How to open a restaurant?

What is the aim of this course?

Opening restaurants is very demanding in terms of time and cash. I will show you in this course how to research the market and plan your business to make sure that you open the right concept, in the right place for the right people. Most restaurants fail because they got it wrong in one of the 3 main factors: location, concept, and target segment of customers. Here I will show you how to find out with little money in advance whether your business idea makes sense or not.

We will show several techniques that will help you check:

Whether the location is good for your business?
Who is your customer and whether you will have enough of them in your selected location?
What are the good and bad things about certain concepts and whether is a good fit for you and the location?
How much money can you get from your restaurant business?

I will also show you how to translate it to Excel and create your business plan with this universal tool. It will be useful not only for opening your business but also afterward managing your business.

I will teach you also how to test your concept in real life without actually building the restaurant.

Why have I decided to create this course?

I have worked in retail and restaurant chains for 4 years. It always surprised me that even the chains had problems with the proper selection of location and the concept that would be optimal. 3 years ago my friends started opening their own concepts or taking over existing ones. Due to my previous experience, they started asking me for some help. In this course, you will find the practical tricks that we used to make sure that the businesses they were running were making money in the selected locations. This framework was proven both with small restaurants as well as with chains. We have applied it extensively also in retail projects. You will find here a little theory and mainly a lot of practical how-to tips that will help you perform the research on your own.

This course is based on my 15 years of experience as a consultant in top consulting firms and as a Board Member responsible for strategy, performance improvement, and turn-arounds in the biggest firms from Retail I have carried out or supervised over 90 different performance improvement projects in different industries that generated in a total of 2 billion of additional EBITDA. On the basis of what you will find in this course, I have trained in person over 100 consultants, business analysts, and managers who now are Partners in PE and VC funds, Investment Directors and Business Analysts in PE and VC, Operational Directors On top of that my courses on Udemy were already taken by more than 224 000 students including people working in EY, Walmart, Booz Allen Hamilton, Adidas, Naspers, Alvarez & Marsal, PwC, Dell, Walgreens, Orange, and many others.

I teach through case studies, so you will have a lot of lectures showing examples of analyses, and tools that we use. To every lecture, you will find attached (in additional resources) the Excels as well as additional presentations, and materials shown in the lectures so as a part of this course you will also get a library of ready-made analyses that can, with certain modifications, be applied by you or your team in your work.

In what way will you benefit from this course?

The course is a practical, step-by-step guide loaded with tons of, tricks, hints, and examples that will significantly change the way you perceive your business and will drastically increase your chances of success. There is little theory – mainly examples, a lot of tips from my own experience as well as other notable examples worth mentioning. Our intention is that thanks to the course you will know:

How to find the right spot to build a profitable restaurant
How to analyze a restaurant concept that you think about with little money
How to select the right location for your business
How to analyze your target segment and how to adapt the concept to them
How to get the concept-location-customer fit
How to test the restaurant concept with little money
How to estimate in Excel what can be the sales and margin of your restaurant?

You can also ask me any question either through the discussion mode or by messaging me directly.

How the course is organized?

The course is divided currently into the following sections:

Introduction. We begin with a little intro to the course
What concept should you choose? In the second section, we go through ways you can use to learn everything about a specific concept and decide whether it is good for you or not.
How good certain location is? In the third section, I will show you how to analyze the locations you are considering to make sure that are a good match with your concept. This section will have a lot of hacks that you can apply to make sure that the location you are choosing will generate your expected profits
How to analyze your target group? Only by knowing well your customer and applying this knowledge in management, as well as the selection of the concept, you can build a sustainable business. Here, I will show you methods that you can use online and off-line to spy on your customers and understand them properly
Testing your restaurant concept with MVP. The fifth section is devoted to testing your concept without building full-blown restaurants. We will talk about an interesting concept called MVP (Minimum Viable Product) that is also applied to restaurants to make sure that what you build is what the customer wants and needs. It helps you for a fraction of your initial budget
Restaurant model in Excel. In this section, I will show you how to calculate in Excel, on the basis of previous sections, whether your business idea for a new restaurant makes sense or not. You will get ready-made tools in Excel that you can adapt to your needs.

