There are many businesses that one can decide to go into to make money; but for some strange reason, the restaurant business always seems to be one of the most popular choices. But why is that? Many people believe that because they know food, they will inherently understand how to successfully run and operate a restaurant. Others have always dreamed of owning a restaurant because of the glamour of it all. If you are one of these people that has the fancy idea of open a shop, here are three reasons why you might want to pick another business.
Long Hours
Owning a restaurant means that you are going to be working a lot of hours. Most restaurants open up at eleven o’clock in the morning and don’t close until ten o’clock at night. Of course you can change your hours somewhat, but if you want to catch peak lunch traffic and dinner traffic, you are going to have to been open at least twelve hours a day. In addition to that, you have to remember that the doors open at one time for the customers, but you must be there earlier than that to prepare for the customers; the same will be true for closing. You will close the doors to customers at one time, but will not go home until everything is clean and back in order. You can hire all the best people to help you, but in the beginning, you probably won’t have money for that so you will be doing it yourself. So now, ask yourself, “Do I still want to be in the restaurant business?”
Competition
If your answer to the above question is still yes, then let’s think about the next reason. Have you ever driven down the street and seen tons of restaurants that you’d like to go in and try? Have you then turned the corner and seen ten more? This is the case everywhere you go. The restaurant business is an overly saturated business, with plenty of options for customers to choose from; and with so many options, what makes you think that they are going to choose your restaurant? Competition is a very serious issue that all restaurant deal with and it’s something that you as an owner are going to have to deal with. If you can’t, it will mean that you won’t stay in business very long.
Failure Rates For New Restaurants
If that didn’t scare you, then this certainly will. The fact is that 59% of new restaurants fail within the first three years. That means that one in every two restaurants will close its doors before a freshman class of students has graduated from high school. And in the mean time, you have wasted three years of your life trying to work for something that you were only going to fail at. Time is something you can’t get back so before you go into the restaurant business, consider this statistic.
None of this is to say that you can’t be successful in the restaurant business. The people who own the Pappas chain of restaurants of done quite well. However, you will need to understand that the business is not easy and requires more than just a passion for food and more than just the understanding of business: it’s going to require a whole lot of luck!