SO YOU WANNA BE AN OWNER OF A RESTAURANT?

I'll do a few blog posts called SO YOU WANNA BE AN OWNER OF A RESTAURANT? I'll just delve in the realities of being an owner of a restaurant, especially in these trying times of a shaky fickle economy, after all, owning a restaurant is business, and you won't be immune to the forces that have shattered many corporations in the past 5 years or so. But look up and be positive, you want to own a restaurant.


Hopefully you'll know what kind of food you'll be serving up, and who the target market is going to be. Now you need to figure out who's going to play the key roles in the operations, I mean to say, who's going to be in charge of the front of the house, like greeting customers, taking orders, and serving, and also collecting the payments for the foods you'll be selling. And who will be in charge of the back of the house, meaning the setting up of the food production area, who's going to order, and keep track of the inventory, who's going to set up the day to day kitchen duties? Who's the head chef? Who's the line cooks? Who's your prep crew and dish or utility people? Are you going to hire out the heavy duty cleaning jobs like scrubbing the kitchen floors when it's all built up with gunk? Or are you going to pay your crew extra when the time comes, because my friend you future restaurant owner, all these maintenance tasks needs to be done. Imagine you don't clean the hood, you keep your grills caked with heavy grease, it may cause a fire, I've seen it happen. Cleaning is a day to day task, but the heavy cleaning, like the grease trap has to be sucked up by an expert, all of these things needs to be addressed.


Oh there's no glam my friend in owning a restaurant, do not be fooled by those celebrity chefs on the Food Network, there's a bunch of pee ons that do the dirty work so they look marvelous, in the real world buddy boy, forget glam, and think sweat and stink come the end of the night. That's exactly what I said, kitchen work? Stink! Front of the house? Sore feet, sweat and stink! Ask any hard working waitress, she'll tell you, "Are you kidding me? I love my job? Get real!" Okay some do love their jobs, but deep down inside when they're busting tail all week, it's not the job they'll say they'd die for. Same goes for cooks, ask them if a better gig comes along, like a valet job that fetches several hundred a night in tips, I'm telling you restaurant owner man, those cooks will be gone in a heartbeat! Cooks are the dogs of the operation, they tend to be more day to day, live for today, kind of personalities, so you'll have to deal with their attitudes because in every bloody kitchen I've worked in, cooks are or could be psychotic! Sorry, you'll be dealing with a wide and broad range of screwed up personalities.


Okay, I hope you're not running away from your dream. Seriously come back and sit down, I'm not done yet. Oh...I hope you've worked in a restaurant before.... yes? Ah was that a yes?.... Ahem... I can't hear you.... Oh... you did not....Okay... we got a big ass problem. If you haven't even worked in a restaurant before, .... I really can't help you there, you mean nothing? Not even a few months on a summer vay cay at Mc Donald's? No. Okay. Let me see. Okay you know business I hope, I mean what it is to be in business, like you are not to be in business to be a tax write off understood? You are here to make bank! Okay... this is getting hard for me to explain because you haven't worked in a dig before.


First things first, hire managers that has lots of experience. Hire a general manager that's been in the restaurant business for many years, make sure he or she understands everything about the business of running a food service operation, and I mean everything! I'm just blown away that you never worked in a.... never mind.


Get the GM down, he or she is your first round draft pick, go over what your concept is, and listen to he or she, if they got experience in turning a profit where they worked before in the past, they'll be your most valuable player. Work together to hire the rest of the staff, your chef, supervisors, cooks etc. And the front of the house, wait staff, bar staff if applicable. Man you see what happens when you go into something blind? Lots of work buddy!


Now your GM will no doubt have a bunch of ex-employees that want a gig, a new refreshing gig, you see in the restaurant biz, everyone knows everyone else, or close to that notion anyhow. So you get the GM, have him/her talk to people in the business, if it's a good GM, trust their instincts, they'll get a good crew for you, from the head waiter, down to the dish washer. Okay, that's just one phase.


Just keep this in mind. I'll blog something else soon, or a continuation on this subject.