You will be able also to download many additional resources

Examples in Excel, Word, PowerPoint
Presentation of slides shown in the course
Links to additional presentations and movies
Links to books worth reading

What's inside

Learning objectives

Select the most profitable location
Pick the right concept to run
Create great restaurant that will make your target group happy

Analyze and understand your customers
Check in excel how much you will earn from your business
Spy on your competitors

Select the most profitable location
Pick the right concept to run
Create great restaurant that will make your target group happy
Analyze and understand your customers
Check in excel how much you will earn from your business
Spy on your competitors

Syllabus

Introduction to the course

What the course will be about

Here I will show you what to do if a blurry image appears

Here I will show you how to find additional resources attached to the coruse like Excel files, presentations, links etc.

In this lecture I will make and introduction explaining you what are the 4 most important elements and how you should approach them. The main issues are:

How to find the right spot to build profitable restaurant
How to analyze restaurant concept that you think about with little money
How to select the right location for your business
How to analyze your target segment and how to adapt the concept to them
How to execute the business model

Running a restaurant is a very demanding tasks and before you open your restaurant it is highly advisable that you work for some time in a restaurant to get experience on many different level. Start from lowest position in the kitchen, work as a waitress and if possible deputy manager of a restaurant. In this lecture I will explain you want you can learn, what you should pay attention to get the most out of it.

Concept is the type of restaurant you are running with all the implications in terms of the business mode. The concept includes: service level, type of cuisine you are serving, pricing, look &feels, purchasing reasons and habits of customers, capacity and size. We discuss in general why it is important to choose the right concept what I actually means

Store Check come in handy whenever you are talking about B2C physical products, services and retail. This methods gives you solid facts on which you can build your business

Using the store-check you can learn a lot about specific business: who is coming to the restaurant, what they are ordering, how long they are staying, etc. You can also estimate whether the restaurant is profitable or not. I will show you step by step how to perform store check and how to interpret the data you have gathered from it

Here I will show you how to use the franchising concept database to research the concept you are interested in

Here I will show you how to use recommendation marketplace like Yelp to research the customer

Social media are valuable source of intel on your competitors and existing restaurants. By analyzing them you will know how they communicate with their target group, what is the focus of the both the restaurant owner / manager and customers. I will show you how to draw conclusions from the data on the fanpage of one pizza restaurant

Google is so nice to tell you through search results where is the market. Use the Keyword Planner to see whether you are able to make money on your ideas and how much you have to spend to get the trafffic

Here I will show you how to use the Keyword Planner to research specific concept and make sure that it makes sense in your city. This method also helps you estimate what they are looking for (type of food, requirements) and also gives you some hints on how much you have to spend to get the traffic from on-line

Google Trends is an excellent tool to check whether certain keyword is on a rise or not. Thanks to this tool you can check what are the trends by countries and media.

Quite often there are interesting reports already available on the market. I will show you here some examples

You have to find the right location, spot for your concept. It is not easy yet it has huge impact on your success. Without the proper location even the best concept will have at best mediocre results. The perfect location is the one that brings you a lot of potential customers from your target group. There are plenty of nice techniques that you can apply to make sure that the location is good. I will show you in this section step by step how you can pick the right selection and check what kind of profits it can bring you

Storechecks are very useful also for checking specific locations. You can check whether specific district is good for specific type of cuisine or type of restaurant. I will show you here on some examples how it can be done

Google Maps is another great tool for checking whether specific location is good. I will show you here on the basis of an example how you should define the so called catchment area and how to measure the level of competition using Google Maps

Keyword Planner can be also used with great success to check whether certain restaurant concept makes sense in a specific district. It provides you estimation of number of searches (people interested) and also estimation of your marketing budget

Review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor are powerful tools that can be used to check specific location espiecially when it comes to number of specific restaurants as well as their strength measured via reviews (number of reviews and their average score)

Your restaurants will be visited by different segments of customers yet you should have 1 favorite that you will concentrate on – the target group. I will show you how to define it and analyze their behavior to make sure that you build attractive from their point of view restaurant concept in the right place

Here we present an exmaple from USA of segmentation with real data

In this lecture we show you how to conduct the off-line interviews, how to draw conclusions out of it and where to find respondents

In this lecture we show you how to conduct the off-line interviews, how to draw conclusions out of it and where to find respondents. Here we will talk about new, unkown restaurant concepts where it is much more difficult to find out what the customer really wants

Facebook Audience Insight is the perfect tool to check different segments without the necessity to do any interviews. For first estimation it is the perfect tool

