The Perils and Pleasures of Opening Your Own Restaurant
By Angelique Gervais
A good friend and I were sitting in the homey little tea house that we favor for our Saturday morning coffee visits and she was chatting again about how much she would like to open a place like this one. I knew her to be a fabulous hostess and had little doubt about her ability to please a customer base well enough to secure a nice position in the food service industry. However, I am more of a skeptic, I'm afraid, or perhaps let's use the term, "realist," a much more complimentary term. As a result, I decided to do a bit of research into the enterprise of opening and running your own restaurant.
The American Dream
I have long since assumed that the American Dream is to own a house of one's own, bringing with it all of the nurturing images of hearth and family. Somewhere along the way, things have shifted drastically. The family has become so mobile and outwardly focused that the dream of owning a house is not the icon of family security and success that it once was. In this day and age, it seems that more Americans dream of owning and operating their own restaurant than any other common goal.
Is Education a Must?
When I look at my friend, I wonder if she honestly needs an education to be successful in the restaurant business. She has a remarkable amount of natural ability and she is an ambitious woman who is self-taught on many unique and complex techniques. With this in mind, I decided to find out how much of a difference a culinary school education could make. The more I read and delved into the statistics available on restaurant success, the more aware I became of how vital an education is to guaranteeing the success of your business. Attending Chef's school will give you the advantage of expanding your culinary repertoire as well as giving you insights into mass production, in-depth studies of wines, herbs, sauces and deserts. It takes almost no time for accomplished cooks to realize just how little they actually know once they begin culinary school classes. A chef's school education will also give you insights into health and safety issues, food storage requirements, insurance issues, and food ordering and staffing. These are all things that most lay people would overlook when considering a career as a restaurateur.
Work Before you Buy
If there is one piece of advice given to those considering opening their own restaurant, it is to invest some years in working in a restaurant before you buy. The time that you spend working in restaurants under other owners is well worth your time and effort. During this time, you will see what type of establishment you are best suited to. You will have the opportunity to learn all the roles of the restaurant business. You will get an idea of the hours that are required to run a successful restaurant. In short, it is valuable time you spend learning the business from the inside out before you invest money in your own venture.
The Perils and Pitfalls
It seems to matter little what business you want to get into. If your dream is to own your own business, you need to reconcile yourself to the fact that spending a lot of time running it will be your life, at least for a time. The fact is that while starting out, running any business will eat up virtually all of your life. To compliment this daunting negative is a positive aspect that almost makes up for the loss of a personal life outside of running the restaurant. And that is the tendency for the staff and management of well-run eateries to become like a very close-knit family. The long hours they spend together contribute to this extended family and shows that this cloud does have its silver lining. Another draw back is the large number of startups that fail. Sadly, less than two in ten food service businesses will still be in operation, after three years in business. The upside is those restaurants in business who do make it to this point are well on their way to a really enjoyable and viable business. Three years to a successful business is very fast-track indeed. These businesses must keep up with the quickly changing trends in food fads which can be daunting for the restaurateur. It is also a challenge to find a way to make transitions within your existing restaurant atmosphere while remaining credible. Most successful establishments find that by not limiting their options from the beginning, they can adapt quite easily to changing markets. This provides enough variety to keep the business exciting and fresh even years into ownership. The greatest benefit that most restaurant owners say is worth all of the drawbacks is that they have the privilege of working a job they truly love. When going to work every morning is truly a joy, you can live with many of the negatives and still keep a smile on your face, knowing you spent a day of hard work that was so worth it!