Restaurant owners

Maybe it's just me but if I were a resturant owner, I am not sure I would want to make that information public. That information could be awful handy to my competitor.

Wine & Swine said:

Regarding barbeque a good national source for you being from Wisconsin would be Famous Daves, they are a national chain with flat pricing and are public so most of their info is available. Ultimatley you have to know your marketplace.

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...and fairly unspectacular BBQ as well. It doesn't appear that they actually make the BBQ on premises at the one on Long Island. And while I can usually get a chuckle when the server mispronounces 'chipotle', I don't think I'd wanna order off the 'alley cart' menu.

Sorry for the diversion, but if this is how BBQ translates nationally, we are in serious trouble...

Mike

Share the info folks, unless you know that your competition is lurking...Haha. That is being a little paranoid. After all everyone knows it's location, location, location anyway. Proof of that is how many times have you been told a restaurant is great, only to find it isn't. It's all a matter of preference anyway.

dswfondy said:

Hello all,
i am looking for people who own restaurants in citys with populations between 35 - 55 thousand people. I want to start creating my buisness plan for our future buisness. i am looking for your average's for each meal time. any help is greatly appreciated. (per table average, # of checks, per check average) anything is helpful

Branson's BBQ

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There are too many factors involved to accurately give you an answer. For instance, the average income of the familys living in the area, the number of competitive restaurants, are there a lot of local business that will drive lunch sales? Is it takeout, sit down, bar business, etc.

I have been working a business plan for a bbq restaurant and have come at it from a different angle. I look at the fixed costs (rent, debt etc.) of the given deal, then assuming 30% food cost and 30% payroll cost what would my sales nut need to be to clear enough to cover fixed expense and leave ~10-15% profit? You'll get a different answer with every deal. Once you know what that target sales number needs to be, then run a proforma on covers and check average required to meet the sales goal. Once you know you'll need to hit, say $7500 a week in sales, it easy to tweak and sanity-check, is 100 covers a day at $10 per reasonable? Or is 150 at $7 per more likely? Only an expert of your restaurant market can know the answer. Or if the deal requires $15,000 a week, you may determine that there is no way your market will support 250 covers a day at $8 a head. Pass and find a better deal.

Also, Run off-peak, mid-level, and peak numbers. You should feel comfortable operating under the off-peak scenario.

http://www.sba.gov/wi/

There are some podcasts and other great info when I did a search on "start a restaurant"

Good luck Dace