41–50 of 190 posts
Funnily enough, if he wanted to be successful, spreadsheets could've been the key to his success. He would've known his Cost of Goods Sold, he would've known his staffing costs, his rent, and how much money he had and could spend.
This guy is so raw that he is even missing basic stuff.
> We can barely afford the place, but I wanted my daughters to have their own rooms
And he doesn't learn.
> We had started with $60,000; after six weeks, we were down to $3,000, and there was still so much to do. I don't think he did nearly enough research into how much it costs to start a restaurant.
I don't know much about running a restaurant, but I figured he'd be in big trouble as soon as I read that number after reading the condition of the place. I've done remodelings, and I'm pretty sure that just remodeling that place alone would eat up the entire $60k. I have to figure that bootstrapping a new restaurant would run at least that much on its own, between laying in food, kitchen equipment, hiring staff, doi…
I recall stumbling across the franchise agreement for a frozen yogurt place once. They wanted proof that you were able to invest something like $400,000 in the venture, and that's a way simpler setup.
The first big red flag for me (besides that the whole thing pretty obviously started as a mid life crisis) was how little time it sounds like he spent working at his friend's bar in the three months he needed to put in to qualify for the liquor license. How could he not take that seriously as an opportunity to learn about the industry? I would bet money that the answer is he was afraid to learn that running a restaur…
That said, the community is to die for. I can’t recall ever being close to my coworkers in that way since moving into tech. Nothing tastes as sweet as a cigarette, liquor, and stories after your shift. Kind of necessary with the hours you work!
Running a restaurant is hard and unsurprisingly its even harder if you never have run one before. Staffing, food cost, vender management and health code malarky: these are some of the first things that make or break a restaurant. Then maybe location. Quality of food clearly doesn't make the list, at least not disconnected from price as Dominos, McDonalds and Starbucks succeed with high probability. Sad to see a vanit…
A point that Gordon Ramsay makes is that consistency is more important than peak food quality for a restaurant. Occasionally serving bad food does way more harm than occasionally serving amazing food does good since many customers will not return after one bad experience and you won't establish regulars if your quality is not consistent. What McDonalds and Starbucks do well is produce consistent (though not particula…
Having started a software business with too much optimism and too little business knowledge myself, and failed, I seriously have no idea how people start successful restaurants at all these days. No matter what mistakes he made, I feel for the guy, and the thousands of people every year trying to get a restaurant off the ground and ending up bankrupt. Aside from marketing, the initial costs of getting a SAAS business…
Do people start restaurants with their own money? That seems like a nightmare.