Do we really need restaurants?
Decades ago I considered opening a restaurant with my sister.
We built a business plan. We studied menu design, food waste calculations, dollars per seat per hour, advertising costs, time to profit, and a million other things.
Our business analyst said that 2/3 of new restaurants went under in their first year, m8ostly because NOBODY THINKS ABOUT THOSE THINGS!
So every time I hear about how a billion restaurants will be going under, I remember that they are almost all started by people with three great recipes and no clue.
75 years ago there were such few restaurants that margins were decent and owners could pay their staff well. A mid-range restaurant could have chefs and even servers earn decent wages.
Now there are 100× more restaurants per capita than there were back then, and margins are razor-thin and staff are being paid peanuts.
Even when thinking of those things it’s such narrow margins! Seems like a nightmare!
Restauranteurs need to spend a week in italy to learn how make an actually good dining experience
- Good local produce
- everything hand made by default
- excellent service
- sensible pricing, tax and service included. No guessing games when the bill comes
Basically, common sense if you’re running a resto… if i’m going to be dropping $200 to go out these days, it better be really good. As it stands today, dining out in canada is a ripoff and mostly mediocre experience
an actually good dining experience
- Good local produce
- everything hand made by default
- excellent service
- sensible pricing, tax and service included. No guessing games when the bill comes
And by doing all that, word of mouth will likely become your most effective (and least expensive) marketing.
Nobody should be supporting chain restaurants.
Make stuff cost less. Buy local only. Don’t expect a huge profit.
When I see coupon books in the mail from McDonalds etc… I just laugh at the “deals” and then chuck them into the wood stove.
Ikr? They’re not even deals anymore.
