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Opening a restaurant is not rocket science but a few simple mistakes especially in the early stages can mean success or failure. Deciding to become a restaurant owner is always risky business. Opening up is the easy part. Keeping the doors open and the seats filled is where it gets tricky. There is a whole smorgasbord of things to consider before blindly rushing forward.

If you do not own the building where you plan to open your business, you will have to enter into a lease arrangement with the landlord. Typically these leases require a long term commitment, which means that you had better investigate thoroughly the feasibility of that location. If you select a bad location and try to get out early, you could be faced with law suits or stiff penalties.

The initial capital expenditures for building lease, leasehold improvements, outfitting the kitchen, seating, lighting, flooring and all other pre-opening costs can easily reach $200,000 or more. And if you pour all your money into the wrong location, that money is as good as gone. You cant take the leasehold improvements with you. On the other hand, the owner of a mobile food business has a substantially lower initial investment with a much smaller risk factor. If things do not work out at one location, he can hook up his concession trailer and bring his business to customers at a different location. And take his entire investment along with him.

In the initial 6-12 months or longer, be prepared to spend long hours and weekends away from your friends and family. If you are fortunate enough to make it, it will be due to a combination of hard work and dumb luck. If, on the other hand, your efforts prove futile, be prepared for the inevitable, specifically, you ending up as another statistic in the food industry, without friends, family or savings to fall back on.

Staffing a restaurant and keeping it staffed will be one of the most difficult and time consuming tasks the new restaurant owner will face. Unless you have a large family and friends to tap from, you will be constantly hiring, training and firing both full-time and part-time employees.

Managing a restaurant staff is a difficult task. It can be one headache after another. Employers find that many restaurant employees are unreliable and uncooperative. The restaurant business is plagued with staff turnovers. To add insult to injury your good employees are often wooed away by your competitors.

There are a number of other factors to take into consideration which will be covered in detail in subsequent articles. The list includes city ordinances and Health Department rules and regulations; advertising and marketing; menu selections; working capital reserves; inventory control; waste; bookkeeping; incorporation; income taxes, payroll and more. Running a successful restaurant is not a one-man job. You need a team of professional dedicated people and even then it never runs smoothly.

Opening a restaurant in the best of times is difficult. A weak economy certainly doesnt help. Before you dive in head first, do your homework and weigh all your options. One journalist jokingly commented that, If your restaurant is failing at least you dont have to worry about competition. On the other hand, if you are successful, that too may be short-lived as competitors move into your area, to capitalize on your new found wealth, with bigger and fancier restaurants to steal your customers away.