How To Open a Restaurant

Come up with an idea. This can take as little as an evening and the back of a napkin (why the back? is the implication that the front is stained with food? or has some kind of logo on it?) or as long as several years and as many consultants.

Find a place. Again, could take a moment or forever, depending on the kind of place you want. Sometimes place and idea come together, like when you walk by the neighborhood dive, see that it's closing, and decide to take it over. Which is kind of what happened in this case, albeit with a lot more steps than that.

Get financing. (This is the part that most neophytes don't take seriously enough, which is why most new restaurants fail.)

Design and build. Takes forever. Longer, really. It may seem like designing a restaurant would be a fun little job: pick some tables, some chairs, a little art. Nope. Try ventilation. Plumbing. Endless building codes. Oops, the hood is only 39 inches above the burners, and it needs to be 40 to pass inspection. Try again. And again. Don't forget the contractors' mistakes. My favorite one last week was when the plumbers made the hot water came out of the cold tap and the cold out of the hot. Which didn't seem like such a big deal until F sat down on the toilet and almost burned her butt.

Announce an opening date. Postpone it. Postpone it again. Postpone it again. When S first talked to his boss, maybe in February, the restaurant was scheduled for May. In the first week of May when he was hired, it was end of June. When we arrived in East Coast Big City in the middle of June, it was end of July. When he started working full-time a few weeks ago, it was August 15. When they published the front-page article in the Food section, it was last Tuesday.

Find a source for grassfed beef. Powerwash the basement floor. Build shelves. Rebuild shelves because they weren't sturdy enough. Buy smallwares. Test the wood grill outside in the rain. Hire some dishwashers. Fire the dishwashers because they suck. Hire some more dishwashers. Build a smoker. Write the menu. Rewrite the menu. Rewrite the menu again. Finalize the prices. Finalize the prices again.

Get your occupancy permit. Try out your recipes. Change your recipes. Teach your recipes to the line cooks. Scramble to get home before bedtime so you can see your children for 20 minutes because in the morning you have to leave before they wake up. Don't go away for Labor Day weekend because you are doing friends and family* which, alas, your family will miss while they are away for Labor Day weekend visiting some of their favorite blog-readers. (Hi M. Hi A. Hi A.)

Cross your fingers for opening day on Tuesday.



*Friends and family is when you invite your friends and family to come to the restaurant for free so that you can train your staff live. It's generally something of a disaster, so maybe missing it is not such a bad thing, especially since M will be feeding us, which is a very good thing.