How to start Restaurant Business on Limited Resources – 2022.
Yes, this is a tough time for every restaurant business owner or the one who wants to open a new restaurant business due to the pandemic situation of covid. Things will gradually come to normal very soon. This post will help everyone who is in the restaurant business or planning to open a new one.
So, how can you drive your restaurant business on limited resources?
Here are a few items that I realized along the way.
- Start a Ghost kitchen instead of a full-fledged dining restaurant.
- Using second-hand supplies or pieces of equipment for the kitchen.
- Take benefits of existing digital solutions – Like Food delivery apps, Food ordering website, contactless food ordering, Digital food menu.
- Avoid traditional way of doing advertisement & marketing.
- In start make dish your self or by single chef.
- Do it your self mode for initial months.
- Start a Ghost kitchen instead of a full-fledged dining restaurant – If you have a limited budget start with a ghost kitchen, ghost kitchen is similar to the work from home concept or you can rent space anywhere without a need to rent a big space for dining on huge rents. In the restaurant business rent is a big part of overall expenses.
- Use second-hand equipments– When starting your restaurant business, you do not need everything to be “new.” Second-hand items cost substantially less than new items and work just as well. In the ghost kitchen concept, even your customer is not able to know what types of equipment you are using. Yes, please take care of hygiene and they should be properly working also.
- Take benefits of existing digital solutions – Like Food delivery apps, Food ordering website, tc. – This is a digital age here managing restaurant business and getting orders from customers are easy nowadays. Contact any offshore restaurant app developer to get your food ordering app for your restaurant business or have a ready white label restaurant app for your restaurant business and start taking orders from your customers instantly.
Design a beautiful website for your restaurant business, so that customers can find you on Google and see your offerings for dishes. affordable restaurant website design packages.
Food apps development company – They provide ready white label solutions for restaurant business. All prices are very reasonable and affordable. - Avoid traditional way of doing advertisement & marketing– You do not need the thousands of dollars that it takes to position ads in papers, print flyers, or the print food menu. Just take advantage of Social media websites & local groups on Facebook to advertise your restaurant business. Turn your vehicle into a moving billboard by investing in vinyl signage for your doors or windows. The best thing? packing box for your orders is a prime medium for advertising your brand to your customers.
- In start make dish your self or by single chef – If you starting your new food business then you should have the skills to make food yourself or hire one chef for initial orders. This means hiring employees gradually & slowly as the restaurant business grows.
- Do it your self mode for initial months – Everyone knows how hard is to start a new business, you can save big when you will be in do it your self mode for the initial few months. You can manage all social media accounts yourself very easily. Send offers on mobile apps or newsletters to your customers directly yourself.
Across the board, be grateful for the efforts that you go through now, because, in the future, they will have been well worth it. Plus, it will give you a better understanding when you further grow your restaurant business.
And, no matter what, what all you have to do, what all you have to work just never give up on yourself. These seeds will give you fruits in the future which you always remember.
Here is a short story about myself why I found the above ways to start my restaurant business in the past and now I own a successful running dining, takeaway, and delivery restaurant.
When I first started my restaurant, I went to the bank for an enterprise loan. Easy enough, correct? I had my restaurant food business plan in order, an itemized list of everything that I would need to successfully run my restaurant, and all the required documents. To put it straight, I was turned down. Why? Not because I did not have the credit to back it up, or did not have a good restaurant business plan. The reason the bank man gave me was “because I did not understand that over 90% of businesses fail within the first year and that I was not prepared in case of mine did.”
While I understand he was trying to look out for my best welfare, I sensed cheated. He was not even going to allow me to fail. On some level, everyone that goes into business for themselves understands that chances are, the business will not make it past its first year, and I was no different. The only thing was I had confidence in myself that I would not give up attempting. The loan bank person took that as I would spend my life savings before giving up, and he did not want to see me financially destroy myself.
So what did I do? I set out my restaurant business on my own, only using the limited resources and financial backing that I had. I bought second-hand restaurant supplies and furniture. I bought the small cheap laptop instead of the multi-thousand dollar computer specifically designed for running restaurant POS system. Without the sound money for advertising, I had to get creative. My advertising methods were unconventional, but they worked. I found that I did not need large amounts of money to get my restaurant business to attract new customers.
So would I have been so successful had the loan person given me the enterprise loan I asked for? I am not sure, because after all, I made it without the funds, what would have occurred if I would have had the proper money for advertisement? Whatever the case may have been, I am happy he did not, because I am not better able to understand the limited resources that many small restaurant businesses face.
This post has been shared by one of the Restaurant owners we are working with. We are writing this on his behalf.
