But on a serious note, worked for a pretty big private restaurant/ bar group in the early 2000s. All different designs,ideas, concepts. Some are still open today. Some tanked and lost millions of dollars. Same great minds, same great ideas, some worked some didn't. People lost lost of money on the bad one and made a little money on the good ones
Funny thing about restaurants is its a hot ticket item. You can be hot and great one day. Then the new buzz in town opens up and so on. If you want to open a successful restaurant, open it up in a cruise port or super tourist town where there is lots of traffic and few repeat customers
At those prices yes but when you raise prices because you know.. actual profit... That line of customers will vanish. Best way to value a restaurant is the used wholesale value of the equipment, nothing more. And yes I've owned one.
I dunno nothing about owning a restaurant, but lemme just relay three anecdotal occurrences I have witnessed: 1) I know a guy who was a chef for a long time. Other line of work now. The head chef of his old place wanted to open up his own new spot. My buddy wanted to be an investor cause he believes in him. He put up some money, minor compared to others. It took like 2-3 years before it even opened. The food is amazing and its doing pretty well. I think its still gonna be a long while before he sees his principle back, even BEFORE he sees any profits from his portion. 2) Had a chef buddy that I've known since I was 5. Went to the Culinary Institute of America, classically trained under French chefs and the like. He DOES have 2 or 3 restaurants now that he runs, the food is amazing, he is top notch... but of all that training and bougie food and things he's made, he got famous for his godamn cheeseburger, to the point of them branching off that cheeseburger into JUST a fast food burger (think 5 Guys or Smash Burger) type joint. 3) My wife's sister has been an executive chef for a decade before currently being the GM of a place. She's an amazing chef as well. I think after the current portion of her career has ran its course, she's going to end up opening up a pizza shop, or chain of. Its simple, it makes money, and its easy to do. #2 and #3 lead me to believe that the KISS method seems to be the ticket for making a living out of it, and its harder to be experimental or upscale and be successful. I'm sure a lot of chefs don't travel the world discovering their love of wine and foods and techniques just to end up making burgers, but I dunno... fuck it. If its amazing its amazing.
Think 5 guys is going bankrupt. If I wanted to bet on a something that might make a normal smart investment it would be a franchise. How's that working out?? As a poor chef went diving and fishing yesterday on a Regulator 34 in the Bahamas so life is good
That's great, a great burger is a great burger, can you make a living off that when 1000 people around you sell their great burger
Get the books and have them checked. Get the employee schedules. How much time is the owners. Some restaurants having supply chain issues, main problem is getting and keeping help. The end game is, your time invested daily along with income VS headache's. Right now, only place that makes sense is a place like Cookout, it's a east coast thing quick and flame grilled lower overhead with smaller footprint and less employee headaches. Hard work, can pay off very well if done right. Have a friend that created a small seafood chain, sold it for 15 million 20 years ago. Worked his ass off for it.
It is almost the same model as what Hopkins and his wife have built. He also built a fried chicken walk up. Those stands have outlasted all the restaurants at this point, including the gastro pub that introduced the burger.