Want to open a restaurant?

 

Seems everyone wants to open a restaurant. Why?

Is your cooking so good that people will flock to your location to gobble down a meal that only you could have prepared? Is your personality so warming that everyone will want to dine in your establishment with the chance you will stop at their table and dazzle them with your skills with a chef’s knife? Do you think you can make a comfortable lifestyle while spending all your times scrubbing the kitchen in hopes the FDA inspector won’t show up wearing white gloves?

Now before I get too deep in this subject, may I say I’ve NEVER worked in a restaurant. I’ve dined in plenty, so I’ll base my writing on experiences.

Once you are ready to flip the page thinking this is just another AI who doesn’t know what they are talking about and why should I waste my time reading this; there is another side of this story.

My father ran a club. Now a club is a ‘restaurant’ with certain restrictions. Not only do you have to make reservations, you have to be approved to dine as a ‘member’. An exclusive private club allows you to get beyond the velvet rope into a dining experience you can’t get at Bob’s Burgers.

My father showed me the ins-and-outs of the kitchen but I was not interested in washing dishes. I was shown some cooking techniques by a man in a white muffin hat, but fine dining is about presentation.

Every day in the newspaper there is a story of a NEW restaurant opening with some photo of the owners and a plate of their signature dish. They find a location (possibility an empty shell of a former restaurant) and give it a paint job, update the kitchen, put some ethnic art on the walls and print a menu. Come and eat at our house.

When you have a dinner party, after everyone leaves, do you have leftovers? That maybe a sign that the food was not that good and they just attended for the booze.

So you open your restaurant and wait for the public to find you and pour in the door to taste your cuisine. Perhaps you are continuing a family tradition for nothing taste better than your grandmother’s cooking. Perhaps you have no other skills than to feed people, for people done got to eat.

There is little thought of the wait staff as your customer service representatives who can, by their witty personality and attentive service, not only get a good tip but also create an atmosphere that the diner will remember and come back in hopes to repeat the experience. The kitchen is a constant turnover due to the heat and the pressure to prep the dishes for fast efficient delivery then rinse and repeat for minimum wage. Prices have to pay for everything from insurance to renovations to salaries to possible lawsuits in hopes to break even or make a profit.

If the cliental appreciates the effort and enjoys the experience, the restaurant might expand to another location. The namesake might publish a cookbook of the secrets of the kitchen or a television show on Saturday afternoon?

We, the diner, will explore a new restaurant with anticipation of a dining adventure and the food will be judged on all of the above. If the experience is memorable, we will probably be a repeat. If the second experience is good the restaurant will be recommended to friends.

Some restaurants are roach coaches with a limited menu served out of the back window but not expected to be fine dining. A franchise should be consistent anywhere in the country. Food served in Styrofoam flip boxes and plastic utensils does not have expectations of anything but filling our tummies on our excessive poking ‘food’ down our gullets.

Other neighborhood eateries can become a hangout with televisions on the walls and bartenders who remember your name. A comfortable place to hang out with friends.

Unfortunately, a restaurant makes money by the turnover. The longer that guy is sitting on a stool at the bar and milking that beer, the owner is losing money. Still, if a regular continues to order, there is a continuous income for the restaurant.

Food is a fickly product to sell. If the distributor can’t deliver on time, certain items will have to be scratched off the menu. If the refrigeration goes out on a power outage, profits must be thrown out. There are always some folks who walk in looking for a charity handout.

Our taste is particular so when the dish arrives at the table and the patron wants to send it back for whatever discretionary judgement, the kitchen has to deal with the return.

The public’s taste change. With whatever culture shift, suddenly southern fried has changed to oriental raw. Texas BBQ is now vegan exquisite. Better have a good bartender, for titles of drinks and preferences in grape drinks can be challenging to please the pallet.

What I find the most interesting in watching social media remising over past diners wasn’t the food or the waitress or the owner but it was about the people who share a meal with you. Other restaurants were status symbols to get dressed up for the pampering and no matter what the food tasted like, you were present in an occasion people who eat food out of wrapped paper cannot imagine.

I don’t dine out much. I have a simple pallet, but I know what goes on in the kitchen when I look at the menu to order a meal I must pay for (in one way or the other). I also don’t cook anymore. I know how. I’ve used all the appliances and tools to prepare meals that will break your credit card, but creating substance is not my bag.

The worst part of re-attending a restaurant from the past is not being to capture that special aura that was fond of years ago. Maybe it is the time past or the company or the updated menu to capture the taste of the new generation, but it just doesn’t feel the same.

As I show off my town to travelers, I reminisce about the fine dining establishments from the past then stop and have a meal at ‘Joe’s Inn’. A restaurant started in 1952 and somewhat updated without losing its distinctive atmosphere. The food is simple and the booths are inviting (even without the old jukebox). It is comfort food outside your living room. If you hang there long enough you will see old friends for a price even the common man can afford. Everyone has a story about ‘Joe’s’.

Hope your restaurant last more than a few years and creates memories for us old folk who want to say, “Remember the time…?” We don’t remember what we ate because we were laughing too much.

Thanks for inviting us into your dining room.