Cooking up a Successful Restaurant: A Recipe for Success

Recipe Overview

Start out with dreams. Restaurants are based on this magical ingredient. Restaurants are not created just to sell tasty delicacies, but rather to showcase desires, ambitions, and personal fancy. They are selfish in that way, as only the creator truly understands the artistry they put into their work. 

So start with a dream. Grab a sheet of paper and sketch out what the kitchen would look like. Then spend countless hours pondering whether the crispy Po’Boy should have jerk seasoning or traditional blackening spice. It’s all up to you, the creator! Really, anything is possible! It’s all about what you fancy. How nifty can you get?

Ingredients

1. Dreams
2. Indulgence
3. Personality
4. Orientation
5. Menu selections
6. The right help
7. Practice
8. Satisfaction

Recipe Steps

Step One

Mentioned above, the main ingredient is dreams. Don’t just dive into menu options, as those are a couple ingredients down the list. Start out thinking big. Where will this magical eatery be located? Dubai? Why there? Is it because that little community bike path, with all of its Mom-and-Pop cafes, makes you jealous? What is it about owning a little diner that gets you excited? It’s dreamy to think about owning your own place, and having the power to determine your own fate. You won’t just be working for the man. YOU will be the man! 

Step Two 

Second comes the indulgence. Let yourself go. Dive into that secret selfishness that you keep buried, hidden away from prying eyes. Society says we’re not supposed to be selfish. That fascination with ourselves is a way to stick your thumb in the eye of communal needs. But restaurants are all about selfish indulgence! That’s what makes them so amazing! When you walk into a funky restaurant, haven’t you ever wondered who in TF thought up such a place? Some eateries are just plain weird, and those are truly the best ones. One of my favorite home town restaurants is inside a one hundred year old barn and the original owner collected the detritus of yesteryear as ceiling decorations. Literally, there’s wagons, farm equipment, mining tools, college dorm furniture, old video games, you name it, chained and dangling from the rafters. Another favorite of mine is in Pleasantville, Iowa and features an entire wall of bad taxidermy from one of the local long lost heroes. There’s nothing like biting into fried cheese balls while the demented face of a poorly-stuffed raccoon stares greedily at you. But there’s magic in that. The ambience is a spell that someone in the distant past dreamt up and felt necessary to share. A spell to cast upon you.

Step Three

Step Three is adding meat to the bones of your dreams. A restaurant isn’t just a hollow shell, a vacant food distribution warehouse. No! Your cafe needs personality. What will it look like? Draw up some plans, and please, please don’t make it boring! Visit a couple of funky restaurants first and think about what makes them special. Then go visit chain restaurants, and see how those are carbon copies of each other. Chains were someone’s dreams too, but franchising is a whole different beast. Let’s stick with your creativity and start from scratch. Begin this step by drawing up some floor plans, and daydreaming about the layout. Think big too! How will people feel when they come in? Will they be welcomed and smile? Will they be intrigued at your eccentricity? Will they be terrified? Seriously, have you ever stepped into a college dive cafe that sells food just as a way to ensure that young binge drinkers have some kind of positive calories in their systems? Some of those bars are creepy and dungeonesque. It’s really up to you. So think about your floor plan. Ponder the walls and the type of art you’ll have. Framed pictures? Will you hang the works of local artists that use your space as a for-profit gallery? An amazing mural showpiece that acts as a focal point for patron conversation? Bizarre quotes from your favorite authors? Actually, those might be best relegated to the bathrooms. 

Step Four

Next, think about where you’ll actually cook. What will your kitchen look like? Sometimes the kitchen layout is dependent on your menu, but as an old restaurant boss once told me, “walls can be moved.” So move your walls! Set up the kitchen based on how YOU work. If your restaurant is a sit down type of place, then you’ll want to serve drinks so your customers don’t stand around getting antsy. Give them something to talk about. That buys you time to prepare their delicious meal. You don’t need an open kitchen for that. But what if you want a walk-in kind of place, where people order off the menu board and then wait while you prepare it? Better move fast if that’s the case, and letting them see your culinary technique can give them something to do while they’re standing there. Impress them with how fast you work, but get theatrical with it and sprinkle your ingredients onto their dish like you’re a mad scientist. Or do your best Pollack impression, looking for that perfect paint drip. Appear serious too, like this particular person’s order is the most important thing you’ve ever cooked in your life. Seriously, people enjoy these kinds of kitchen antics, especially when they’re positive. I worked in a biker bar once and watched the heavily tattooed head chef, Charlie, bellow profanities at a customer who simply inquired about the possibility of adding blue cheese to his burger. Don’t be like Charlie! 

Step 5

Now it’s time to draft up your menu. Don’t get yourself in over your head. Prepare entrees YOU know how to make. If you have to go watching YouTube videos on cooking basics, you’re setting yourself up for disaster. It only takes one crap meal to be sent back for every customer in the place to wonder if you’ve got the chops to make this cafe work. Whatever is on your menu needs to be not just within your wheelhouse of skills, but also what YOU want to eat yourself. Restaurant patrons are not stupid. They’re savvy enough to know if a menu item has personality to it. Really, any nobody with a grill can cook a burger, so what makes yours so special? Figure that out, because that’s what your customers want. They want to taste you! They want to eat your dreams. If you like a menu item enough to share, then you’ll turn customers into devotees. And that’s what you’re really after! So make the menu funky. Bring it to life. Make it you!

Step Six

This one is crucial. You can’t operate a restaurant without help. So who’s on your team? Again, channel your personality here and avoid the Charlie’s of the world. Chefs can be some of the damned surliest people in the world, so find the ones that will help you achieve your dreams. Seek out those people who aren’t afraid to dream with you. Some of the best restaurants I’ve worked in featured a boss that would listen to the dreams of their staff, and build those dreams into the restaurant itself. Give your staff room to devise daily features. Give them that voice. Empower them to see themselves not just as paid employees, but rather dreamers marching right alongside you. And whatever you do, don’t hire your spouse! Trust me, that never works. Take a step back from that one, and have spaces where the two of you can be in love and other spaces where the two of you can be individuals. The last thing your staff or your customers want to see or hear is the two of you arguing over how many chocolate chips should be in the banana pancakes. Petty shit like that can sink your ship. 

Step Seven

Lucky Number Seven. This step is about bringing it all together. Don’t be afraid, or alarmed, if the first week is the epitome of hell on earth. NOTHING WILL WORK ON DAY ONE! A great restaurant has growing pains. They don’t just start out from the beginning sprinting along to victory. They take warm ups. They require skinned knees. They’ll have bumps and bruises. And that’s ok. Even consider a half price menu for the first week so anyone brave enough to step in during those first few days can give you some room to grow and figure things out. Just don’t let them see you cry. Crying is a totally normal part of those first days, so let the tears flow. Trust me, they’ll help. In fact, you’ll need them to keep yourself together.

Step Eight

This is it. You’re up and running. The last step is all about fun. Enjoy this. You’ve had time to put it all together, and now you’re living your dream. When you hit this step, your staff and your customers will see it. They’ll love you for it. So embrace it. You’ve earned it.