Anyone own a BBQ restaurant???


 
C

Colin B.

TVWBB Member
I'm a chef, I've worked all over the world. I own a pub/bar. I was just wondering if there are any more professionals out there?
 
Very nice site there Konrad. How long have you been doing it? (the restaurant) Would love to hear how you got started. I spent some time on your site looking at pics and such. I'll bet the history is there also. I'll take another look lol. Gives someone a goal to shoot for.
 
I started with BBQ at a tender age in South Africa watching my grandfather cook a whole Ox on a spit. Fast forward a few decades and we got in to competition BBQ while wasting our lives at Mocrosoft. We started a catering company which is still our best source of income. We are running the restaurant at the Golf course so we have a certified kitchen. We are in the process of building out our own kitchen. It will be a big catering Kitchen with food to go. Building out a kitchen is a long experience in dealing with city paperwork.

Our new place will not have sit down dining and that is fine with us as it is the most labor per meal served. My wife and I can spend one day cooking for 600 people and with two helpers feed 600 people a BBQ buffet.
 
Konrad,
that is my dream job. I would like to take the jump but too scared right now. I need bigger cajones I guess plus a clue how to run a food service. I can cook, always could but there is a bunch more to it than that. This I realize.

I am owner of 2 small companys neither having a thing to do with food, but I understand tax, insurances, ect so if it happens I wont be totally in the dark. Do you have any suggestions for a wannabe? Thanks in advance.
 
Dale--Hope you don't mind my jumping in. The first thing is to decide what exactly you want to start with (you can always look to expand your concept later): Q joint? Q restaurant with more than Q as offerings? Bar? Catering on the side? Catering primarily? Lots of possibilites--what does your heart say?

Though a business plan is not required per se, I always counsel people who want to start a food service business to use one, especially if they do not have that background, because so much is involved. It gives you something to which you can refer and you can develop it as you go, in other words, you can pick the over-arching key aspects of the plan now, then start adding the nuts and bolts to each aspect as they become clearer. Restaurant/catering/food service development can be daunting but exciting (to me, anyway). There's the junk you have to deal with (city/county/state/federal regs), but you have that in most businesses.

Btw, a Sub-chapter S for funding can a be worthwhile route.
 
Kevin,
I would like to talk some more about this but not sure if this is the place to do that. How about me E-Mailing you some questions if you dont mind.
 
Maybe you could start a new thread on starting one up. I know of at least 3 of us that are interested in starting a "Q" stand/restaurant. I have two Brothers already in the food business (asst. general manager/Chef), but they are not owners. I can pick their brains about State/local regulations.
 
Kevin & Konrad;
I would also like to know about starting a Q restaurant. Mainly about Equipment etc. I would like to know more about industrial smokers. Like I said I already own a pub/bar so I like to think I know a thing or two, but not much more, lol.

Real Q is unheard of up here. I would like to bring it to "my people", lol.
 
That would be Konrad's forte more than mine I'm sure. Most large scale Q cooks I've done have been on a range of borrowed offsets, open pits, or whatever else was available at the time. For commercial equipment I've have used this model from Southern Pride, which I liked, though it was not in my establishment--I was just checking it out.
 
I would think a lot about the restaurant before opening. Talk to other restaurant owners--current and former--because restaurants can be cruel, cruel masters.

Another quote that comes to mind. I have my private license and love to fly small airplanes. Once I asked someone, who had just told me how much he loved flying, if he would like to take the leap and work as a pilot. He said, "I'd never ruin my favorite hobby by making it my work!" I thought it was a great quote!

But, if you love 'Q'n, and who here doesn't, I say go for it!
 
Dale I am with Bob T lets get a discussion going on this. I may be starting a small operation here in several weeks. I guess we are up to 4 people now.
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We should. I would like to pick all of your brains. I think I can also have alot of input on operations as I've cooked all over the world in some well known hotels. I would love to lend my knowledge to others.
 
Originally posted by Colin B.:
For me, restaurants are my hobby!! I retired when I started in this industry years ago.
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I feel (or felt) the same way. I very much miss the business--I've been too long out of a restaurant. I still cook for people but it's just not the same buzz.
 
Well first off you need to be crazy. Then you need to like to work. Starting off in the busy summer season I've worked all hours and up to 22 hours a day. With more and better equipement, lots of experienced earned the hard way and armed with "NO" I sleep better these days.

I always thought a sit down place would be cool. Thank God we got a month to month lease on our current sit down place. We got it to have a legal kitchen while we finish our own (not shared) catering kitchen with take out window. It cured me from wanting a sit down place of my own.

I can make more solo in one afternoon catering than two staff, my wife and I can make on a busy Sunday morning in our sitdown.

One lady got herself a 120 seat Q joint only to find the most customers wanted it to go.

You can also be stupid and arrogant and open Famous Dave's in Dallas and wonder why sales are poor when you messed with Texas.

For a sit down to make serious money you need lots of beer and cocktails. Pull tabs don't hurt either. There is not enough money in the food alone for a sit down to turn a serious profit IMO. I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule but there are also a lot of grave markers defining the rule.

My wife and I did not have a bussiness plan in writing but being over 40 with both our parents being self employed and Phyllis being ex McKinsey and Co we had a fair amount of experience. Three years in we are writing a business plan and are committed to what we now "know" to be true. We could never have written our current plan when we started.

Best advice ever is from Elizabth Lumpkin "don't try to be the cheapest, try to be the best". God Bless you E.
 
This is one extremely helpful thread! Konrad, your insights to the "sit down" joint is very helpful to me - I need to do more thinking on this concept. I too plan to have a restaurant, but begin by catering first. Catering just may be the ultimate way to go - at least initially until you can feel out the market and understand what the customers in your area really want. I may find that a "sit down" will be nothing more that cash drain on profits.

I am all for a thread dealing with this specifically.

Tony
 
You can also be stupid and arrogant and open Famous Dave's in Dallas and wonder why sales are poor when you messed with Texas.
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I'm not in the restaurant business, but I think this is a terribly important point.

I like mexican food ... raised in Arizona, I can barely tolerate the stuff that parades as mexican food in SW Ohio restaurants. Truth be told, however, I'm sure that an establishment dishing up the type of food I prefer would soon go out of business in Ohio ... while it would florish in Arizona. In the end, you have to give people what they want ... even if it's wrong.

Tony ... that's why I think you're correct about beginning with catering. It would be a great way to learn what works and what doesn't.
 
...that's why I think you're correct about beginning with catering.
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It all kind of depends on what you're shooting for and individual preferences vary. I've always catered after the fact; a sit-down rstaurant (with a bar) is much more my thing--I like the ambiance too much. But there are infinite ways of approaching the business.

In the end, you have to give people what they want ...
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There are definitely things I don't eat depending on the locale. Chinese in Florida is abyssmal. I think you can elevate the tastes of your diners by doing what you want; location is of course paramount (doesn't always work) and you might have to go slow with introductions of new things/ideas, but it can work. I was told I'd never be able to sell anything other than grouper, dolphin, salmon, and red snapper on Miami Beach. I had a broker in Seattle, one in Hawaii, one in the Keys, and one in NE. I flew in fresh fish every day and sold the hell out of it.
 
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