Did you know that more than 70% of food and beverage businesses die before their first 5 years of life? It is a fairly high but manageable figure and we will tell you why.
Some of the causes that give rise to abandoning a business are due to little knowledge of the administration of the restaurant or the undertaking that you have, and even the null application of knowledge at the time of the undertaking.
Yes, for the most part, the causes of closure are a result of this. If you really want to be successful in restaurant management, you will have to think about much more than a quality product or service.
For this, you have to know and explore mechanisms that allow you to better manage your business. For example: using money effectively, making operations more efficient or improving the art of selecting, attracting and retaining our customers.
Knowing this, we would now like to tell you how to open and manage a restaurant, be it small, medium or large.
So let’s get started.
Also read: How to open a restaurant in the United States this 2023?
Table of Contents
Manage your restaurant and make it successful from the first try, what do you need?
What you need to open a restaurant, and know how to manage it effectively, we tell you in the following steps.
It might interest you: 10 Steps to Start a Business
Step 1: know your area of interest and have an investment
Yes, both are not negotiable, to start operations and manage your restaurant you must have money to support the expenses of said investment.
If you do not have it, the idea is that you make a savings plan to achieve it, according to the business model you have in mind.
To open a restaurant you need a place and for what it is necessary to do a market study. Since it is not enough to be a specialist or the best at something.
If you don’t know where to locate your business so that your product is sold and successful, it won’t do any good and your efforts may be wasted.
That is why we must consider the flow of people and cars, which would be an important factor to generate good profits.
Step 2: buy thinking about what for and not just what
To manage a restaurant, making smart purchases is another important aspect.
Smart shopping? You will ask yourself. We refer to those investment purchases.
When you start from scratch, knowing how to buy means starting to win.
We explain a little this point. Do not go for the most expensive equipment, but the equipment that will help you carry out your duties.
In this case, also try to buy used and in good condition. The new, for restaurants, is not vital, it should only have special, safe and hygienic characteristics.
If you are going to manage it yourself, learn the functions of the restaurant manager
Among the main functions of the administrator in a restaurant is having control of income. If the record is not kept, which is in fact one of the most common mistakes, you will not really see your earnings. Not everything that comes into your business should be considered a profit. Why? Because remember that you have to pay for electricity, water, gas, salaries, in short, the services that the restaurant has.
For this reason, it is vital that all these expenses be considered, with the aim of defining our profit. For the first three months of operations, it is preferably recommended to have a base or fixed capital that serves to cushion insignificant profits. This is how finances will be an extremely important factor.
Knowing if you are winning or losing, and having good management of your resources is important that you have it in your sights.
Taking this into account, you must have basic knowledge of accounting in order to know how to interpret your results and financial statements; what is where all the information regarding income and expenses of the business is emptied.
We recommend you also read: How to choose the best place for a business?
Understanding the administrative process of a restaurant
To understand a little more about the administrative process of a restaurant, we must analyze the phases of this process which are: planning, organization, direction and control. Now that you know what they are, let me tell you what the goal of each of these stages or phases is.
1. Planning phase of a restaurant
In this stage, the organizational objectives of the restaurant or business are established, as well as the mission, vision, policies, procedures, programs and general budget.
2. Business organization
During this phase you will structure the business, dividing it into areas or branches, as well as design of organization manuals and the definition of specific procedures.
3. Address of a restaurant
It will allow us to execute actions efficiently. In this case, you can involve your staff in this process. This is with the aim of making them feel an important part of the business and that their work has value and meaning as they are part of achieving something great.
It doesn’t matter if it’s you and someone else. Human staff is a very important factor because if you take care of your staff, your staff will take care of your customers. Therefore, it is important to have an adequate selection and development process for employees.
4. Effective control of the restaurant
This last phase is very important, as it will help you continually feed back into this management system or cycle.
Why? because the measurement and evaluation of the activities will allow us to know if we have achieved the objectives established from the planning. Whether you should change something or not.
If you, as the owner, are going to have an accountant or an administrator who is in charge of all of the above, it is important that you have knowledge of what they are doing.
Keep in mind that you are not going to be able to do everything by yourself and it is important to delegate different activities so that your business can get off the ground.
Learn how to manage a successful restaurant!
Today there are many courses in which they teach you how to manage a restaurant.
Important aspects such as inventories, recipe costing, suppliers, human resources, and kitchen distribution, among others; are topics that you will learn and will help you manage a restaurant correctly.
Do not give up!
Before we leave, we want to tell you that it is important that you keep in mind that a lot depends on you and the passion you inject into the project.
You already know that undertaking is not an easy task, much less managing said undertaking, especially if you do not have the knowledge to do it. Keep in mind that numbers are an extremely important factor in any business, but even more so in food and beverage businesses.