Any restauranteurs on here?

wez130

wez130

wez130

Soldato
Joined
31 Jan 2004
Posts
11,308
Location
Matakana New Zealand
Hi all, my wife and i are in the process of negotiating a lease on a restaurant in NZ, this will be our first venture into operating our own business, and whilst it's in NZ, most opening / operating costs are similar.
The restaurant comes complete with most chatels, most important, a working kitchen and bar, it's been closed for 6 months and needs some work doing to get up to scratch. We reckon we can get it up to a reasonable standard for around NZ$30k including stock for a smallish menu, and here in lies my question. Does that sound right?
The owner has offered us a 2 month lease free period to get us going, then a further month in the 2nd year - on a 2 year lease with option to extend for as long as we like after that, the lease itself is VERY reasonable for a 150sqm building with a ~ 900 sqm beer garden, another 300sqm area which we have the option to build ~ 8 yurts on (in the future) if we like, with permission in advance to do so.

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The building in the middle was a brewery. The last person who ran it had all three areas and operated a cider brewery, however did a tax bunk and sifted money from the business and fled.

As you can see, the first pic is the restaurant with the garden, it's got huge potential for live events in the summer here which we will look at. There are also a lot of car meets that use this route and stop here, so we will take advantage of that too. It's on the main route between northland and auckland so as you can imagine, plenty of passing traffic.

Anyway, once we have agreed terms on a lease i will create a thread in general, but i'd basically like some general advice from other business owners and especially publicans / restauranteurs on getting up and running. What we should expect, i understand some things will be different here but business is business all over the world so all advice is valid.
We are hoping to have it open for September / October here, just in time for the summer so we don't have to worry about a quiet period to start with.

Thanks for reading and i'll update ass and when we receive news. Exciting times :)
 
Very exciting stuff!

My first question would be to ask why the previous restaurant based there closed down, and then ask yourself whether what you can offer as a service is going to sufficiently improve upon the previous offering to the extent that you cover the $30k investment and turn a decent living out of the place.

A couple of other points I'd consider:

- is there sufficient footfall to compensate for lower levels of passing motor traffic
- will you be able to hire local staff at short notice

I've no experience whatsoever of restauranting, but the first question I asked about my own business is what are the financial upsides versus the downsides, and are they sufficient enough for me to plough my savings/loan into such a project?

All the best!
 
Not a restauranteur, but have dealt with restaurant accounts a little bit (albeit not in the last 6 or 7 years, since changing industry)

Put as little money as you can into the initial setup costs, and tie yourself down as little as possible. Restaurants tend to open and close again quite quickly, so don't risk too much. Obviously don't scrimp to the extent that it's not up to standard, but don't go crazy - you have lots of expansion ideas, but don't try to swallow the whole elephant straight away. Set it up as a Limited Liability company - you want those debts ringfenced from your own cash.

Figure out all your fixed monthly or weekly outgoings, your likely profit margins on covers, and then how many covers you need to at least break even. Is that realistic? If you can get hold of accounts from the previous business, then study them. Ask previous owner for copies if the public record isn't very detailed. Neither of these things might be all that helpful in your case, given the circumstances of previous guy.

Make sure the food's good. Less important if the bulk of your trade is pass-through, though. Know your market - don't try to serve Michelin Star food to people after a big value feed.
 
Hi, and thanks for that info. I've done quite a lot of research on the area as expected, i've reached out to the local community - who would be my winter trade and asked them about how it used to be, as i said in my OP, the last owner did a tax bunk and a runner, he was also from the UK. There aren't too many restaurants in this area, there are a few vineyards, a couple with restaurants who cater for fine dining options but they are in the towns, our place would be the first place most people would see first on the way into town so good signage is going to be vital, the last owner was also irregular with his opening hours, and sometimes didn't open at all, which would have been frustrating for customers i imagine.
I have had quite a positive response from the local community and they have let me know what they would like to see here, the consensus is a family orientated establishment, which it is well suited for. We don't have the funds to kit it out immediately with all flash playgrounds and gardens, but it will certainly be an ongoing project. The real money would definitely come in when we can offer accommodation though, and again, the area we have decided for that is perfect, away from the main building. We do need to look into bylaws ect for that though.

