Restaurants Success: How to Start and Run a Restaurant Business

By Vincent Gabriel

Ninety percent of all new restaurants started by new business owners failed. Vincent Gabriel, a food and management consultant shows you how a restaurant can survive its first year, based on understanding the critical factors that will make your operation a success. The topics covered are:
* Food Business Models
* Knowing Your Customer
* Franchise As A Food Business Tomorrow
* Menu Planning And Design
* Viability Of Your Outlet
* Decorating The Eatery
* Selecting And Keeping Staff For The Eatery
* Purchasing Effectively
* Stocking Correctly

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9789810777517

Book preview

Market

CHAPTER 1

More Success To More…

Synopsis

•  Forces of change

- more variety, more accessible

- more are drawn into the net of food not cooked at home

- certain types of food going extinct

•  Implications

- more food sources

- more spending

- focus on hygiene

- LSSOM

- increased automation in the system of food production

Introduction

Since the last edition of Success in the Food Business the environment for Success in the Food Business has changed in the following ways:

•  There are now more varieties of food available and that food is getting to be more accessible in terms of location and price.

•  More people are being drawn into the system becoming consumers of food not cooked at home.

•  Certain types of food are going extinct.

More variety, more accessible

These features can be attributed to the impact of immigrants and the increased number of tourists coming to Singapore.

The implications for would-be food start-ups are:

•  consumer tastes have gone beyond rice and noodles to include pizzas, pastas, various types of bread

•  a larger range of meat and vegetables has become available as suppliers look for food sources beyond the traditional. Following this trend people have acquired a taste for better quality ham, fish, wines, fruit, coffee

Consumers are prepared to spend more on quality to indulge in the items that they consider to be better. What was once gourmet items to the average consumer has moved into the area of being common.

For example, it has been found in consumer surveys that ten years ago customers went to fine dining restaurants only once a year (e.g. being invited to a wedding banquet). Today they do so at least once a month. At the other end food courts, hawker centres were visited every weekend (for family meals) and casual and quick food outlets at least once a day (at lunch or dinner).

The conclusion is that in Singapore the meal outside home is crucial to the healthy well-being of the individual and for you, the food entrepreneur the responsibility of meeting your customers’ needs is vital to the consumer economy.

One group of food start-ups that has been affected is those supplying halal food. Compared to ten years ago there is now a wider variety of ‘halal’ food and as a result the material on these foods has been expanded to two charters to cater for the need to keep ‘halal’ start-ups informed.

In earlier editions of this book, the locations for food outlets were restricted. Today more locations are available and gourmet items have moved into the neighbourhood, making good food available at the doorstep but at the same time bringing inconsiderate parking of vehicles into places not designed to take in so much vehicular traffic.

Another peculiar feature has been the relentless rise of rentals imposed by landlords on food outlets. While the food business has been a sure generator of income, the rise of rentals beyond 15% of total gross sales is indeed a severe handicap to anyone wanting to make a success in the food business.

More consumers

As more customers throng eateries, landlords and cleaning services providers have been unable to keep up with the pressure to keep floors, tables, seats and toilets clean. After having paid higher rentals than before, food sellers must be clever enough to demand that customers eat in tidy, clean and hygienic places. If customers get ill or sick, suspicion may fall on the food sold. Dirty floors, tables and toilets have the bad habit of becoming boomerangs that can hurt thriving, busy food outlets and put them on internet chat rooms.

The larger variety of consumers means that people, who used to eat food cooked by their maids, or mothers, expect an increased level of customer service. The abrupt, no nonsense way of doing business, a decade ago has to give way to a more individual customer-focused approach, that takes into account, less salt, less sugar, less oil, no MSG, (LSSOM for short) that is now the standard request of the discerning customer who has the buying power to enforce his/her LSSOM on the food seller. Customer service standards have changed. Indeed the customer is king. Success depends on catering to the needs of this customer.

Acceptance of the enjoyment of food and wine in the social field

When this book was first published, food was produced and sold by those who had to sell food to keep body and soul together.

Today many talented professionals have chosen to cook and sell food and the food business has gentrified and outstanding cooks (now called chefs) and bartenders (now called mixologists) have become celebrities. The talent infusion, while on the whole advantageous has created a gap between the traditional food sellers (who got into business for no other reason than the lack of high entry barriers) and the professionals.

The food business has also been a means of social mobility and steps are being taken by voluntary welfare organisations (VWO) to help the marginalized earn a living. The gap, mentioned above, has raised the bar and eateries run by ex-offenders, the elderly, those suffering long-term unemployment have to come up to the standards set elsewhere. The customer is going to buy because the food is delicious, the service is good, the place where the food is sold is clean and the prices charged are in line with the quality provided.

The media talk about food all the time. Food is in every one’s conversation.

