OT - Anyone here own a restaurant?

Jay Honeck wrote:
So the land adjacent to the inn is for sale, and we want to put an
aviation themed restaurant on the site. It'll be the perfect fly-in
restaurant, with breakfast all day, decent prices, ugly waitresses, and
a 2nd-floor patio over-looking the airport. We want to call it "the
Tower", and it'll have a great view of the runways!

Trouble of it is, we don't know *anything* about running a restaurant.
Now, this never stopped us before -- we didn't know anything about
hotels, either -- but, hey, this sounds WAY more complicated, from my
uneducated standpoint.

Anyone here own/operate/manage a restaurant? Got any words of advice?
Any advice on finding someone who DOES know something about
restaurants?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

From what I've seen the "airport" restaurants don't do well, the local
restaurants that happen to be at the airport do very well. My advice
would be to hire the best managers/chefs/etc. you can and don't plan on
making money for a while.

Margy

From what I've seen the "airport" restaurants don't do well, the local
restaurants that happen to be at the airport do very well. My advice
would be to hire the best managers/chefs/etc. you can and don't plan on
making money for a while.

Well, we're pretty good at that last part!

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

George Patterson wrote:
Jay Honeck wrote:

We also want to make the first floor available for banquets. Banquet
halls are in very short supply in Iowa City, for some reason.


In that case, you might collaborate with some local organization. Here,
many fraternal orgs (like the Knights of Columbus) rent out their
meeting halls as banquet halls. Perhaps you could do the reverse.

There's also a diner in Edison, NJ (called "The Pines" for some reason
not involving trees that I can see) that does exactly what you have in
mind. Most of the money comes from being a typical New Jersey diner, but
they have room for banquet hosting.

Jersey diners are real phenomenae. Large meals, lots of selections,
reasonable prices, and open long hours. Don't know how they do it.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.
That's what he should open!! A real, New Jersey Diner! Start thinking
stainless steel, greek flair to everything (read stuffed grape leaves on
the salad bar), good burgers, long hours, a bar helps. Open 24 hours.
Market to the grad school crowd, they have some $$, stay up at all hours
and will be a good base. Add a party room (book the room and the hotel,
get as smashed as you want, walk to your room). It would be great.

Margy

_________________________________________
That's what he should open!! A real, New Jersey Diner! Start thinking
stainless steel, greek flair to everything (read stuffed grape leaves
on
the salad bar), good burgers, long hours, a bar helps. Open 24 hours.
Market to the grad school crowd, they have some $$, stay up at all
hours
and will be a good base. Add a party room (book the room and the
hotel,
get as smashed as you want, walk to your room). It would be great.

Margy
_________________________________________

That's a great idea Margy. When I was in college, we always stayed up
longer than most places were willing stay open.

The Monk

Margy wrote:

That's what he should open!! A real, New Jersey Diner! Start thinking
stainless steel, greek flair to everything (read stuffed grape leaves on
the salad bar), good burgers, long hours, a bar helps. Open 24 hours.

And the desert cabinet is unbelievable! I've never actually eaten one, since I'm
stuffed long before desert time, but they just look soooo good!

Never been to one with a bar.

Jay, if you fly in for a little research, we'll take you up to the one on Easton
Avenue in Franklin Township.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

Jay, if you fly in for a little research, we'll take you up to the one on
Easton Avenue in Franklin Township.

Thanks! I just may take you up on that later this year.

We're still trying to get the danged property at this point. It's been a
very frustrating ride...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

We're still trying to get the danged property at this point. It's been a
very frustrating ride...

So... THIS is the source of your frustration then? :^)

The Monk

We're still trying to get the danged property at this point. It's been a
very frustrating ride...

So... THIS is the source of your frustration then? :^)

Nah. We'll get it. It's just a matter of patience.

However, regarding our "other" thread about government workers, I really do
resent the way our government is structured and run. (Trust me, the way
government workers have become a privileged class of employees is only a
very minor gripe, in the overall scheme of things.)

Every day I am in business (and this is my third one, now, since 1988)
convinces me more and more that the only thing that will fix the horrible
mess we're in is either (a) a revolution, (b) a complete financial collapse,
ala the 1929 crash, or (c) a completely new political party that will
capture the imagination of the electorate, and actually deliver.

The scary thing is that (c) is our best-case scenario -- and we've all seen
what happens when things get so bad that we need a White Knight political
party to "save the day"...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

you can also lower the temperature for 1 degree C, this saves alsoa lot of
money.

.... at the expense of comfort. One degree makes a big difference, and
if a person comes to a hotel and is not comfortable, they will likely
not return.

Jose
--
Money: what you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

In article ,
Jose wrote:

you can also lower the temperature for 1 degree C, this saves alsoa lot of
money.

... at the expense of comfort. One degree makes a big difference, and
if a person comes to a hotel and is not comfortable, they will likely
not return.

I don't recall being in a US hotel room where I couldn't adjust the room
temperature.

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate