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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:I think anybody who closes a restaurant within 3 months of opening it probably didn't have a business plan At least he's opening and closing quickly rather than bleeding money over a longer period of time. GWM?
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Dec 3, 2018 15:02
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Motronic posted:Okay, then let's see this budget. I quickly put her stated income and expenses in an Excel sheet, and if she's running a deficit, she definitely has a good £800-£1,000 in monthly candle spend.
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Dec 3, 2018 15:29
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Lockback posted:It said residential block, so I assume the whole area isn't new. But, yeah, it's likely a saturated market anyway (they always are), and this guy obviously did not have anything close to a plan. Aren't you supposed to be able to cover costs for like 6 months at least? I've always heard role of thumb with a new restaurant is have enough capital to lose money for a year.
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Dec 3, 2018 15:39
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I was incredibly impressed with the approach a friend of mine took to opening a restaurant: he built word of mouth early on by doing pop-ups out of local bars, built a following (it helps that he has a specific niche), and then opened only after that. He was cash-flow positive month 1.
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Dec 3, 2018 15:42
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There's some sort of siren call from the restaurant business that ruins so many people. Whenever a new restaurant opens in town I try to predict how long it will last. Pizza places seem to be the quickest to go under. A couple moved here from out of state to open a Hungry Howie's. It lasted maybe a year. Why would anyone ever go to Hungry Howie's? Another pizza place opened down the street directly next to another pizza place. I think it'll close after the holidays. The original one tried opening another location and only lasted a few months. It was followed by two other failed pizza places in the same building(hey, it's already got an oven!). I don't get it. Residency Evil posted:I was incredibly impressed with the approach a friend of mine took to opening a restaurant: he built word of mouth early on by doing pop-ups out of local bars, built a following (it helps that he has a specific niche), and then opened only after that. He was cash-flow positive month 1. This is basically how Papa John's was founded.
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Dec 3, 2018 15:46
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Residency Evil posted:I was incredibly impressed with the approach a friend of mine took to opening a restaurant: he built word of mouth early on by doing pop-ups out of local bars, built a following (it helps that he has a specific niche), and then opened only after that. He was cash-flow positive month 1. This is clearly a much smarter way of doing things and clearly if you are competent you can make it. But drat, restaurants is playing capitalism on hard mode.
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Dec 3, 2018 15:52
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Begall posted:https://graziadaily.co.uk/life/real-life/borrowing-money-from-parents/ quote:I don’t have a credit card because I’m too worried about ending up in debt and making a bad situation worse. Although she's just replacing 'spend into debt' with 'get bailed out by parents', which is better with money but not good. It sounds like the combination of her work culture and her social group are killing her on spending out, because she talks about the pressure of 'after work drinks' and then commiserating with her friends over wine multiple times. I would bet you could account for at least 200-300 in bar bills.
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Dec 3, 2018 16:00
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BattleMoose posted:This is clearly a much smarter way of doing things and clearly if you are competent you can make it. But drat, restaurants is playing capitalism on hard mode. I think some people remember my self-post about my wife wanting to "invest" in a vegan fast food restaurant. She's not mentioned it since then, which goes to show just how committed she was to the whole idea.
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Dec 3, 2018 16:05
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I love all of these bad restaurant stories because they are just weekly reminders that it is a terrible idea and that my day job is fine.
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Dec 3, 2018 16:09
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what's the quote? opening a restaurant is the best way to pay your self sub minimum wage for 80 hours a week?
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Dec 3, 2018 16:09
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Devian666 posted:If you want to see BWM I've been watching Consumed on Netflix. It's a cross between hoarders and family relationship problems. Often a family of hoarders. Are you outside the US? Cuz I can't seem to find that show. Edit: I should read the whole thread before I post :x
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Dec 3, 2018 16:12
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Devian666 posted:What I'd be interested in seeing is how the $2m per year income is spent each month. How do you even spend that much money? Watching Hoarders is a fantastic way to just spontaneously make yourself start cleaning your house.
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Dec 3, 2018 16:15
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:what's the quote? opening a restaurant is the best way to pay your self sub minimum wage for 80 hours a week? "opening a restaurant is the best way to spend a million dollars to give yourself a minimum wage job"
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Dec 3, 2018 16:20
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Bourdain devoted a whole chapter to it in Kitchen Confidential. "Owner's Syndrome" https://archive.org/stream/Anthony_Bourdain_Kitchen_Confidential/Anthony_Bourdain_Kitchen_Confidential_djvu.txt
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Dec 3, 2018 16:27
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Pizza places might be decent risks compared to other restaurants. If it’s a carry-out/delivery place then your overhead is less and the menu is usually simpler. It’s just real tough charging enough to make a profit. Unless your pizza is incredibly good you’re competing against $5 pizza deals and chains that operate massive economies of scale. Still better odds of success than a bar.
