Guide on How to Start a Restaurant Business
1. Secure a business location that is perfect for your restaurant business. You want to get a location that is the hottest part of the city near other restaurants. You want to get a location that looks pretty nice depending upon the restaurant business being classy upscale luxury or average.
2. Make sure to take the required food handlers permit tests along with any other required certification. You want to make sure that all people working in the restaurant are properly up to date on any tests that is needed prior to opening the restaurant.
3. You need to get a business license and put the new restaurant address on it. On the business license they usually want to know the estimated start date that your business will be open. They want your telephone number too on the business license. You will probably need to pay an extra fee depending upon the number of employees’ that you have working for you. You will also need to get a sales tax ID number too. It is a good idea to memorize the sales tax ID number in the future since you will need to put the number on a variety of different forms.
4. You need to order phone service along with any other services that you need for operation of your business such as power and heat. You might need to pay some deposits to get the service activated.
5. Put a commercial kitchen in the restaurant location if it doesn’t have one already. You need a commercial kitchen in order to have your restaurant up to standards on codes and regulations to operate a restaurant. The city will usually inspect your restaurant once it is open to see if you are following all the rules and regulations.
6. Open an account with a wholesale food supplier. They will be able to give you a large discount on prices in bulk quantity. You will be quite surprised at the price difference in foods. They should be willing to deliver food via semi to your restaurant a couple of times a week at least.
7. Make sure to have a menu professional printed. You want to have a few dozen boxes of your menu printed since some of them get damaged or lost from time to time. You want to be prepared with enough menu’s for all the customers. You need to do advertising so make sure to put your menu in the advertisements. Announce the grand opening of your business in the newspaper including the menu too.
8. Figure out your store hours that you want your restaurant business to be open. It is important to have reasonable late hours on the weekends and special holidays. Make sure to post the restaurant business hours on the door and even include the business hours on your restaurant answering machine.
9. Design your restaurant with pictures on the walls and other decorations. You want might to hire an interior designer if possible. You want to make your restaurant interesting with the booths and other decorations. You want it to attract attention in the beginning.
10. Make sure to get a light up sign for your restaurant as part of decorating. You need to decorate it on the outside too. You can also decorate your restaurant depending upon the season and holiday.