On review marketplaces like Yelp, TripAdvisor you have plenty of reach reviews that can be used to draw conclusions on what the customer group likes and dislikes in current concepts. This will help you to learn from other’s mistakes and improve your concept. You can analyze what is important to the customer, what do they pay attention to and how to communicate with them.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is an important concept from lean startup that can be also used to check your restaurant concept without spending a small fortune on building the full blown restaurant. Here I explain what is MVP and why it makes sense to start with it before going madly into building a restaurant

We start with showing you how you can test the restaurant concept. We provide you 6 different MVPs, show you how much it would cost to build and how much time it would take you. We show you also what hypotheses / features you can test with them and when to choose which MVP

Excel gives you great opportunities to calculate whether your idea makes sense or not. For this you will use the knowledge you have gathered in the previous lectures on your concept, location and your customers. Excel is obviously less emotion than you and the model you will create here can be used as a cornerstone of your business plans. It shows also to banks and potential investors what is your cash flow. We start with a simple model so you can understand it and learn how to use it.

In this lecture we make more advanced model. We introduce the traffic parameter and show how it is converted first into people that are engaged (stop and enter your restaurant) and later into customers (they buy something from you). Here we will be operating on 2 customer groups: first one eats at the restaurant; second one comes for take-aways. For both customer groups we calculate separate conversion rates and Average ticket (ATV). We still here show you a business model for a 1 restaurant

Finally we show you how to model in Excel a restaurant chain.

Traffic lights

Read about what's good

what should give you pause

and possible dealbreakers

Provides practical techniques to assess location viability, customer base, and concept suitability, which are crucial for minimizing risks in the restaurant industry

Emphasizes real-world testing of restaurant concepts using a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach, which can save significant capital and time

Includes Excel-based tools for financial modeling and business planning, which are essential for managing and projecting restaurant profitability

Draws upon the instructor's experience in retail and restaurant chains, offering insights applicable to both small and large-scale operations

Requires learners to conduct store checks, which may require travel and time to visit different locations and observe customer behavior

Relies on tools like Yelp and TripAdvisor for competitor analysis, which may not provide a complete picture of the market due to biased or incomplete data

Reviews summary

Practical structured restaurant planning guide

According to learners, this course is an amazing! and Outstanding! experience. Students describe it as a very structured guide that gives very pragmatic and useful tips! Many appreciate that the instructor obviously has years of experience which this course reflects. Learners feel it is packed with useful tips and structured methods to evaluate concepts, locations and customers before investing huge amount of money. One learner has already started applying some techniques which seem to work well. They are planning to apply these insights to their future business.

Benefits from instructor's experience

"The instructor obviously has years of experience in consulting and retail, and this course reflects this."

Provides a clear structured approach

"A very structured guide..."

"...structured methods to evaluate concepts, locations and customers..."

Offers pragmatic, useful tips & techniques

"A very structured guide and gives very pragmatic and useful tips!"

"...gives very pragmatic and useful tips!"

"I've already started applying some techniques mentioned in the course and they seem to work well."

Evaluate ideas before huge investment

"...methods to evaluate concepts, locations and customers before investing huge amount of money."

"I'm already planning how to apply these insights to my future business!"

Activities

Be better prepared before your course. Deepen your understanding during and after it. Supplement your coursework and achieve mastery of the topics covered in How to open a restaurant? with these activities:

Review Restaurant Industry Trends

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Familiarize yourself with current trends in the restaurant industry to better inform your concept and location choices.

Browse courses on Market Trends

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Research recent articles and reports on restaurant trends.
Identify emerging customer preferences and dining habits.
Analyze how these trends might impact your restaurant concept.

Read 'Setting the Table' by Danny Meyer

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Learn about the importance of hospitality and customer service from a renowned restaurateur.

View Customer Relations Series of Bestselling 2... on Amazon

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Read the book 'Setting the Table' by Danny Meyer.
Reflect on Meyer's philosophy of enlightened hospitality.
Consider how to apply these principles to your restaurant.

Develop a Preliminary Restaurant Concept

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Create a detailed restaurant concept including menu, target audience, and ambiance to refine your business idea.

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Define your restaurant's cuisine and target customer.
Design a preliminary menu with pricing.
Develop a concept for the restaurant's ambiance and decor.
Create a basic marketing plan.

Four other activities

Expand to see all activities and additional details

Show all seven activities

Create a SWOT Analysis for Your Restaurant Concept

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Analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to your restaurant concept to identify potential challenges and advantages.

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Identify your restaurant's internal strengths.
Identify your restaurant's internal weaknesses.
Identify external opportunities for your restaurant.
Identify external threats to your restaurant.

