OT - Anyone here own a restaurant?

Does the university have a program in hospitality? If so, the
faculty will probably have the experience you need. Otherwise,
you may want to contact some of the schools (Johnson & Wales,
Colorado Culinary Arts, Food Network, etc) about it.

It's a business -- you need a business plan, etc.

You may also want to contact some of the more successful
restaurants at airports. These shops really do a very
large catering business for the bizjets, etc. in addition to
the walk-in crowd. "Perfect Landing" at APA is a great
example. They used to be open only for breakfast & lunch but
last year also opened for dinner (usually only the locals will
be there for dinner). Booming business.

If the school has a hotel & restaurant program, then they'll
be delighted to use you as an internship source! Experience
for the students, affordable labor for you.

"Martin Hotze" wrote in message ...
if you have no idea on how to run it: stay away from it, better: run!
I've been in far too many hotels/restaurants with poor management followed
by poor service and crap meals (here in Europe and in the US). And with no
fundamental training you might succeed with a hotel, but not with a
restaurant, at least here in central Europe.

Awh, 'ell, Jay's in Iowa... When in doubt, serve corn and the locals will be
happy... It's not like they know what *real* BBQ is all about...

"Grumman-581" wrote in message
...
"Martin Hotze" wrote in message ...
if you have no idea on how to run it: stay away from it,
better: run! I've been in far too many hotels/restaurants with
poor management followed by poor service and crap meals (here in
Europe and in the US). And with no fundamental training you might
succeed with a hotel, but not with a restaurant, at least here in
central Europe.

Awh, 'ell, Jay's in Iowa... When in doubt, serve corn and the locals
will be happy... It's not like they know what *real* BBQ is all about...

But is that a viable business plan? To me, it would make more sense to
physically integrate the restaurant with the hotel. Then, the locals can
eat and enjoy themselves, while visitors are not inconvenienced.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message news:

Anyone here own/operate/manage a restaurant? Got any words of advice?
Any advice on finding someone who DOES know something about
restaurants?

Loads of experience. Want to do it yourself? Likely OK. Want to hire
people to run it for you. Not OK. That's it in a nutshell. I can spare a
few moments on private email if you wish.

moo

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?

There are quite a few discouraging remarks on this subject. If only
guaranteed successes were executed, we wouldn't have any businesses at all.

My advice is to analyze restaurants of this ilk that have failed. I
know the 4th Fighter Group did and it was located right next to Orlando
Executive Airport. (Totally out of control at the end... the waiter and
the cook were shoving each other!)

And look for a partner that knows the business. Maybe give him/her a
slice of the Inn in turn for running the restaurant.

Finally, figure out just how bad the damage will be if it does fail.
Consider the impact on your family... does that mean your kids won't go
to college because you blew all your savings?

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"

"Avilon"

--Bill

"Death Wish Cafe"

Will it be adjacent to the airport property and as such will pilots be
able
to taxi up there to the restaurant, tie their plane down, and eat?

Sadly, no. But it will be right across a small road from the fence, and
we've tentatively received permission to allow planes to park on the other
side of the fence. (We'll have to put in a gate.)

It'll be maybe a 100 yard walk.

One thing that you might want to consider is
differentiating your restaurant from other local restaurants by way of
menu... My experience up there in Iowa while on contract for Rockwell
Collins was that there are NO good BBQ restaurants in the entire state.

Agreed, but from a slightly different angle.

Iowa City is like the "anti-Iowa" in many ways. It's got dozens of
"fru-fru" restaurants (a rarity in the rest of Iowa), thanks to the
University crowd, all of which serve tiny portions at outrageous prices.
You can get excellent Indian, Vegetarian, Mediterranean, Japanese, French,
and California (whatever *that* is) cuisine -- but you CAN'T get a decent
burger or breakfast served all day for less than $15 per person.

IMHO, a restaurant with those two items, reasonably priced and served fresh,
would make a mint in this goofy town.
--
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