For those starting in the food business, the challenge is to put out a better food enjoyment experience.

Certain types of food are going extinct

When food was cooked at home, the emphasis was on the available ingredients that the home cook could depend on. With the commercial cook the emphasis is on the needs of the customer. The customer, with money, wants to be served quickly, wants food that is not too complicated so long as not to be unhealthy or difficult to digest.

The production of food has developed into a system, which in many instances can be automated, so that quality can be consistently maintained.

Food that takes a long time to prepare, are being replaced by standardised plates of noodles, meat, fish, vegetables, bowls of soup and gravy and packets of condiments. The business of producing pre-mixes and sauces has become more influential, as cooks think of ways to serve food in a shorter time.

Social pressures are being exerted to discourage or even stop the use of, for example, shark’s fin, blue-tail tuna, whale meat, goose liver and turtle eggs.

In Singapore the use of pig’s blood as a food item is not allowed.

Certain eating styles are forbidden e.g. the dipping of food into a common pot as in satay chelop has been relegated into history.

The appearance of mass epidemics has become a major threat to the food business, for example the bird flu, the mad cow disease, foot and mouth disease, SARS to mention just four only.

The news of extremely poor food preparation practice e.g. the use of recycled oil, food, soup stock has rattled the confidence of customers and pushed business towards operators with untarnished reputations for integrity.

Finally certain foods go extinct simply because their core community no longer choose these foods. As an example Eurasian food used to be the staple of that community with many eateries offering that kind of food. The demand has fallen and that food is now served by eateries that sell Peranakan and Indian food. As more foreign-trained chefs enter the food business, there has been a clear trend to incorporate traditional local dishes with what foreign trained chefs are familiar with. This is Mod Sin (or Modern Singapore cuisine).

Mod Sin may be interpretations in the form of:

•  Using high-end ingredients, as happens when wagyu beef is used instead of beef shin for beef rendang.

•  Cooking methods as when sous vide cooking is adopted to keep meats tender.

•  Using local ingredients on non-local dishes as has happened with laksa leaf pesto.

However, as a food entrepreneur you need to tread carefully. The Singaporean is on the whole very protective of traditional food so when you experiment with a Mod Sin application and customers are not won over, it may be better to stick to the tried and tested and accepted.

All in, the second decade of the 21st century promises exciting times for those who are prepared to go into the food business to find their success.

There are too many eateries in 5 areas and currently the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) moratorium on further increase in the number of food outlets that can be started has to be achieved.

These are

•  Serangoon Garden Estate

•  Tanjong Katong Road

•  Jalan Mata Ayer to Jalan Lengkok Sembawang

•  Greenwood Avenue

•  Binjai Park

Summary

You have success in

•  looking beyond the traditional rice, noodle and curry environment

•  focusing on providing the best dining experience

•  giving each customer what he/she wants in the context of mass production by individual selling

•  nostalgia which has become a saleable factor

•  meeting stiffer competition for those in the food business as new contracts bring professional expertise in the production of food, the marketing of the outlet and the selling of food in general

•  the food business which offers one of the quickest ways for social mobility

CHAPTER 2

Food Business Models

Synopsis

a) The main features of the following as business models

1.  ‘Casual’ and quick food outlets

2.  Food courts

3.  Home/party catering

4.  Hybrid F&B outlets

b) What each model entails

Introduction

As explained in Chapter One , the Food and Beverage business has undergone a revolutionary change and the role of the small eatery (the traditional main foundation of this business) has to adapt accordingly. This means that the start-up must focus on a particular niche in the market. This is best done by understanding the social forces at work.

•  The large number of immigrants (who came to work in Singapore) and the large number of foreign visitors means that there is a larger consistent demand for non-rice, non-curry dishes.

•  The supply of food has led to a demand for food cooked outside the home. Surveys have shown that the local population eats at least twice a week on food not produced at home. This means that a million immigrants and a million visitors have to be fed monthly. When the first edition of this book ‘Success in the Food Business’ was published, the demand was only for about a hundred thousand meals outside the home.

•  The sheer variety of ingredients (meat, vegetables, fruits, fish) provides the food seller with more opportunities to delight customers.

1.    ‘CASUAL’ AND QUICK FOOD OUTLETS (CQFO)

In this book, this term is used to characterise any food outlet that has the following features:

•  They offer a limited menu that centres around one product e.g. one establishment may offer only congee and noodles while another may offer lamb chops, chicken chops and beef chops.

•  They aim to offer food and drinks to a certain consistent standard and quality.

•  The kitchen staff uses a high proportion of frozen convenience foods, powdered soups and prepared dough (to produce buns and breads).

•  There is a smaller number of employees compared to the number of customers at the premium restaurants and many of the service operations are described as self-service in