Danny Meyer has been successful in the restaurant industry for over 25 years, founding and managing restaurants such as Eleven Madison Park, Union Square Cafe, Blue Smoke, and Shake Shack, among others.
He did a video interview here, which runs 25 minutes, but the advice about starting a restaurant is all in the last five minutes or so.
The highlights for me were his three things that you need to ask yourself about whether you really want to start a restaurant and his advice on getting experience.
He said you need to ask yourself:
- Do you love food and the culinary experience
- Do you love serving others and get joy from doing so
- Are you a competitive person who can stay at the top of the game
He comes from a fine dining background, although the Shake Shack is a more casual restaurant but he obviously is in it for the love of food. I don’t know that you have to be as passionate as he is to be successful but you do obviously need to have some interest in what you are serving.
I think the second point is much more critical. If you don’t like people and can’t stand to interact with them and if serving someone a great meal isn’t something you get pleasure from- even if it is a fast food meal or an ice cream cone- then you really should reconsider your choice. The restaurant business is the ultimate service business- if you don’t like it or you can’t see yourself being passionate about ensuring an amazing experience for every single one of your guests then you probably won’t have the right attitude to make this work. If the idea of even one person leaving your restaurant dissatisfied makes you feel bad, then you are on the right track.
The third point is valid but I think from a bigger picture you should ask yourself are you enough of a business person to handle the work and if not can you partner with someone who can handle running the business as a business? If not, you can run into real trouble even if you get everything else right.
His other suggestion at the end of the video was that if you are thinking about the industry then get a job in it and don’t worry if it isn’t a management job. You don’t need to be a manager to learn a ton about how a restaurant works and whether or not it is a good fit for your aspirations.I heartily agree. While being a manager certainly gets you close to all aspects of running a restaurant you can still learn a ton of things about the business by simply working in the kitchen, as a server or a host or at the front counter. Keep your eyes open, ask smart questions and watch how things work.
Even just a few months of this is going to be a huge asset- it was the basis for the start of a restaurant success story I wrote about recently where the founder worked for no pay for three months to learn the business and turned that experience into a $22 million dollar restaurant empire.
He also pointed out one of my frequent refrains- persistence is the key to restaurant success and if you stick with it you will get there. The restaurant industry is no riskier than any other as long as you start with a solid restaurant business plan and follow through with uncompromising persistence.
Quoted Article Source Link: Yahoo
