Opening a new restaurant concept and creating a design on a budget is the sensible approach to getting into the restaurant business. Doing so requires the owner to carefully plan where their money will be spent. Just because your budget is smaller though, doesn’t mean that you can’t bring your restaurant concept to life!

Before you begin your project steps in opening a restaurant, it is important that the restaurant idea is clearly defined. We don’t want it to become a moving target, or have you spend money on lease space that may not get used right away.

Synergy Restaurant Consultants has supported many entrepreneurs who have considered opening a restaurant with limited funds. One of the common denominators, and fatal mistakes of many of these passionate entrepreneurs, is that they forgo some of the most fundamental and essential steps of planning before their grand opening. The discovery process (brainstorming what kind of food your restaurant will serve, or deciding on staff uniforms) and feasibility studies (whether or not your idea is something that will sell well), are just as important to the success of your business as deciding on what plates to use.

Opening a restaurant on a tight budget is also a challenge because there is very little room for error. It’s a big investment and Synergy Restaurant Consultants has a proven process that identifies the strengths and weakness of the concept as well as projected cash flow and a break-even analysis. It’s necessary to work through a “discovery process” and conduct your feasibility study before making big financial decisions… because if your idea is not a good seller, you might as well be throwing money down the drain.

Opening a restaurant is simple. Doing it with a smaller budget is too. It’s making the money and retaining customers that is the challenge. Here is a checklist for opening a restaurant that may be of some help when money is tight:

1. Organize your ideas for business and discover a great niche. If you’re having trouble with this first step, try hiring a professional to assist you – Synergy has 30 years of experience in helping customers brainstorm. They and can help you find the PERFECT idea – and turn it into profitable business.

2. Research that idea to make sure it’s going to make you money (something we’re also great at)

3. Know that if you find a building or location for your restaurant that is not ideal – that’s OK! Walk away, there will always be another site that’s even BETTER than the first

4. Negotiate a lease and try to obtain tenant improvement money to back-end some expenses. If you don’t know how to negotiate, DON’T try it on your own. Working with a professional property negotiator can save you thousands of dollars, and may even allow you some other incentives before you sign your lease

5. Consider purchasing used equipment if it will help you with starting the business. Once the business grows and you start earning more revenue – you can always upgrade and get newer equipment.

6. Use the internet to find suppliers for your business needs. Looking for durable baking pans? Want unique dining tables? How about gold-plated silverware or an in-door fountain? ALL of these things can be found online- sometimes at a discounted price!

7. Keep the menu simple to minimize the cost of labor and ingredients. As with used equipment, the menu can always be re-designed
when you have more cash flow.

8. Consider trading goods for services. A friend of ours needed a photographer to take some pictures of his dining area for marketing purposes, but he didn’t have the funds. So he offered a freelancer free dinner for he and his wife in return for taking the photos – and it WORKED! You never know what opportunities are available to you until you go out and look for them.

9. Develop a marketing and word-of-mouth strategy to make sure your grand opening is a SMASH!

One small business owner in Massachusetts, found that the state’s2006 health care law left him facing $15,000 in fines since it took effect. If you, as a restaurant business owner have even given it a glance, President Obama’s new health care overhaul will bring similar financial woes nationwide.

As business owners across the country weigh the new law, they’re looking to Massachusetts for harbingers of things to come.

Massachusetts’ law, which mandates near-universal coverage and requires that all businesses with 11 or more workers, not just restaurant businesses, offer insurance, provided the blueprint for the health law signed by President Barack Obama. Massachusetts employers who don’t comply face annual fines of $295 per worker.

While there’s been plenty of grumbling among restaurant business owners that the state law has squeezed them financially during a tough recession, there’s little evidence yet that the law is forcing employers to close or sending them fleeing for the border.

The national law doesn’t require businesses to offer insurance but hits employers with 50 or more workers with an annual $2,000-per-employee fee if the company doesn’t insure them and the government ends up subsidizing their workers’ coverage.

The national law also grants tax credits for businesses with 25 or fewer workers with average annual wages below $50,000. For critics, one of the most troubling aspects of the law is the fines. Massachusetts has already fined more than 1,000 companies over $18 million for failing to offer medical insurance to their workers.

The worry is that, if the economy turns up and a restaurant business hires more workers for one or more locations, the owner will face a critical decision when they near the 50-worker mark and is no longer exempt from penalties. The 51st employee could mean $100,000 in costs.

Don Day is worried. Day owns eight small businesses in McKinney, Texas, including two restaurants, a boutique hotel and several retail shops.

Although he employs 125 workers, he offers health care for just a few key employees. Just an extra $200 a month per employee for health care could set him back hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, a cost he can’t afford.

“It’s not just me, it’s every small business across this land,” he said. “A lot of small businesses are going to go out of business.”

We at Synergy will keep you informed on all the latest impacts the Health Care Law will have on the restaurant industry.

Restaurant businesses offering deals, discounts and value meals are more important than ever for encouraging families to go out to eat. A Diner Study found that among respondents who feel restaurants should be more family-friendly, 58% would like to see them offer more discounts and value-based options. A number of operators, including Spartanburg, S.C.-based Denny’s, invite kids to eat free on certain days when parents purchase an entree. Following is a sample of some generous promotions:

Holiday Inn: it was the first hotel brand to create a kids eat free program. As many as four kids ages 12 and under per family can eat free from the kids menu with a paying adult at Holiday Inn Hotels and Resorts nationwide. They have even added healthy dishes to the menu, such as grilled chicken and steamed vegetables.

IHOP: Every day between 4 and 8 p.m. at Glendale, Calif.-based IHOP, kids ages 12 and younger eat free.

Read the original article here: http://culturewav.es/public_thought/74980

Now, what can your restaurant do to get kids and families enthused about coming?

It was a pleasure being a guest speaker at the University of Davis for the Post Harvest Technology group (PTRIC). The group has  30 conferences over the years and it is designed to make the growers aware of the needs in the market place which is backed up with a considerable amount of  data and research.  My piece was focused on how suppliers can crack the code getting their product to market — please view the presentation below.

Synergy was interviewed for this WSJ article by NEIL PARMAR:

When it comes to dining out, Kevin Moll is the kind of frugal patron restaurant owners would love to see more of. The father of two from Denver always passes on the cream and sugar. He never pours a blob of ketchup next to his fries. Even better, after enjoying a plate of barbecued ribs, he usually prefers to wipe his saucy fingers with a cloth napkin, since the cleanup job would require at least three of the paper variety. And don’t even get him started on carbonated beverages. This is a guy who prefers cola a little watered down.

With hard times still taking a bite out of restaurant profits, more Kevin Molls are turning up at their tables — not as patrons but as professional nitpickers. The 50-year-old CEO of National Restaurant Consultants is one of a burgeoning wave of efficiency experts who focus on restaurants, checking for unused half-and-half and testing the syrup level in fountain drinks.

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE