6 ms·

I'm a programmerby trade, but I own a restaurant in Vancouver. A friend owns 3. Several other friends own several other restaurants. It's a restaurant town. An

I'm a programmerby trade, but I own a restaurant in Vancouver. A friend owns 3. Several other friends own several other restaurants. It's a restaurant town. Anyways, it costs from about $50,000 to $1,000,000 depending on the brand and the size of the room. Averaging around 100k for a non mom-n-pop sit-down place Mine was about $40k, but it's tiny Boneta (which was award-winning and loved) was cheap at around $70k A big Boston Pizza, which is not a great place to eat, is gonna cost $200k+ or so, and a big Cactus Club could hit a mil A higher price doesn't mean a better restaurant. In fact, I'd say a strict budget can make it more appealing due to creativity

Maven911 9y ago
May I ask about ROI and profit margin for the restaurant business?
- elchief 9y ago
  If you make it, you make it big. My place makes $1M in revenue and ~10% profit But if you don't blow up, the rent will kill you. My friend ran a good place, but it wasn't busy enough to pay the $30k/month rent
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    You mention it only cost you 40k to get started; how long did it take to reach $1MM in revenue/10% profits?
    - elchief 9y ago
      We did that in our 3rd year
      - rootsudo 9y ago
        Is 10% profit considered good? That seems to be a lot of work to just net 100k. Is that net and your take home?
        pc86 9y ago
        It's not truly net unless he's paying himself a market rate for the amount of work he's doing (which if he's a programmer, may very well be $0 if everything is run by staff). 10% margin seems great for a restaurant, especially if that's after paying the owner. I've worked in management in restaurants (diners, nothing fantastic but a great way to help pay for school) and profit margins in the low-to-mid single digits before paying the owner is not uncommon.
  - cossatot 9y ago
    The economist and food critic Tyler Cowen often writes that the best food is typically in low-rent areas for precisely this reason. If fixed costs are low, then the restaurant can afford to focus on the quality of the food a bit more. This is particularly true for many varieties of ethnic food, where the restauranteurs may be immigrants without a lot of money to put up, but a rich knowledge of the food from their home country.
    - baby 9y ago
      You see that a lot in Chicago were good restaurants are often found in weird parts of the city (I'm looking at you 42 grams)
santaclaus 9y ago
> Boston Pizza The real question, here, is what in the world is a Boston Pizza? Boston is known for many things -- baked beans, Sam Adams Lager, clam chowder -- but pizza is not one of them...
- elchief 9y ago
  Exactly ;) It's owned by one of the Canadian Dragon's Den (Shark Tank) Dragons. It's very generic, but at least consistent
jaclaz 9y ago
I am used to think in cost per square meter, 700,000/116 sqm makes 6,000 US$ per square meter (if you prefer 700,000/1,250 makes 560 US$ per square foot). That is a very, very high unit cost, even if SF is costly (but the US$ 8,000 month of rent seems to me like "appropriate" and all in all in line with "common" market values). There is no reference to the number of seats for the new restaurant that I could find, but judging from: > In the end, the 24 burnt orange leather chairs, 13 wood sushi bar stools, and nine tables — finished with the Japanese wood burning shou sugi ban method — set him back $19,760. It should be 24+9=33 seats, which makes it an extremely small restaurant. More than 20,000 dollars per seat is more than "high" as I see it it borders to "crazy".
- jaclaz 9y ago
  Re-reading, mistake, my bad, 24 chairs + 13 stools =37, anyway almost 19,000 US$ per seat.

Maven911 9y ago

May I ask about ROI and profit margin for the restaurant business?

elchief 9y ago
If you make it, you make it big. My place makes $1M in revenue and ~10% profit But if you don't blow up, the rent will kill you. My friend ran a good place, but it wasn't busy enough to pay the $30k/month rent
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  You mention it only cost you 40k to get started; how long did it take to reach $1MM in revenue/10% profits?
  - elchief 9y ago
    We did that in our 3rd year
    - rootsudo 9y ago
      Is 10% profit considered good? That seems to be a lot of work to just net 100k. Is that net and your take home?
      - pc86 9y ago
        It's not truly net unless he's paying himself a market rate for the amount of work he's doing (which if he's a programmer, may very well be $0 if everything is run by staff). 10% margin seems great for a restaurant, especially if that's after paying the owner. I've worked in management in restaurants (diners, nothing fantastic but a great way to help pay for school) and profit margins in the low-to-mid single digits before paying the owner is not uncommon.
- cossatot 9y ago
  The economist and food critic Tyler Cowen often writes that the best food is typically in low-rent areas for precisely this reason. If fixed costs are low, then the restaurant can afford to focus on the quality of the food a bit more. This is particularly true for many varieties of ethnic food, where the restauranteurs may be immigrants without a lot of money to put up, but a rich knowledge of the food from their home country.
  - baby 9y ago
    You see that a lot in Chicago were good restaurants are often found in weird parts of the city (I'm looking at you 42 grams)

santaclaus 9y ago

> Boston Pizza The real question, here, is what in the world is a Boston Pizza? Boston is known for many things -- baked beans, Sam Adams Lager, clam chowder -- but pizza is not one of them...

elchief 9y ago
Exactly ;) It's owned by one of the Canadian Dragon's Den (Shark Tank) Dragons. It's very generic, but at least consistent

jaclaz 9y ago

I am used to think in cost per square meter, 700,000/116 sqm makes 6,000 US$ per square meter (if you prefer 700,000/1,250 makes 560 US$ per square foot). That is a very, very high unit cost, even if SF is costly (but the US$ 8,000 month of rent seems to me like "appropriate" and all in all in line with "common" market values). There is no reference to the number of seats for the new restaurant that I could find, but judging from: > In the end, the 24 burnt orange leather chairs, 13 wood sushi bar stools, and nine tables — finished with the Japanese wood burning shou sugi ban method — set him back $19,760. It should be 24+9=33 seats, which makes it an extremely small restaurant. More than 20,000 dollars per seat is more than "high" as I see it it borders to "crazy".

jaclaz 9y ago
Re-reading, mistake, my bad, 24 chairs + 13 stools =37, anyway almost 19,000 US$ per seat.