Read 'Restaurant Startup: A Practical Guide' by Simon Lorenz

Show steps

Gain a practical understanding of the restaurant startup process from an experienced industry professional.

View Alter Ego: A Novel on Amazon

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Read the book 'Restaurant Startup: A Practical Guide'.
Take notes on key concepts and actionable steps.
Apply the book's advice to your restaurant concept.

Attend Local Restaurant Industry Events

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Connect with other restaurant owners and industry professionals to learn from their experiences and build your network.

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Identify local restaurant industry events and conferences.
Attend these events and network with attendees.
Ask questions and learn from experienced professionals.

Create a Mock Restaurant Website

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Design a website for your restaurant concept to showcase your brand and attract potential customers.

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Choose a domain name and web hosting provider.
Design the website layout and user interface.
Write compelling content for each page.
Include high-quality photos of your food and restaurant.

Career center

Learners who complete How to open a restaurant? will develop knowledge and skills that may be useful to these careers:

Restaurant Owner

A restaurant owner is responsible for overseeing all aspects of a restaurant's operations, from menu planning and food preparation to customer service and financial management. This course helps aspiring restaurant owners assess different restaurant concepts, select profitable locations, and analyze target customer segments. The course teaches techniques to test restaurant concepts without incurring huge costs. By learning how to analyze locations, understand target customers, and estimate sales and margins using Excel, individuals taking this course will be better prepared to manage and optimize their restaurant businesses. The course also teaches you how to understand your customers and adapt the concept to them improving the restaurant's chance of success.

See salaries and explore the career path for Restaurant Owner

Restaurant Manager

A restaurant manager oversees the daily operations of a restaurant, ensuring efficient service, customer satisfaction, and profitability. The course would benefit a restaurant manager by helping them to analyze the restaurant concept, find the right locations for their business, and analyze the target customer segment. The course helps restaurant managers with practical tips and examples, and the Excel-based restaurant model would be beneficial for forecasting sales and margins. Additionally, the techniques for testing a restaurant concept with an MVP approach would be useful for restaurant managers who are considering implementing new menus or service styles. This could also help in identifying improvements to the restaurant concept.

See salaries and explore the career path for Restaurant Manager

Restaurant Consultant

A restaurant consultant advises restaurant owners and managers on improving their operations, increasing profitability, and enhancing customer satisfaction. The course helps restaurant consultants improve their expertise in areas such as concept development, location analysis, and customer targeting. The course teaches you how to analyze a restaurant concept, select the right location for your business, and how to analyze the target segment. The practical tips, examples, and Excel-based tools in this course will enhance their ability to provide effective and data-driven advice to their clients. This will ultimately help them to improve the overall success of the restaurants they work with.

See salaries and explore the career path for Restaurant Consultant

Food and Beverage Director

A food and beverage director is responsible for overseeing all food and beverage operations within a larger establishment, such as a hotel or resort. This course may be useful to food and beverage directors who are looking to optimize their restaurant concepts and improve profitability. This course helps with selecting profitable locations, analyzing customer segments, and testing new concepts using an MVP approach. The Excel tools provided can also help with forecasting sales and managing budgets. Specifically, food and beverage directors will find value in the sections on analyzing locations, customers, and concepts to ensure a profitable fit.

See salaries and explore the career path for Food and Beverage Director

Business Development Manager

A business development manager identifies and develops new business opportunities to drive growth. This course could be helpful for business development managers in the restaurant industry, who are tasked with expanding restaurant chains or franchises. The course's focus on market research, location analysis, and concept testing provides valuable insights for making informed decisions about expansion strategies. Learning how to analyze customer segments, assess market potential, and estimate profitability using the Excel-based model can give business development managers a competitive edge. By understanding how to analyze restaurant concepts and locations, the manager can choose the right spot and build a restaurant.

See salaries and explore the career path for Business Development Manager

Franchise Consultant

A franchise consultant advises individuals or companies on franchise opportunities, helping them to select and establish successful franchise businesses. This course may be useful for franchise consultants who specialize in the restaurant industry. The course would help the consultant evaluate the viability of different restaurant franchises, assess potential locations, and understand target customer demographics. The course also teaches how to analyze the concept and make sure it is a good fit. The practical tools and techniques taught in this course, such as market research methods and Excel-based modeling, would enable franchise consultants to provide informed and data-driven advice to their clients.

