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You know the easiest way to make a small fortune running a restaurant? Start with a big one.

silencio 13y ago
Start with one, period, do a truckload of due diligence and then add another truckload before the sale closes, and then cross your fingers and hope that your employees don't burn the place down. ;) Starting a restaurant from scratch is something I don't want to wish on even my worst enemy. It's very, very difficult and time consuming to the point that I will try my best to talk people out of it if they even think about it. I know 3-4 talented chefs that almost went bankrupt trying to open their own restaurant instead of just buying one and remodeling/revamping it. Big ones can be iffy, they'll all but guarantee you some kind of (positive) cash flow but a lot of them sink so much money into necessary wages that I definitely recall wondering why the fuck anyone would think I would spend $1+ million to buy a wildly popular business that gives me all of $10k/month back before I can pay off any business loans. I seem to recall the broker trying to sell that particular one to me with "you can take the place of a few employees because owner/managers tend to work way harder and save like another $10k+!"....sure, if I wanted to work my ass off from 7am to 1am every single day?
- cdcarter 13y ago
  I believe angersock meant start with a big fortune.
  - csixty4 13y ago
    It's like the joke "How do you make $1000 fast? Well, you start with $1,000,000…"
    - huherto 13y ago
      Another version. "How do you become a millionaire? Start as a billionaire and buy and airline"
  - silencio 13y ago
    oh god I get it now. That's what I get for idling on HN between dealing with misbehaving employees and hiring new misbehaving employees on the one day this week I deal with the restaurant tl;dr basically. if you're lucky not to lose it altogether. :(
- greedo 13y ago
  Same with the franchise restaurant biz. In another life, I was in a position to get a franchise from the Golden Arches. The restrictions were amazing. You'd have to come up with X dollars, and be willing to relocate. Profit after controllables was typically 10-14%, and after that you'd have to pay franchise fees! and then taxes. So on a million/year in sales, you'd have 100k less a franchise fee and taxes. Not exactly driving a Beemer... And each franchise sold for multiple millions unless you were in a program that focused on leasing the facilities to up and coming store managers.

Start with one, period, do a truckload of due diligence and then add another truckload before the sale closes, and then cross your fingers and hope that your employees don't burn the place down. ;) Starting a restaurant from scratch is something I don't want to wish on even my worst enemy. It's very, very difficult and time consuming to the point that I will try my best to talk people out of it if they even think about it. I know 3-4 talented chefs that almost went bankrupt trying to open their own restaurant instead of just buying one and remodeling/revamping it. Big ones can be iffy, they'll all but guarantee you some kind of (positive) cash flow but a lot of them sink so much money into necessary wages that I definitely recall wondering why the fuck anyone would think I would spend $1+ million to buy a wildly popular business that gives me all of $10k/month back before I can pay off any business loans. I seem to recall the broker trying to sell that particular one to me with "you can take the place of a few employees because owner/managers tend to work way harder and save like another $10k+!"....sure, if I wanted to work my ass off from 7am to 1am every single day?

cdcarter 13y ago
I believe angersock meant start with a big fortune.
- csixty4 13y ago
  It's like the joke "How do you make $1000 fast? Well, you start with $1,000,000…"
  - huherto 13y ago
    Another version. "How do you become a millionaire? Start as a billionaire and buy and airline"
- silencio 13y ago
  oh god I get it now. That's what I get for idling on HN between dealing with misbehaving employees and hiring new misbehaving employees on the one day this week I deal with the restaurant tl;dr basically. if you're lucky not to lose it altogether. :(
greedo 13y ago
Same with the franchise restaurant biz. In another life, I was in a position to get a franchise from the Golden Arches. The restrictions were amazing. You'd have to come up with X dollars, and be willing to relocate. Profit after controllables was typically 10-14%, and after that you'd have to pay franchise fees! and then taxes. So on a million/year in sales, you'd have 100k less a franchise fee and taxes. Not exactly driving a Beemer... And each franchise sold for multiple millions unless you were in a program that focused on leasing the facilities to up and coming store managers.