I wish we could afford to take on the brewery though as i would love to be able to brew my own craft beers, it may be an option for the future though, time will tell. For now, i think the most important thing is to take baby steps to develop our brand and not take on too much too soon.

We are in a lucky position where i am a head chef and my wife is a FOH manager already, we have plenty of experience in our respected roles so we don't need to hire a head chef or a manager, i will be taking control of the kitchen with a commis chef at first, my wife will be running out front with 1 or 2 foh staff, then we'll see how it goes from there. We have already worked out our break even point at about $200k p/a, with forcasted first year sales being estimated at $300k being ultra careful with figures, chances are that sales will be much higher though, i just like to leave lots of room for safety :D
 
Local produce? food suppliers and local breweries if there is any?

Don't underestimate the power your own brewery can make, we have a local one that I think started in 2001, he's now got at least 4 pubs over a 30-mile area and doing very well - http://www.joulesbrewery.co.uk/brewery/joules_story.php

If you can't afford it now, consider it down the line. Joules also supply the leftover and waste hops to a local farm as food, who in return, supply them with meat and every Friday is free sausage roll day :D
 
AHarvey said:
Local produce? food suppliers and local breweries if there is any?

Don't underestimate the power your own brewery can make, we have a local one that I think started in 2001, he's now got at least 4 pubs over a 30-mile area and doing very well - http://www.joulesbrewery.co.uk/brewery/joules_story.php

If you can't afford it now, consider it down the line. Joules also supply the leftover and waste hops to a local farm as food, who in return, supply them with meat and every Friday is free sausage roll day :D
Click to expand...

Oh yes. i know how much breweries can make, it's a license to literally print money! it's something i'd definitely consider but right now it's not an option, it's an extra $40k for the lease + $150k for the equipment.

There are lots of small breweries local which i will be using, i will have 12 taps to fill :D

Also, there's a craft beer festival on here in Auckland at the end of June, i will definitely be attending and sampling beers, both for pleasure and potential business :D
 
wez130 said:
All the equipment is there and the old kegs / bottles, fork lift truck etc.
Click to expand...

Id be tempted to approach the owner, offer X% of profits for you to use the lot for free. They are making nothing while it's empty and with you offering to take it over and maintain it while they are getting a slice of the profits they have nothing to lose.
 
AHarvey said:
Id be tempted to approach the owner, offer X% of profits for you to use the lot for free. They are making nothing while it's empty and with you offering to take it over and maintain it while they are getting a slice of the profits they have nothing to lose.
Click to expand...

Right now that'd be too much for me to take on. I want to concentrate on getting the restaurant side of things perfect, if i had to worry about a brewery too, i couldn't manage it.
 
Update:

Had a meeting yesterday with the realtor and the liquidator from the previous owner, i made an offer of $10k (~£5k) for all chattels , fixture and fittings in the building, this includes all kitchen equipment (Blue seal double fryer, Blue seal 6 burner stove / oven (worth £6k on it's own new), char grill, dishwasher, bar fridges, walk in chiller etc etc, i.e, worth well more than £5k, this offer was accepted and we've sent our lease agreement to be checked by a financial advisor, so hopefully we'll have our business secured in the next few days :D
 
Yea, it's all really exciting now, we've been researching our options and there aren't many family orientated places in this location, and as it's the main artery for holiday makers, we've decided we're going that route, and we're looking at the legalities / licensing for showing movies under the stars in the summer, nice projector, loads of bean bags, bbq's and pizza from the woodfired oven and craft beers - which we can sell what we want as we're not tied to any brewery :D Went to a food show on Tuesday too to meet suppliers of food and beer, swapped business cards with a few suppliers, it's all go at the minute.
 
Oh yeah, i'll be up and running in time for summer here, being seasonal, i'll need to be to take advantage of all the holiday makers.
 
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