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Dec 3, 2018 16:57
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Krispy Wafer posted:Still better odds of success than a bar. Really? I've heard bars just absolutely poo poo money.
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Dec 3, 2018 17:14
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Krispy Wafer posted:Pizza places might be decent risks compared to other restaurants. If it’s a carry-out/delivery place then your overhead is less and the menu is usually simpler. A pizza place in my town has an evidently successful gimmick of hiring a specialized water filtration firm to provide filtered water with mineral content identical to NYC water so they can make NYC pizza because according to them, it's the wudder. Their pizza is good I'll give them that, but I wouldn't say it's special-wudder good.
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Dec 3, 2018 17:15
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:Really? I've heard bars just absolutely poo poo money. Once they're established, I think.
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Dec 3, 2018 17:31
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:Really? I've heard bars just absolutely poo poo money. The margins are very, very good but the fixed costs are very, very high. You need consistently good volume to break even.
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Dec 3, 2018 17:45
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You know what's even worse with money than a restaurant? A food truck.
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Dec 3, 2018 17:51
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Yeah but think about that food truck equity
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Dec 3, 2018 17:53
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Was in Texas and an arcade we went to had a great idea, 5 bucks to get in and all the games were free. You paid at min 5 bucks per drink and that's all they served. They were pretty busy the entire time we were there and overhead was tiny since it was just three people and no food. Seems like one way to get a business going steadily.
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Dec 3, 2018 17:57
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Krispy Wafer posted:Pizza places might be decent risks compared to other restaurants. If it’s a carry-out/delivery place then your overhead is less and the menu is usually simpler. A new pizza place replaced my local Little Caesars. The pizza is fantastic, I hope they make it 
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Dec 3, 2018 17:57
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TVsVeryOwn posted:You know what's even worse with money than a restaurant? A food truck. food trucks : restaurants :: auto lease : mortgage or rent it is easier to make clearly bad decisions with the food trucks but mere structural forces means that the size of the restaurant thing will turbofuck you more than with a food truck its like comparing the coming auto loan crisis with the housing crisis of 2008
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Dec 3, 2018 18:01
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UCS Hellmaker posted:Was in Texas and an arcade we went to had a great idea, 5 bucks to get in and all the games were free. You paid at min 5 bucks per drink and that's all they served. They were pretty busy the entire time we were there and overhead was tiny since it was just three people and no food. Seems like one way to get a business going steadily. The premier adult arcade wrote a pretty good piece about this. https://groundkontrol.com/so-you-want-to-open-an-arcade/
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Dec 3, 2018 18:14
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CannonFodder posted:"Spend less on horses." "No." Is there some way to turn this: https://i.imgur.com/fgakRrh.gifv into a thread title?
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Dec 3, 2018 18:35
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FAUXTON posted:A pizza place in my town has an evidently successful gimmick of hiring a specialized water filtration firm to provide filtered water with mineral content identical to NYC water so they can make NYC pizza because according to them, it's the wudder. It's a New Yorker thing. I've only heard this idea in reference to bagels though...
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Dec 3, 2018 18:41
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:what's the quote? opening a restaurant is the best way to pay your self sub minimum wage for 80 hours a week? "You spend $500k to give yourself a minimum wage job." FAUXTON posted:A pizza place in my town has an evidently successful gimmick of hiring a specialized water filtration firm to provide filtered water with mineral content identical to NYC water so they can make NYC pizza because according to them, it's the wudder. Depending on how much markup that firm does, this isn't very expensive to do. There is a goon or two in the homebrew beer thread who built rigs to mimic water mineral content of various regions to mimic the local beer in recipes, and they didn't spend too much doing it. Notorious b.s.d. posted:The margins are very, very good but the fixed costs are very, very high. And the lower your overhead, the worse your volume/lower the prices you can charge, generally. Wasn't there a How I Met Your Mother about opening a bar? BUG JUG posted:It's a New Yorker thing. I've only heard this idea in reference to bagels though... There are a TON of places that use the gimmick of "shipping water" or other ways of getting the water right to do NYC bagels. On cross country trips growing up we would always stop into such places and laugh at their attempt/pity the people who thought these were bagels.
