5 Myths About Running Your Own Restaurant

Be it a fine-dining experience, or a quaint coffee shop, opening and running your own restaurant is a dream for many. Whether you’re fresh out of college, full of drive and passion, or you’ve already had and raised kids, worked in many areas and have built up years of work experience, the restaurant industry can be quite unforgiving.
With that in mind, there are 5 common myths that are common in running your own restaurant. Take attentive note to these so that you can focus on making a flawless transition into becoming a restaurant owner.

If you’re passionate about food, you can run a successful restaurant.
Many foodies think that their love for food will enable them to run a successful, highly-sought after restaurant. Of course, the food is the heart and soul of your enterprise, but if you’re running the place, you have a hundred things to be concerned with, and the food is not one of them. You need to be concerned with the staff, payroll, day-to-day operations, handling guests – the food is the one thing you hand over to your head chef.

You have flexible hours.
This is not entirely true. Sure, you (hopefully) have highly trained staff and other managers who can cover for you for a few hours or when you need a day off, but your weekends and holidays are essentially gone. If you run a coffee or breakfast place, say goodbye to your mornings, and the same for nights, if you run a restaurant, pub or bar. The fast-paced, high-stress nature of a restaurant doesn’t allow you to take it easy – when you’re at work, you’re working nonstop for those x amount of hours, which may be more than a regular 9-5.

You have a large contact base, so of course your restaurant will be a success.
Having hundreds of friends to contact for your grand opening is great, but will they actually show up? Hopefully they will, but you have to remember that they all work and have lives as well, and while they may show up the first day of business, or to some special events, you can’t rely on them to constantly make time to come and spend money in your establishment.

It’s a great way to combine your work and social life.

Conversely from the previous point, they may be showing up a little too much. It may seem like a great way to stay connected with friends while you’re working, but it can also be highly distracting.
If you’re at the bar or sitting at their table all night, your staff could be struggling without you even noticing it, then you’ll have bigger issues on your hands, and your friends’ experience may suffer in turn.

Since you run the restaurant, you get to call all the shots.

A restaurant is a highly collaborative workplace. While you’re in charge of the space, you also have to deal with suppliers, locals, your chef, your staff – there needs to be compromise in all areas. If the people you work with are unhappy with your dictator style, you won’t have a restaurant to run.

All these myths are common in the restaurant business. Being a restaurant owner is hard work but that hard works pays off !