Anyone here own/run a restaurant?

yup. the dude out in San Fran... CIA graduate, classically french trained, impressive resume pedigree, blah blah blah... you know what put his name on the map? a godamn cheeseburger. KISS method in this shit for sure. a bunch of potential owners, and a ton of chefs, have some perverse fantasy of being some white table cloth, duck anus caviar dynamo. simple food that's just made better and with amazing ingredients will never not be in demand.

 

I've been a chef for 20 years all around the world. I've opened restaurants from a concept to finished product and also have been hired to turn failing restaurants around kitchen nightmares/ restaurant impossible scenarios. I've had 2 serious offers to become a partner opening a restaurant that I turned down. My last exec job was turning a restaurant around in Micronesia that was over 300 grand in the hole after 5 years being open.

It's truly a brutal business to succeed at. Numbers tell the failure facts, but not the stress, blood, sweat and tears that come with it. I'm a yacht/private chef now. People ask me all the time if its my dream to open a restaurant one day. My answer is HELL NO. At least as the hired chef I get paid, when the owners are breaking even or losing money they don't get a paycheck. It's a nickel and dime business with little profit margin or room for failures.

Also it can be really tricky, a very busy, popular looking good restaurant can still lose money and go out of business if your costs are out of line. I would only open a restaurant if it was with someone else money and they went in expecting to lose it all.

With food network and the way food has become celebrated more lots of home cooks have this romantic idea about opening and running a restaurant. Until they buy it and realize its not fun and cool. It's hard work, long hours, late nights, weekends/ holidays.

 

Yep, I've been working in restaurants for 17 years and I agree with everything that's been said. I would never open a restaurant with my own money, it's just not worth it, there are so many better and less risky ways to make money. With no experience, it's bound to be a disaster. I'd go work in one for a while and see what you think then. I love my job but I only work 30 hours a week, if I had to be there 60-80 hours a week, I would hate it.

 

I wouldnt take a restaurant if you gave me one

 

Unless you have someone who knows the business to get it up and running and then manage it day to day, it's not the business for you. You don't have the kind of time it will demand.
Dealing with the employee issues alone is a nightmare.
It's like running a kindergarten class but with fighting and drugs and sex and theft and bad attendance.

 

It's the old saying "takes money to make money". Our business is very good. Just ask Sysco.... we spent 90k on groceries in June alone with them and we have 3 other vendors we deal with. The restaurant business is as fickle as a mother-in-law's love. We've been blessed to be as successful as we have.... for 34 years. In that time we've seen a lot of other food joints fail.... mostly due to poor management and lack of commitment to the job....and that's exactly what it requires....commitment.

 

I’ve been fortunate to call Jamie James (yes, THAT Jamie James) as a great friend. I was thinking of buying a restaurant here locally when the current owner retires in a couple years. I called Jamie to get his opinion, and he regaled tales of when he owned a Cajun restaurant in Asheville. Very hard to find good help that will reliably show up for work. Jamie is one of the most laid-back people you’ll ever meet, but he quickly got quite verbal in telling me not just “no” but “hell no”. Tread very carefully RB. Just saying

 

He and his ex wife Ramona came over to eat at our place once.... super nice ...the both of them.

 

Say goodbye to your nights and weekends....

 

Modified...

 

So is he convinced to give up on this idea yet ?

My brother in law has this idea to open one when he retires from his govt. job in a couple years. Have been telling him the same thing. Looks like a good way to piss away his retirement.

 

i actually was JUST talking to my buddy's dad about that the other night. random catch up dinner, asking how things are going, saying they were having employee problems with consistency/attendance/quality. he only is up to 2 restaurants and a pop-up, think he was finally thinking he could step back a little and focus on the new one, as soon as he did, shit starts to slip at the first one. i said to his dad, how the hell is it that a guy like Gordon Ramsey can have like 120 restaurants and make sure they all maintain the quality and exact recipe/taste that they had before when he opened them? i guess you gotta pay a manager or chef enough that they take total pride-ownership in the location and treat it as their own. that shit would drive me nuts though if it was my name on the menu/side of the building.

 

They gotta show up first lol...I always say everyone wants a job but no one wants to work. I wash pots just about every day. There's no such thing as "that's not my job" when you do it right.

 

If you enjoy getting robbed every day and can keep you emotions in check when you find out.. have fun


If not all your friends will have more mugg shots to use against you when they turn into shit eaters.

 

Not just your commitment but the employees too or, a way to ensure it. So if you are wanting to have family involved as employees in key roles get ready for another dimension of pain and frustration as everybody needs to be on board and it's hard/impossible to fire your sibling, esp if they're only marginally worse than the next sibling who's almost as sh1t. Wife shut down their family's restaurant of 13yrs last year, couldn't get them to collectively want more than enough for paychecks, had so much potential it did our head in, so she killed it off out of frustration.

 

Y’all are some goddamn dream killers here!


LOL

 

We're just trying to save you from yourself