A detailed business plan is an incredibly efficient way to improve your restaurant. This business plan will vary depending on the type of food operation you’re conducting and where it’s located. Below are the key elements in a restaurant business plan. This is meant to offer an in-depth analysis of the top strategies to improve your business. These tips are in no set order of importance, as this can depend on your restaurant’s strengths and weaknesses.
Executive Summary
This is the first section of any business plan. The executive summary introduces a brief summary of the business plan. It includes a mission statement, proposed concept on how you plan to succeed, an overview of potential costs, and an anticipated return on investment. Be sure to use this opportunity to express your restaurant’s values and goals, too. It’s important to keep the executive summary professional if you plan on attracting investors.
Company Description
The company description or overview explains information regarding the restaurant’s upper-management or ownership. It introduces the ownership structure, location, and business concept. You should also include a vision for the customer experience. Use this opportunity to highlight the service style, design, layout, theme, and other parts of your restaurant you find unique and mentionable.
Market Analysis
A market or industry analysis describes the current market sector your restaurant will exist in. This breaks down into your target market, location analysis, and competitive analysis. Your target market is the way your restaurant will stand out compared to your competitors, and the group to which you’ll tailor your services. Your customer base (targeted demographics, characteristics, behaviors) makes up this target market. Similarly, your location analysis describes the ideal location where you feel your restaurant best operates. Describe a city or general area you feel could make your restaurant thrive and why this relates to your target market. It’s also important you understand the other businesses near your ideal location. Pay attention to the number of other restaurants there are, what types of restaurants they are, and the customers these restaurants attract—your investors will want all this information.
Marketing
This section explains your proposed marketing strategy to promote your restaurant and attract your target market. Remember to identify the specific marketing strategies you plan on utilizing. Keep in mind both in-person and online techniques. Public relations advertising, customer loyalty, and social media are all optimal marketing strategies to utilize.
Operations Plan
An operations plan illustrates how your business will operate on a given day. This includes staff, customer service policies, safety procedures, and point-of-sale and other systems. With regard to your staffing, you must consider what positions you will need and who will fill them. Keep note of how you plan to establish a positive work environment and keep employees satisfied. Additionally, this ties into how much you plan on paying each position, how you plan on recruiting staff, and how many people you’ll need for each position.
Furthermore, with great staff comes customer service and customer satisfaction. You should include how you expect to provide excellent service, encouraging guests to come back time and time again. Additionally, layout what values, policies, and procedures you will implement to provide a consistently positive experience. Last, don’t forget to include your proposed point-of-sale system and other systems. Unlike other POS systems where you might need to include additional management systems, our POS system includes top functionality to improve your restaurant’s service. This includes fully-integrated credit card processing hardware, payroll accountability, inventory, customizable navigation systems to fit your menu, as well as other unique functions.
Menu
A sample menu is one of the most important aspects of a restaurant business plan. As a food service industry, you need to highlight the food you expect to serve to customers. You should include a sample menu in your business plan, even if you still plan on adjusting it further. This allows you to experiment with a logo or brand design and gives you an opportunity to price out your items.
External Help
Use this section to list any possible help you may receive. Include any external businesses or practices—lawyers, accountants, suppliers—you may consider hiring in the future. This shows your investors the seriousness of your operation, as well as any external costs you expect. This gives you a more accurate cost analysis to show investors—plus, you can keep it for your own records as well.
Financial Analysis
The financial plan is another essential aspect of your restaurant plan. This shows investors a breakdown of spending, cost comparisons, and projected revenue. Your financial analysis consists of an investment plan, projected profit and loss statement, break-even analysis, and expected cash flow. Your investment plan is the initial statement you hope to receive and your first year expected spending. This spending includes your kitchen equipment, furniture, payroll, legal fees, marketing, and working capital. All these expected costs feed into the projected profit and loss statement. This statement is an estimated breakdown of all various costs and sales numbers based on your restaurant, target market, and existing market within your location.
You should also include a break-even analysis that identifies the revenue amount you expect to earn each month to break even with all overhead and operational costs. Don’t forget to include all variable costs. Finally, your expected cash flow depends on your anticipated inventory, staff size, and the payroll. Your cash flow analysis will show investors that your restaurant will support itself through bad months on top of good months.
A business plan like this, when paired with our POS system will boost your restaurant’s success. Our advanced system will give you an advantage over your competitors. With our POS system, you can include our EatOnTheWeb online ordering platform or Rapid Server POS tablets. Both are fully integrated with our POS software and are customizable to your restaurant. Additionally, we don’t charge a percentage processing fee like other POS processing companies, allowing you to keep the profits you’ve earned.
