WHAT TO DO TO START THE BUFFET RESTAURANT?
Buffet is a new type of restaurant is popular in Vietnam and guests can find a buffet style of Vietnamese or foreign. The process of serving the BUFFET is different from other types of restaurants, the amount of food to be prepared and prepared to offer many challenges. The result leads to a number of differences when opening the buffet restaurant in contrast to the opening of traditional restaurants. We’ll clearly point out what you need to know and focus on how to generate revenue, the characteristics of different parties, and the 8 steps you need to complete to open a Buffet restaurant.
What is a buffet?
Buffet is the form of offering a fixed price, allowing customers to use all food and eat as much as you like. Most of the buffet will have a theme that you will use for your menu, such as parties specializing in grilled meats or seafood, in addition to the subject by country such as Japanese or European American. Some buffets are also linked to the most popular Saigon hotels such as Blue Diamond, Hotel Nikko or Lotte Legend Hotel.
How does the Buffet make money?
Because restaurants need to make lots of food, you’re sure to always wonder how they earn money. To keep the profits, the restaurant prepares buffet needs to cut the most relevant costs, choose the raw materials carefully and use the customer psychology to arrange the buffet structure. Here are examples illustrating how restaurants can make money:
- Food preparation: Many buffets prepare food in large quantities so the buffet starts they just need to arrange the dishes are prepared in advance. Therefore, the restaurant can operate with a smaller support group and reduce labor costs at the stages.
- Low cost: As customers self-catering at parties, the restaurant needs only the service staff to bring drinks and table cleaning. You can dramatically cut the number of employees and reduce costs.
- Beverage pricing: Most buffets do not include drinks in the ticket price. In addition, many restaurants offer drinks at a price of 2-3 times the traditional restaurants, which increase their profits.
- Cut down on food costs: The BUFFET saves money by importing food sources in large quantities and is well preserved to save more money and increase profits.


Tips to increase the profits of the buffet
In addition to the above points there are some clever tricks and tactics you can apply to help reduce feed costs during buffets and increase profits:
- Use a large serving spoon with many dishes such as rice, stir fried noodles and vegetables. But use smaller spoons or clamps at stations that serve high protein and protein dishes so customers use less food.
- Add eye-catching salads to attract customers in your buffet. Some patrons start a meal with salads, soups or breads, which will fill them with them so they will use less expensive items.
- Use a small food tray and no deep bottoms for customers to see food in a row and you’ll take less food for each time, which helps you minimize the dropped food and save on food costs.


8 Steps to open buffet Restaurant
Starting to build a new restaurant can be tough and time consuming, especially if you are an inexperienced person. So we split the opening of a buffet restaurant into eight simple steps to guide you through the process.
1. Write a Business plan
The first step in doing business in any field, creating a solid business plan is always important. The Business plan lists important information about your business, such as an overview of the company, the type of restaurant that will serve, location, market analysis, and financial forecasts. The business plan not only provides guidance to open a buffet restaurant, but also can help you assess the interest that will collect or get funding with potential investors or borrow from the bank.