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Dec 3, 2018 18:42
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TVsVeryOwn posted:You know what's even worse with money than a restaurant? A food truck. Unless you're the godamn amazing Pizza Truck that rolls up to my office every other week. They show up, sell ~100 freaking awesome Pizzas for $10 each in about 2 hours and then peace out.
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Dec 3, 2018 18:57
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Yeah I thought like the halal carts were just making money literally hand over fist. Cash and carry business, and do 99% of your business between the hours of 11a-3p and peace out. Maybe it's because i'm in NYC but there's never a shortage of business for even the most mediocre food truck.
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Dec 3, 2018 19:27
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FAUXTON posted:A pizza place in my town has an evidently successful gimmick of hiring a specialized water filtration firm to provide filtered water with mineral content identical to NYC water so they can make NYC pizza because according to them, it's the wudder. Hahaha, the pizza place I work at part time competes in the pizza championships in Vegas every year and he absolutely swears that he HAS TO bring local water to Vegas so he can make the dough with our local water.
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Dec 3, 2018 19:28
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FAUXTON posted:Watching Hoarders is a fantastic way to just spontaneously make yourself start cleaning your house. It's difficult to make it half way through an episode without going to clean something.
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Dec 3, 2018 19:41
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Fhqwhgads posted:Yeah I thought like the halal carts were just making money literally hand over fist. Cash and carry business, and do 99% of your business between the hours of 11a-3p and peace out. Maybe it's because i'm in NYC but there's never a shortage of business for even the most mediocre food truck. It might be NYC, as restaurants tend to fare better there because so many people eat out instead of cooking. The soup place that was the inspiration for Seinfeld's Soup Nazi episode was only open October to March because he made so much money those six months he could quit for the summer. And that's paying rent at midtown Manhattan prices.
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Dec 3, 2018 19:41
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Nephzinho posted:"You spend $500k to give yourself a minimum wage job." Idk how much they pay for it but they made enough to expand into the neighboring space (the tattoo shop there had moved iirc) and haven't had to do the usual "running out of money" stuff like shrinking staff/the menu etc. It costs $40 or so with tax and tip to have a pizza with garlic knots delivered, so that's the BWM part.
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Dec 3, 2018 19:48
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UCS Hellmaker posted:Was in Texas and an arcade we went to had a great idea, 5 bucks to get in and all the games were free. You paid at min 5 bucks per drink and that's all they served. They were pretty busy the entire time we were there and overhead was tiny since it was just three people and no food. Seems like one way to get a business going steadily. The first Board Game Bar in my city opened up recently. I could have identified this as a decent opportunity in the market many years ago when they started popping up in other cities, but I wasn't about to try to navigate getting a godamn liquor license and opening an entire bar to try to take advantage of it.
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Dec 3, 2018 19:57
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UCS Hellmaker posted:Was in Texas and an arcade we went to had a great idea, 5 bucks to get in and all the games were free. You paid at min 5 bucks per drink and that's all they served. They were pretty busy the entire time we were there and overhead was tiny since it was just three people and no food. Seems like one way to get a business going steadily. I can’t imagine arcade/pinball machines being cheap though, especially for repairs. They’re good for drawing in customers though, I’ll give them that.
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Dec 3, 2018 20:02
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Not to mention the regular clientele in places like bars sucks rear end, and getting them more drunk makes you more money but then they act like bigger assholes. My family manages a bar for a fraternal organization and the stories I have heard about respected members acting like fools makes me never want to go near owning a place that serves alcohol primarily.
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Dec 3, 2018 20:08
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All the best BBQ spots here in Texas always start as some dude just smoking some meat for fun. Transitions to a pop up and eventually gets the following enough to open brick and mortar. Houston has a bbq scene that’s starting to really flourish and compete with Austin and the hill country. BBQ GWMGWL
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Dec 3, 2018 20:10
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Baxate posted:I can’t imagine arcade/pinball machines being cheap though, especially for repairs. They’re good for drawing in customers though, I’ll give them that. Arcade machines aren't too bad, but pinball machines cost a small fortune. Pinball specialty bars tend not to encourage drunker patrons.
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Dec 3, 2018 20:17
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Baxate posted:I can’t imagine arcade/pinball machines being cheap though, especially for repairs. They’re good for drawing in customers though, I’ll give them that. You typically lease them periodically, that's what most places do and those places with a bunch of them basically have to. That's a chunk of money every month to that.
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Dec 3, 2018 20:50
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