11 STEPS TO PREPARE FOR RESTAURANT OPENING
Vietnamese people increasingly focus on improving the quality of life, usually they use 20% – 40% of their income for dining expenses including main meal and outside meals along with friends, family, lovers ,…. Market research company BMI prediction, food and beverage growth rate will be higher in the period 2016 – 2020, in which Vietnam is likely to stand in the third Asian position.
Besides, Vietnam tourism is also on the momentum of strong development with recent major events such as the U.S.-Korea summit which has created a large leverage in promoting Vietnam’s image to the world and become the ideal destination for Travel. On average of the first 9 months of 2019, the total international visitors to Vietnam had reached 12,870,506, up 10.8% over the same period in 2018. In 2020, Vietnam tourism was predicted to “make peaks” for the general economy of the country.
In addition, the need to enjoy food at the restaurant, restaurants are slowly being popular in the life of the Vietnamese. According to statistics, Hanoi has about 3,500 business cafes, drinks and more than 5,000 restaurants, in HCMC. HCM the number is much larger. Demand is still constantly rising in the year 2020. This proves, you are having a large customer intake and a compelling source of income as if grasping and choosing the right food trading trend.
To embark on the construction of a restaurant will cost a lot of time and effort but if there is good plan preparation, the likelihood of success is very high. In order to make the restaurant work efficiently, you need to follow some steps.
1. Choose a concept and restaurant brand
When starting a restaurant, it is important to have a clear concept and brand. The restaurant concept includes the restaurant’s service style, food will serve and the restaurant atmosphere brought. This goes together with the brand, forming the identity, personality, and mission of the restaurant. The brand is the invisible force behind the restaurant concept, which is the difference between you and your opponent in the market. The concept of the restaurant is considered the same as the brand but is seen in action.
Based on the brand and concept of the restaurant, build interior space, create a specific atmosphere and convey who you are. This creates a memorable and meaningful experience for customers to come back. Choosing a unique concept, aimed at a certain audience is one of the key factors in creating the concept and brand of the home. In order to create your own concept and brand, you can refer to the articles aesthetic image to decide on the design of the restaurant interior to understand how to finish the idea.
You have to be heading to a group of young customers with a simple restaurant space combined with modern artwork, serving drinks and fast food at the counter. Or you’re aiming for the luxurious European-style customer group, the fragrant Floral restaurant space is changed every day and the ancient lights with European standard dishes. The ordering process and payment, service style, dress and language of staff should also be attentive when navigating the concept and brand restaurant.
2. Forming menu items
Before you open the restaurant, you have to think about some basic dishes that can be served. Deciding what will be on the menu is very important when choosing the equipment, the staff you will hire and the customers object towards.
The menu needs to be fully designed as well as recipes that need to be fully replenished. For example, a pizza place selling European grilled dishes,…
You need to propose prices for the dishes that will serve at the restaurant. In the process of operating the restaurant, you should regularly update the menu when receiving feedback on the selling and non-selling items for timely changes to increase profits.
3. Writing a restaurant business plan
Having a thorough plan is essential when reaching out to investors and conducting bank loans for business restaurants. It will also help you develop strategies and determine the feasibility of every detail in the restaurant. Here is the main content of a restaurant business plan.
- Summary
- Restaurants Overview and Description
- Market Analysis
- Supply of products – services
- Process Management
- Marketing and public Relations strategies
- Financial Accounting
4. Calculate the investment amount
Estimate the total cost of design and construction is necessary to start the restaurant business. In parallel, there is a cost to keep daily operations.
In addition, evaluate the amount of money you’re available to start with and determine how much money you’ll need to do in your future business. Be sure to include other costs such as licenses, for example. Consider borrowing the bank to get the money invested, cover the cost of the restaurant.
5. Suitable venue selection criteria
When choosing a place for a restaurant, the following criteria are one of the key requirements you must consider.
Visibility around and accessibility: choose where the driver or pedestrian can be easily seen. Prioritize the location with parking, easy to walk or move by car.
Target Audience: Make sure the market targets the restaurant in accordance with the demographics of the region.
Minimum cost and wage: Ensure labor costs do not reduce profits. In addition, you also need to develop a reasonable benefits policy to support recruitment.
The competition of the area: check the surrounding area for the level of competition, which will affect marketing. Having to compete directly with the branded restaurants and the concept of serving clearly with the customer is not smart.
When it comes to choosing a space and place of business, we recommend hiring. It allows you to be more flexible in case you decide to expand or have issues that arise or change other business methods.
6. License
To open a new restaurant, you will need to get the following:
- Restaurant business License.
- Legal right to use business locations.
- The certificate of Eligibility for food safety (or often referred to as a food safety and hygiene permit).
