Starting a Restaurant Business

Stuffing Feathers up Your Butt Doesn't Make You a Chicken

After reading an article in the Hamilton Spectator, I felt compelled to write a response. I'm really not sure why, maybe it's just my belief that the article was unfair and biased? Or maybe, because I think I know everything. Either way, I am writing.

For those that didn't read the article I will give a quick synopsis. It was about the tough hair pulling below the belt hitting competitive restaurant industry. It starts with this poor fellow.. (lets call him John). investing his entire life savings and severance package into his dream coffee shop. This all started because he was laid off from his 27 year profession of building cars on a line in a factory and realized his dream of owning a restaurant ( coffee shop) . So he sinks everything he has into it, combined with a whole lot of time, love and hard work. Regardless of his hard work and desperate determination, he just can't seem to make it work. So 6 months after opening he has lost everything and closes the doors. So now, the reader is left feeling sorry for this poor chap. I too felt some compassion. However, there is a flip side to all this. There is no doubt that the restaurant industry is a cutthroat vicious industry and sometimes even down right nasty. But there seems to be a giant public misconception about what the restaurant industry really is.

What is it that made john so sure he could build and run a successful restaurant.ok so it was only coffee shop, but did it not still serve food and drink to the public for profit? Hence restaurant. Was it the 27 years working on a line? Or maybe it was the short small business course he took at Mohawk College that taught him everything he needed to know? I have been in the restaurant industry all my life. 17 years of restaurant experience at every thing from washing dishes to general manager. I still don't have it all figured out. I am sure John can build me a car that will drive forever, but he doesn't know 'jack squat' about running a restaurant. It is because of people like him (and there are many) that make it near impossible for people like me to start my own restaurant. Why is it that 80% of restaurants fail in their first year? Is it because the industry is mean and nasty? Or that customers are so fickle it takes the luck of the Irish to find the right niche? Or that running a restaurant is so complex and hard that only god himself can make it happen? No, no, and no. So if all these reasons fail us, may we finally look to the ever unmentionable and unbelievable thought that it is because the owner had no idea what he was doing.??? Human Error!

Say my life long dream was to become a surgeon, a rocket scientist, or an architect? Do you think the 17 years I have spent in the restaurant industry qualify me for that? What would NASA say if I showed up for the new opening in rocket design technology? Well, Sarcasm aside, you all get my point. It is because of people like john, who open up restaurants because it was a life long dream, or seemed like a good idea, or they think drinking for free is a good enough reason to open a bar, that make it impossible for me to open one. Even with my 17 years of experience in ALL aspects of operating a restaurant. I know I already said this but I would like to bring you back to it for a reason. The Canadian banking system will not even think about giving me any money for a restaurant because risk is too high. Too many restaurants fail too fast and we can't take the chance.gee thanks john's of the world. Regardless how good my business plan is, there is no hope in hell any bank will front me. If I owned my house, I could mortgage it. However, in my 17 years and 29 restaurants of experience I have never met an employee that owns their own house. Owning a house requires much more money then any restaurant worker is ever going to make their entire lives. Quite the catch 22 isn't it. In order to raise the funds needed to design and open a successful restaurant, one must work in a place like ford, building cars for 25 years, only to fail at the restaurant because they lack the life long knowledge of how to operate. ahhhh Canada.

by Steven Gaul