Do you want to start your own restaurant or café? Imagine making delicious food and get the opportunity to sell it happy costumers. Or start your own coffee shop, serve creamy cappuccino’s and watch your customers enjoy themselves in the corners with graceful tones in the speakers. The scenery is tempting and the possibilities are right in front of you! Before you start opening your new restaurant or coffee shop on the corner it might be a good idea to get acquainted with the needs to succeed in the restaurant industry.

Starting your own business in the industry is ambitious and should be taken serious to achieve goals. In this letter you get a brief insight into what is important to consider when setting up your own business.

Create an overview of your costs

One of the most important things about starting your own place is of course that you create something you’re passionate about! It might be a concept you dreamed of realizing since you were on your first restaurant visit or something else. Nevertheless, before you get started, it is a good idea to make an overview of the costs you are sure you will encounter during the start-up phase. There is no aggregate list of the costs that you get as a new in the restaurant industry. It differs from place to place. But in this list, you can see which costs are most frequent:

• Rent / purchase of premises
• Equipment for kitchen
• Interior for restaurant / café
  – Cutlery, plates, glass
  – Wallpaper / paint
  – Chairs, tables
  – Etc.
• Recruitment / operation of staff
• Signage
• Marketing
• Purchase of goods / stock development

Calculate on your meals and ensure less food waste

Imagine it’s opening day and your first customer steps in to see what you have to offer. The kitchen staff receives their first order and will immediately start to prepare the dish. More and more guests are visiting and as the week is over, you are excited about all the visitors. You sit down to get an overall overview of your earnings and expenses. To your big surprise, you see that you have hardly made a profit that can pay the wages to the staff.

Numbers from Statistics Denmark show that total sales in Denmark increased by 54% from DKK 27.8 billion in 2009 to DKK 42.7 billion in 2017. During the period, several companies in the restaurant industry have opened, nonetheless several bankruptcies has occurred. It is especially in the period from 2016 to 2017, where the number of bankruptcies has grown from 250 to 409. The numbers also tells about an increased competition between the restaurants.

In order to avoid bankruptcy and gain control of your earnings and, in particular, be able to pay the monthly operating costs, it may be advantageous to make accurate calculations on the meals you offer on the menu card. This ensures that you know the exact amount of food and costs that goes to each meal. Learn more about calculations here.

By the way… are you aware of your kitchen percentage? The kitchen percentage or coverage rate, as some call it, is important to your business. A kitchen percentage based on your overall costs, will help you to manage your kitchen operation in a positive direction. We write in a later blog post what the kitchen percentage means to you and your business!

Stay tuned!