OT - Anyone here own a restaurant?

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
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"


Go to some food shows, you'll be amazed of the excellent food you can get
that is precooked or mass prepared. Sysco foods is a good start. They can
help you with menus, food deliveries, cooking equipment (that is a huge
expense).

We have a small restaurant as a supplement to one of our businesses and on
weekends it is very busy but for the amount of work the register receipts
are lousy (when compared to our other business). You have to sell a lot of
$4.00 hamburgers, $2.00 hotdogs etc. to make a decent amount of money.

--------------------------------------------------
DW

You have to sell a lot of $4.00 hamburgers, $2.00 hotdogs etc. to make a
decent amount of money.

True. However, I see a restaurant as a necessary adjunct to the Inn, nothing
more.

If it were to merely break even -- but double out hotel business -- I'd be a
happy guy. :-)

God knows it's a great location. They're building a Super Wal-Mart down the
road from us (if it ever gets out of court), which should increase traffic,
oh, 5000% or so?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:Qv7xf.690299$x96.490384@attbi_s72...
You have to sell a lot of $4.00 hamburgers, $2.00 hotdogs etc. to make a
decent amount of money.

True. However, I see a restaurant as a necessary adjunct to the Inn,
nothing more.

If it were to merely break even -- but double out hotel business -- I'd be
a happy guy. :-)

God knows it's a great location. They're building a Super Wal-Mart down
the road from us (if it ever gets out of court), which should increase
traffic, oh, 5000% or so?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


Our restaurant is just a convenience to our customers as well. Like I said
it is not a big money maker but it is just another nice perk for our
customers.

There is a really nice restaurant at MIE (Vince's if I recall correctly)
that gets more local non-aviation folks as customers than anything else. It
is an upscale dinner restaurant that really seems to work well with lots of
old aviation memorabilia.

-------------------------------------
DW

Our restaurant is just a convenience to our customers as well. Like I said
it is not a big money maker but it is just another nice perk for our
customers.
There is a really nice restaurant at MIE (Vince's if I recall correctly)
that gets more local non-aviation folks as customers than anything else. It
is an upscale dinner restaurant that really seems to work well with lots of
old aviation memorabilia.

I have been going to Vince's off and on for over twenty years. It is
80nm west of KOSU/Don Scott Field, Columbus OH. It has changes hands
more than five times that I know of in this time.
They do a lot of business with the Ball State University students.

I agree a restaurant is a great idea. But the business is tough.

If I were you I'd build the restaurant and lease it to someone with proven
experience in the biz.



"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:Qv7xf.690299$x96.490384@attbi_s72...
You have to sell a lot of $4.00 hamburgers, $2.00 hotdogs etc. to make a
decent amount of money.

True. However, I see a restaurant as a necessary adjunct to the Inn,
nothing more.

If it were to merely break even -- but double out hotel business -- I'd be
a happy guy. :-)

God knows it's a great location. They're building a Super Wal-Mart down
the road from us (if it ever gets out of court), which should increase
traffic, oh, 5000% or so?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

If I were you I'd build the restaurant and lease it to someone with proven
experience in the biz.

Great idea.

Where do you find these mythic creatures?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:EO9xf.690601$x96.350292@attbi_s72...
If I were you I'd build the restaurant and lease it to someone with
proven experience in the biz.

Great idea.

Where do you find these mythic creatures?
--
Jay Honeck


When your ready to learn more and go on to the next phase call Sysco Foods
or McFarland, they help people START restaurants.

---------------------------------------------
DW

Not a clue but I'd guess there are restaurant management magazines out there
where you could advertise for them.


"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:EO9xf.690601$x96.350292@attbi_s72...
If I were you I'd build the restaurant and lease it to someone with
proven experience in the biz.

Great idea.

Where do you find these mythic creatures?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I've never run a restaurant, but I've heard it's a very slim margin
business. I've been a restaurant customer in many restaurants that have
run up against their margins. They had one choice: either raise their
prices, or lower their quality. Every restaurant that chose the latter
failed.

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

Jose wrote:
I've never run a restaurant, but I've heard it's a very slim margin
business. I've been a restaurant customer in many restaurants that have
run up against their margins. They had one choice: either raise their
prices, or lower their quality. Every restaurant that chose the latter
failed.

Slim margins are OK. You just have to do it over and over and over and
over .... again. Grocery stores are good at it.