Development of a New Restaurant – From Start to Finish

Two architects came to us that wanted to do an Asian styled restaurant. They had never been in the business but wanted to pursue their dream. Here are the steps we did with them in order for them to fulfill this dream:

1. Business Planning-we worked with them to develop a business plan with investment costs as well as sales & expense-profit projections.
2. Real Estate procurement-through our real estate division we found an appropriate site, negotiated the deal, developed a lease package and finalized the lease details.
3. Design/Construction-we selected a restaurant architect and an experienced restaurant contractor. We guided the design, engineered the budget, and helped manage the build out.
4. Menu Development-They did the the food development, but we did all of the detail work with the actual menu, portioning, plate presentation, costing, pricing, recipe guides, training docs, etc.  
   1. They had a relative who became their kitchen manager and we worked with all of them to set up kitchen and facilitate the training. 
5. Staffing-we interviewed, hired and trained the staff. We developed training documents and sop’s/protocols set into place with the staff and the owners.
6. Marketing-we were involved in the web site development, media outreach, social media, mock services, and grand opening.
7. Bookkeeping-we set them up with a restaurant bookkeeping service to publish monthly operating statements.
8. POS-we set them up with a system and helped them in the programming and worked with them on appropriate management reports. 
9. Follow Up-we were engaged with them for 6 months to ensure everything worked appropriately and made some small course corrections. 
10. The restaurant is successful and they opened a 2^nd restaurant of the same type.