meter matters! I will tell you a quick story. I opened a game club in one of the craziest and busiest summer resorts on the PLanet – Sunny Beach, Bulgaria! So many young people in one place and everyone is looking for fun. I looked for the perfect location and I found it on a busy corner where the traffic was heavy from the morning to just before sunrise on the next day! I rented the space inside the hotel and my front door was 10 meters away and looking directly toward the crossing! I put the billiards, the Sony PS’s and everything else inside and I put a boxing bag in front of the club knowing that all those crowds with young drunk people love to show their muscles and punch those bags to dead! Everything was ready when suddenly right in front of my club and just on the sidewalks people started building plastic huts for fast food and t-shirts shops and on top of this, a man brought his boxing bag and put it right there on the sidewalk 6 meters in front of mine!
   Do I need to explain to you how painful this summer turned out to be for me? I will just tell you that while this guy’s boxing machine was making close to 1000 dollars a day mine was making barely 30$!
   I couldn’t break even and I lost tens of thousands of dollars on rent and salaries!
   So that is why I am telling you that location is the single most important factor for success!’

2. Finance – don’t try to open a restaurant without money! A great location cost usually a lot of money! Make sure that you have calculated all the cost, the revenue, and the profits and the math comes right!
If the price is too high, even a great location is worthless! A restaurant can be only so much profitable! Plus, be prepared to work with a loss for the first 6 months to a year! 60% of the new restaurants close within a year and 90% close within 5 years because they started underfunded or some other reason! You should have money on the side to pay rent, salaries, and suppliers for at least 6 months!

3. Concept, Cuisine, and Type of restaurant – don’t open a restaurant with your favorite food! This is a recipe for disaster! Research the public at your location and make sure to check the competition! Fast food, casual dining, fine dining it all matters! This location could be great for a fine dining restaurant and a terrible for a fast food restaurant based on the crowds that hang around! How is your competition doing? What type of cuisine could be interesting for the public? Chinese restaurant could do great and Italian might go broke in a year or vice versus! Create an amazing menu and you will have an amazing success.

4. Staff – having a great chef who shares your vision and passion is a crucial factor for success but having the right waiters is even more important! The waiters are the face of the establishment and the only persons who can influence your guest’s decision-making process! The profitability of your restaurant may very well hang on the ability of your waiters to sell, upsell, and cross-sell! On their skills of handling guest’s complaints and their service skills! Train your waiters well!

5. Cost
-Rental cost not more than 15% of the projected revenue
-Marketing cost – 5% of revenue – be creative
-Food cost – not more than 30% of the selling price
-Labor cost – keep it under 30%
-Utilities, unexpected expenses, insurance…etc.
Did you count how much of a profit a restaurant makes already? Not much! If you and your family are working in the restaurant you should count their salaries as well, don’t overlook that! It may turn out that if you close the restaurant and start working for someone else you will make more money in salary than from your restaurant!