How to Buy Your Restaurant

Deciding which restaurant to buy – or even whether to buy one at all – is the biggest decision you will ever make in your restaurant business.

From this one decision will flow everything else you do in your life – until you sell it. The security of your investment – and your family’s future financial health – depends upon this one, simple decision.

Of all hospitality businesses, restaurants are probably the most fickle. It used to be said that the average restaurant lasts for just two years – and the last few months of that short time are probably horrendous!

Its Different for My Type of Restaurant

The type of restaurant you are buying does not make any difference to your approach. Whether you looking at a pizza restaurant or a £50 per head French restaurant, the questions are the same. Don’t believe that your business is any different because it operates on a low or high average spend per head. The key issues remain exactly the same.

So don’t believe that buying decisions for one type of restaurant are different from those used for others.

And the number one trap is that people think they are buying a building! They look at the eating area, the kitchen, the grounds, the car park and believe that that is what they are investing in – and whilst these are very important, they aren’t the key.

Understand What You are Buying

When buying, don’t limit your focus to the building, the physical structure. Don’t believe that the building marks the extent of your purchase.

What you are really buying is access to the eating out market. That’s it. Nothing more and nothing less. If you don’t believe this, just think about some of the restaurants in your neighbourhood that flourished and then died, with the buildings turned into homes, shops or simply demolished. Or just consider how past shops have been turned into restaurants or take-aways.

This may sound dramatic, but the fact is that a restaurant only remains as a restaurant whilst it can trade profitably. Once that is no longer the position, its just a building looking for another purpose – but with much less value.

The restaurant is the funnel through which you will draw your revenue. It is the customers who will provide the cash. So research the market the first and concentrate on that as much, if not more, than the building.

Details of key restaurant buying questions here.