Interesting comments from everyone. Yesterday the founder of a 140 million dollar restaurant chain came and spoke at one of my classes and talked about the 10 factors he looked at prior to buying a place for a restaurant. This is guidelines only for the physical location. Here are the ones that I remember:
1. Traffic-How many cars go by a day? His number was a minimum of 20,000.
2. Accessibility- Is there a concrete divider separating the road that prevents you from getting to the restaurant etc?
3. Ingress- How easy can you get in the parking lot?
4. Egress- How hard is it to get out of the parking lot?
5. Demographics- What are the income levels, age, makeup and other demographics indicators for the area?
6. Parking lot- Is the parking lot sufficiently large to park the restaurant's customer capacity?
7. Visible from the road- Can you see the restaurant from the road?
8. The cost of the deal- Is the cost so high you can never make a profit?
9. Local ordinance for signs- Do they allow signs or do they restrict them?
I can't remember the last one but it was very interesting to see his take on the restaurant business and how you really need to understand local restrictions. In Oregon, there are some very significant differences from other states. If you don't know the differences, they will bury you. His main points were also that you must be fanatical about customer service, continuously train staff to maintain standards, take care of employees, and eliminate waste by pennies, ounces and seconds. The cumulative effect of waste is huge if you let it be. I hope this helps a little.
Lance
1. Traffic-How many cars go by a day? His number was a minimum of 20,000.
2. Accessibility- Is there a concrete divider separating the road that prevents you from getting to the restaurant etc?
3. Ingress- How easy can you get in the parking lot?
4. Egress- How hard is it to get out of the parking lot?
5. Demographics- What are the income levels, age, makeup and other demographics indicators for the area?
6. Parking lot- Is the parking lot sufficiently large to park the restaurant's customer capacity?
7. Visible from the road- Can you see the restaurant from the road?
8. The cost of the deal- Is the cost so high you can never make a profit?
9. Local ordinance for signs- Do they allow signs or do they restrict them?
I can't remember the last one but it was very interesting to see his take on the restaurant business and how you really need to understand local restrictions. In Oregon, there are some very significant differences from other states. If you don't know the differences, they will bury you. His main points were also that you must be fanatical about customer service, continuously train staff to maintain standards, take care of employees, and eliminate waste by pennies, ounces and seconds. The cumulative effect of waste is huge if you let it be. I hope this helps a little.
Lance