Your First Restaurant - An Essential Guide

Book excerpt: If you are thinking about, or anywhere in the process of, opening a restaurant, this guide will be invaluable to you. The author embarked on a career as a restaurateur in middle age, with no prior restaurant experience and not much capital. Within four years he opened three original and quirky restaurants, each of which has become a thriving success. In this book he draws upon his experiences as a restaurateur, as well as nearly 30 years spent negotiating commercial real estate leases and sales, and a decade teaching real estate investment analysis and decision making to show you how to: * Accurately estimate the amount of capital required for your first restaurant (it's probably less than you think) and how to raise it. * Select your restaurant's ideal location and negotiate the optimal real estate lease or purchase for it.* Develop a creative, winning restaurant concept that is a natural extension of yourself and a perfect match for your customers. * Market - using low-cost, guerilla-style techniques - staff, source supplies for, grow, and continually refine your first restaurant. * Identify all the things that could doom your restaurant and avoid them.However, this book is not for everyone. It completely lacks fluff, hype, and "just believe in yourself" rah-rah encouragement. If that is what you are looking for, you won't find it here. What this book does offer is a solid framework for beginning with what is often a vague idea and proceeding, step by step, to research, plan, evaluate, open, and operate a very successful first restaurant. If you are serious about opening your dream restaurant, this is the book for you.