There are seven main parts of the business plan that you should make sure include:
- Business Plan Summary: a length of one to four pages about your business and everything else in your business plan. However it should be written eventually even though it is located in the first position before the business plan.
- Company Overview: Restaurant overview, you will write details and outline management process-operating and answering important questions such as Target customers and niche market oriented?
- Market Analysis: Market analysis is where you break down the demographic of target customers and competitors in a geographic area will open the restaurant. See the SWOT analysis to get a more accurate view of the market you’re looking for.
- Provider: This section is where you will list what foods will need to prepare for the buffet and where to source the competitive price of raw materials with reasonable quality.
- Management plan: Outline the management structure you will make and the number of employees will need at the restaurant.
- Marketing strategy: Preparing marketing plans to ensure the good performance of restaurants including advertising, referrals, coupons and opening programs.
- Financial forecasts: Anticipate the cost and revenue of restaurants by referring to industry experts or through competitor analysis and market research.
2. Rent Trade Ground
When choosing a place for a new restaurant, pay attention to the following criteria most important when choosing:
Visibility around and accessibility: choose a place where motorists or walking can be easily seen. In addition, prioritize the location with parking, easy to walk or move by car.
Customer: Ensure the target market is aligned with the demographics of the region.
Minimum cost and wage: it is important to ensure that labor costs do not reduce the profitability of the restaurant. 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. If competing directly with the restaurant has the brand and the concept of serving clearly with the customer is not smart and should have the choice accordingly.
When it comes to choosing space and business locations, we recommend hiring. As it allows you to be more flexible in case you want to decide whether to expand or have issues that arise or change other business methods.
3. Licenses and licenses
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 meet the legal advisory units to do so.
4. What equipment do you need?
There are many devices you will need in your kitchen that will depend on the type of buffet you are going to open and the specific type of recipe you will be doing. However, there are a few basic devices that will be needed. To easily prepare your kitchen and showcase space, you should consult our consultants, restaurant designers or professional kitchen equipment vendors to get the best preparation.
5. Buffet Layout Design
After you have decided to arrange for the kitchen and order all the necessary equipment, you can focus on the customer service areas, the dining space design and the actual buffet path. When choosing the design and layout for the restaurant space, you should consider the idea and the aesthetic will perform, the mainstream tone, the way to illuminate the space and the type of furniture that will be used.
Once you have decided how many trays you will need, you should decide on how to position and arrange the dishes in the buffet. When the buffet is arranged, you should put a variety of starch and low-cost dishes, such as vegetable and fried rice, stir fried noodles, in front, so that customers get their plates filled before they come in high-cost dishes such as seafood and grilled meat.
Refer to the idea of perfecting your own restaurant interior design effectively from I.F.D Group. Besides, you can also be assured when choosing us as a restaurant interior construction unit with the ability to self-produce from the factory system with an area of nearly 7,000m2 with modern machinery.


6. Restaurant Staff Recruitment
Hiring talented employees is important to ensure the success of the restaurant. The first person you should hire, if you have not had someone in your head, that suggestion must be an executive chef. This is the person who usually manages the cooking staff and creates recipes to use in the buffet, so it is important that you work early with the chef to manage to complete the process.
After you find the executive chef, you can find a rental director, a kitchen, a serving staff, a toilet and other staff. However, it is important to remember that the restaurant can be operated with a smaller serving staff as the customer will serve themselves.
In addition, revenues also affect when continuously hiring, training and dismissing employees. Instead, invest in employees and keep them happy when working by listening to issues and having their own rewards and privileges.
7. Marketing and advertising Strategies
When the standard job is almost ready and the staff is well trained, you need to advertise the restaurant. Help people in the area excited about the opening ceremony. There are many ways to advertise your restaurant using the Internet.
Before you open a restaurant, you should create an account on all major social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. This allows you to interact with potential customers after the restaurant opens. But before opening, you can use the social network to provide information about the restaurant, buffet and promotions on the opening day. Or post in the fanpages and make a Facebook report to notify people in the area, or post photos on Instagram about dishes to attract the interest of potential customers.
Also, the great way to attract customers to pay attention to the restaurant is by taking care of the signs. If your restaurant is in a prime location, you can make a notice of the opening date and prepare flyers and special offers to increase the amount of guests when the restaurant starts opening.
8. Restaurant opened
The last step in the opening of a buffet restaurant. There are two main ways you can open restaurants: testing or official opening.
Open Test a buffet
Testing is basically a business quiz. Can test the opening of the restaurant to the public in the afternoon or more than one night. This provides your employees with some experience, allowing you to find potential problems or weaknesses and get feedback from customers. After testing, you can adjust the service, menu, or service space of the restaurant. Also, if the test is going well, you can create the excitement of the customer for the official opening ceremony.
Launching organization
After resolving any issues with the service or menu, your restaurant is ready for the official operation. Launching is also an excellent marketing opportunity, so you’ll want to advertise on social media accounts or have access to local journalists and bloggers.
Tips for opening a buffet
Here are some tips for opening the buffet to make sure that you have a good start:
- Choose a strategy date. Check the schedule and make sure that there aren’t any other events happening in the area along with your opening date.
- Provide coupons on opening day. A great way to get excited about the buffet and bring customers to your inaugural meeting is to offer coupons and special offers. For example, you can send 10% discount coupons or flyers for free drinks.
- Use banner and outdoor advertising. Adding signs and standee in sidewalks or front-door restaurants is a great way to inform people who walk or drive about opening the restaurant. Ensure full information includes the date and time of the opening so that potential customers can add it to their schedule.
Buffet can be a way to business efficiently, but to open a restaurant specializing in buffet buffets requires a lot of marketing plans and management expertise. But if you have a good business plan and strategy, it will help to make sure your restaurant is profitable and successful.