It's a fuzzy definition like any other social category, but I'm not sure a restaurant is a startup unless it aims for significant growth via some novel approach

It's a fuzzy definition like any other social category, but I'm not sure a restaurant is a startup unless it aims for significant growth via some novel approach to running and scaling restaurants. What's "significant growth?" That's one fuzzy area. I'm not sure you have to be aiming to become Fortune 500 in less than 10 years, but the aim should be for at least one or two standard deviations above normal for the sector. The best definition I can think of is that a startup aims to deviate significantly from the industry norm through the application of technology or higher order conceptual reasoning about process.