As American celebrity chef and author Anthony Bourdainonce famously said, “If anything is good for pounding humility into you permanently, it’s the restaurant business.”

This book—based on decades of experience in the hospitality industry, studying both the successes and failures—is intended to serve as your roadmap for the restaurant business to assuage the financial and emotional pain of aspiring restaurateurs.

As with all businesses, an idea, only when accompanied by an action, gives birth to a restaurant. Procrastination and fear, the worst enemies of action, can best be conquered by gaining a deeper understanding of the subject through good research and coming to terms with its challenges through self-conviction.
This book will walk you through that process. The rest is up to you!

Section I: The Vision Board

To be able to build something, you must first see it in your mind’s eye, then prepare to understand what it entails, and finally, make a plan.
Only after preparing a solid vision board can you make an informed decision on whether your business can be operational.

How to ‘See’ the Restaurant Business

Similar to the human body, which has lifelines such as the circulatory and respiratory systems, as well as vital organs like the heart and lungs, I perceive a restaurant business as a living entity with its own lifelines and constituent parts.
I have found the following visualisation model useful in gauging the pulse of all kinds of food businesses regardless of their lifecycles. Imagine a plain white cardboard shoe box. Now, remove its lid, and you will see that it has walls and a floor. Can you visualize it from above? Let’s resize this box a little larger than it presently is—maybe the size of a doll house.

We can imagine different rooms inside, for instance, the stores, kitchen, dining area, etc. Now, within this space, let’s visualize eight different pipelines (or lifelines) entering and exiting this box, along with two additional parts. So, imagine…

1. Air-flow (White):

Imagine a white duct bringing in fresh outside air into this white room and removing stale, hot air, to ensure the comfort of both your guests in the dining area and your staff in the kitchen.

2. Water-flow (Blue):

Next, we have a blue pipeline bringing in fresh water for drinking, cooking, and cleaning, through taps at basins, while the dirty water flows out from the drains below.

3. Material-flow (Orange):

Visualize a broad orange pipeline that brings in raw food materials, stores them at different temperatures (ambient, refrigerated, frozen, and cooked), and disposes of waste food. Similarly, imagine this pipe bringing in non-food materials such as equipment, furniture, packaging items, etc., and dispatching or disposing of them as necessary.

4. Fuel-flow (Yellow):

Now, to run our business space and our equipment, we need electricity, gas, and other fuels. So, imagine yellow lines of electricity and gas pipes running into this room. Remember, this flow must be uninterrupted, safe, and efficient.

5. People-flow (Brown):

The food business is actually a people business. To convert our vision to reality, we require guests, staff, vendors, etc. Occasionally, we also need partners to help us with time, money, and skills that we may not have. So, just imagine outside the box: guests parking their cars and walking into your restaurant, being seated; vendors bringing in supplies from the service entrance, and staff managing the operation, both in the kitchen and the dining area. Remember, it will take some good marketing to get these people in. Speaking of people, don’t forget that our neighbours, licensing authorities, and reviewers are also stakeholders outside our box, and play a significant role in our success or failure.

6. Money-flow (Green):

As I mentioned earlier, without money our business cannot survive. The equipment, food, and people that we have just visualized in our space is only possible with money.

Visualize money flowing into your restaurant through green pipelines as capital. Even if it’s a loan, imagine it flowing out with its principal and interest. Also, envision money flowing in continuously from our guests as they pay, filling in your cash drawers and bank accounts. Similarly, picture money flowing out for the rent, utilities, salaries, and food each month.

7. Thought-flow (Purple):

Our very first step when we start this business is to think. It begins with an idea that we develop into a concept. Some of these thoughts, which flow through the purple pipeline, will be our own, while others will be brought into our enterprise by individuals or partners we collaborate with or hire. The work culture of our company, the agility of our decision-making, and problem-solving approach, all reflect our flow of thoughts within this box. Imagine thoughts related to our value proposition flowing outside this box in the form of communication to our guests.

8. Emotion-flow (Red):

Now, imagine passion flowing into your business, bringing with it a great positive energy that is contagious and spreading it on to others in your business. Visualize the personal issues each person may be facing and the resilience with which they continue to smile through them. Picture each person in the box smiling and working with sincerity.

These eight pipes or flows in the business are its lifelines. Opening and closing these flow taps to the right extent and for the right duration that benefits the business can either make or break your business.
To complete the picture, add just two more parts. Visualize the box again. Where is your restaurant located?

9. Location:

Rather where should it be located? Let’s place it where our target audience can best access it. Or, if it’s a cloud kitchen, place it near a market where raw materials can easily be sourced or in spaces where your consumers have prompt access to order food service. It’s crucial to check how affordable the space is or can be and if it has an appropriate licence.

The last thing to remember is the importance of…

10. Time:

• Is the concept correctly timed in the market place? Is it relevant?
• Is the entrepreneur investing sufficient time to their business, especially during its nascent stage or when the business is performing poorly?
• Is the entrepreneur committed to dedicating 1,000 days to the business to give it a fair chance in the marketplace?
• I, therefore, believe that visualizing the restaurant business using these ten steps will help you map and control nearly everything that can be mapped and controlled within it.
• When I plan to open a new restaurant, this is how I see it.
• When I study operations of a restaurant to grow its business, this is how I see it.
• When I diagnose and resolve problems of an existing restaurant, this is how I see it.

Now, I hope that this is how you will see it too.

Excerpted with permission from Beyond the Menu by Ravi Wazir

Publishing/ Jaico Publishing House (2024)

You can buy your copy here.