- A child license for alcohol, tobacco (if any of these items are available).
You can contact and complete the above procedures, or contact the Legal Advisory Unit to do so.
7. Find a supplier of equipment and food
Equipment elements and food supplies will directly affect the quality and satisfaction of customers with the restaurant. Reliable, reliable equipment and raw materials with reasonable prices should be built and maintained to ensure success for the restaurant.
8. Restaurant Operation Process Design
When you start a restaurant, you have to think carefully about how to arrange the entire layout to meet the objectives set out in the menu, as well as the concepts and brands you target.
Your main goal is to create a systematic flow from front to back, from the customer desk to the place of the order reception to the kitchen and back. Once the basic layout is set, you can design and decorate the restaurant.
You can refer to the restaurant interior design ideas and the scientific brewing counter settings to complete the restaurant operation process.
9. Hiring appropriate staff
An important step when opening a restaurant is to hire staff for restaurant activities every day. Consider all positions that should be filled at the restaurant before proceeding to hire. Recruitment includes management and supervision, purchasing staff of food and beverages, warehouse staff, chefs, real people, serving, sanitary staff, protection, marketing and advertising, cashier and accountant and bar-making staff ,…
For formal staff or time, look for candidates with previous experience, high multitasking, work quickly and efficiently. All employees can work well in groups and keep calm under high pressure. Direct employee contact with customers needs to meet special social skills, articulate, fancy appearance and listening.
While job placement may vary based on the needs of your restaurant business, some of the placements you need to include:
- Chef
- Management – Monitoring
- Kitchen accessories
- Cleaning staff
- The Dispensing agent
- Protect
- The next person
- Marketing Staff – PR
10. Advertise your Restaurant
Advertising is important for many reasons. First and most importantly, potential customers can find information about the restaurant. Secondly, they will feel excited to try new dishes. Here are some tips to make the attraction with customers around the restaurant:
Using social media: Create a Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram account to share news and pictures of restaurants. The images and referrals must communicate your brand. Make sure the image of the dish or process is prepared to attract potential guests. Images need to be beautiful and crisp.
Attractive website builders: The restaurant’s website must be easy to navigate and design to showcase brand features. Include basic information about your restaurant, address, phone number, opening hours and menus.
Create a Gold page account for restaurants: Potential customers will easily find a restaurant if listed on the Vietnam Yellow page as this is the business directory. Customers can also leave comments after visiting.
Declare Google business: to attract customers around the restaurant area, when customers search for the closest restaurant, the chances of your restaurant will appear higher. The information you introduce to customers includes store photos, dishes, opening times, food menus and customer reviews with the restaurant.
Join the food-related sites: Foody, the place to eat with the advantage is the large amount of followers, when joining these websites to help you reach the right amount of potential customers in the area you open. Besides, fast delivery services such as Grab Food, Delivery Now also help you reach customers through the restaurant’s promotions or in conjunction with vendors.
Use a dedicated client program: You can think about building a customer-friendly marketing program for your restaurant. Through this program you can build your customers ‘ trust or increase sales or to stimulate the experience of new cuisines.
Create an email list: When sending creative emails that convey your brand, it is important to choose the content that is relevant to the customer group you are aiming for. For example, sending special offers to customers who book a desk or submitting a delivery coupon to customers who order online are great ideas.
Offer a new guest promotion: Provide guests with the first time a free drink or a small dessert. Customers will remember your special hospitality, and they will be more likely to introduce the restaurant and actively return.
Consider organizing a grand opening and other events: you can organize events to create echoes and ongoing attraction around the restaurant, such as tasting food, contests , the whole or partial experience of the menu at a shocking price.
11. Organization running experiments
Have you heard the old adage “perfect practice.” The opening of the restaurant too. Consider organizing a trial opening for some people to limit before the wide opening. This “test run” strategy allows you to focus on a specific service hours to see where your employees can work more efficiently. Here are a few common ideas:
Provides a “test” menu: Provide half of what’s on your complete menu. It reduces stress for new employees and encourages customers to come back to see the full menu revealed.
Don’t operate all day: Consider serving breakfast and lunch only for 4 days, followed by dinner on Thursday.
Hold lucky hours “flashy” with menu items and signature drinks.
Tell friends and family about free dishes, for the purpose of inviting them to train your staff in processing and serving.
Organize a trial with customers and businesses around the restaurant. This will help you attract local guests, with the goal they will come back and decide to choose your restaurant when you have friends and colleagues to visit.
Bringing the new restaurant into operation and starting to have revenue is an easy job. However, when the development of the restaurant industry and the trend of using the food service continued to grow, it was the opportunity for the restaurant to have the difference gained the advantage. With blueprint and building unique ideas, your restaurant can fully flourished.
