What? How (you might ask) is it a good idea to open a restaurant during a pandemic where most restaurants are closing down? We’ve talked to some brand new restaurant business owners who are thriving – by thinking and doing things different than the traditional dine-in experience. Here are suggestions that can help you open your own dream restaurant too!
1. Get a Commissary
Many restaurants are going out of business due to overhead in staff and expensive payments for a large restaurant space filled with dine-in seating. Instead, lease/buy a commissary kitchen space for preparing food. These are oftentimes like shared spaces with several other restaurants preparing food in the same building. Make sure it’s fully up to government code and in a decent location relative to potential customers. You can always add patio seating or a storefront location in the future.
2. Throw up a Website for taking orders
3. Make prep easy
Bulk order of your ingredients and supplies straight to the commissary as you need them. This can save you lots of time, cutting down on man hours – allowing you to scale with customer demands.
4. Packaging Presentation
5. Go Social
Make sure you have a Facebook/Instagram with fresh content regularly. These are great “storefronts” to advertise specials to your customer base each week. Monitor your Yelp and Google ratings too. Lastly, stay in contact with your local press. They are always looking for a new story and will gladly plug your new business when you are ready. So don’t be shy.