See salaries and explore the career path for Franchise Consultant

Marketing Manager

A marketing manager develops and implements marketing strategies to promote products or services and attract customers. Individuals taking this course would improve their understanding of customer preferences, market trends, and competitive dynamics in the restaurant industry. The course can help analyze target segment and adapt the concept to them. The course teaches you how to analyze and understand your customers, and by learning how to select profitable locations, analyze customer segments, and tailor marketing messages to specific target groups, the marketing manager can improve the effectiveness of their campaigns and increase customer engagement.

See salaries and explore the career path for Marketing Manager

Market Research Analyst

A market research analyst gathers and analyzes data to understand consumer behavior, market trends, and competitor activities. This course may be useful for market research analysts who specialize in the restaurant or food service industries. This course can help the analyst find the right spot and build a profitable restaurant, analyze the target segment and adapt the concept to them. The course's emphasis on market research techniques, such as analyzing customer segments and spying on competitors, provides valuable skills for conducting effective market research. The Excel-based modeling tools would also be helpful for forecasting sales and assessing the financial viability of different restaurant concepts.

See salaries and explore the career path for Market Research Analyst

Hospitality Manager

A hospitality manager oversees the operations of hotels, resorts, and other lodging facilities, ensuring guest satisfaction and profitability. This course may be useful for hospitality managers who are responsible for managing on-site restaurants or food service operations. This course helps with analyzing restaurant concepts, selecting profitable locations, and understanding target customer segments. The Excel-based tools provided in the course can also assist with forecasting sales and managing budgets. By understanding the principles of restaurant management and market analysis, hospitality managers can improve the performance of their food and beverage operations and enhance the overall guest experience.

See salaries and explore the career path for Hospitality Manager

Financial Analyst

A financial analyst analyzes financial data, prepares reports, and provides insights to support business decision-making. This course is designed to help you check in Excel how much you will earn from your business. A financial analyst interested in the restaurant industry would benefit from this course as it provides a comprehensive approach to assessing the viability and profitability of restaurant ventures. The knowledge of how to analyze different restaurant concepts, select profitable locations, understand customer segments, and estimate sales using Excel can help financial analysts provide valuable insights into the financial performance of restaurants.

See salaries and explore the career path for Financial Analyst

Catering Manager

A catering manager plans, organizes, and oversees catering services for events and functions. This course may be useful for catering managers who are looking to expand their services or improve their menu offerings. The course can help caterers choose concepts, select locations, and understand customer segments. The course helps with testing the restaurant concept. By understanding the principles of restaurant marketing, concept development, and customer analysis, catering managers can create more appealing and profitable catering packages.

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Food Service Manager

A food service manager oversees the operations of food service establishments, such as cafeterias, dining halls, and fast-food restaurants. By learning about concept selection, location analysis, and customer targeting, food service managers can make informed decisions about menu planning, marketing strategies, and operational improvements. The practical tips and examples provided in this course can also help food service managers improve their efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer satisfaction. A food service manager can learn about finding the right spot to build a profitable restaurant.

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Real Estate Developer

A real estate developer identifies and develops properties for commercial or residential use. This course may be useful for real estate developers who are interested in developing or redeveloping properties for restaurant or food service businesses. The course teaches you how to find the right spot to build a profitable restaurant. By understanding the factors that contribute to a restaurant's success, such as location, concept, and customer demographics, real estate developers can make informed decisions about property selection and development. The market research techniques and Excel-based modeling tools provided in this course can also help developers assess the potential profitability of different restaurant concepts in specific locations.

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Operations Manager

An operations manager is responsible for overseeing the daily operations of a business, ensuring efficiency and productivity. This course may be useful for operations managers in restaurant chains, overseeing multiple locations or a large-scale food production facility. The course provides a way to analyze a restaurant concept that you think about with little money, and select the right location for your business. The Excel-based modeling tools in this course can help operations managers forecast sales, manage costs, and optimize resource allocation across different locations or production lines.

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Project Manager

A project manager oversees and coordinates projects from initiation to completion, ensuring they are completed on time and within budget. Project managers in the construction or renovation industries may find it beneficial. The course can help analyze a restaurant concept that you think about with little money. The course provides a framework for analyzing different restaurant concepts, assessing potential locations, and testing concepts with minimal investment. The Excel-based tools taught in the course can also assist with project budgeting and financial forecasting. This helps with selecting the right location for your business.

See salaries and explore the career path for Project Manager