The truth about the restaurant business!

Are you a foodie. There’s a strong possibility that a large percentage of gurgaonite’s like you love eating out. You love your food and have a great in depth gyaan about food. You want to visit a new restaurant almost every week. Most of us check in through facebook and Post it on our timeline or leading social media sites and share our feedback with friends. Well, Why not? Even the leading food information website, Zomato has its own way of making you participate and share your thoughts about your last visited restaurant. The social media has become a great tool for people to share about their experiences and in turn also helps restaurateur’s interact with their customers and closely listen to their feedback and make use of it to improve their services.

Gurgaon now has more than 1,000 restaurants and tons of take away’s which is a booming market due to the never ending sky-scrappers that are being built. New inhabitants flocking almost every week to a new condominium as we speak, leaving their small cities and coming to the booming city for work or college. Hence, the need for opening eateries has witnessed a boom never seen before.

A lot of us have ambitions to start our own restaurant. If you are a good listener, every second table in a restaurant you will hear people discussing about how good restaurant business is and the way its booming. Most of us often share a desire of opening one of your own with your friends. For some foodies it could be a nice hobby and for others it could be a profitable business if planned well and a well thought of idea. You must have heard that the two most important things in a good restaurant business are a) right location b) right team. These two makes or breaks any restaurant business.

One such young restaurateur shares his story with us. Paul, completed his degree in hospitality from Australia. He also has more than 15 years experience working in leading chains like Barista, Costa coffee, fine dine restaurants like Zinos and Italiano. He was greatly motivated by his father, who is a corporate chef in one of the leading hotel chain ‘Country Inns & Suites by Carlson‘. Like other foodies, Paul always wanted to open his own restaurant and his dream was realized when he along with a couple of friends opened a take away restaurant in the centrally located Dlf phase 3 in Gurgaon by the brand name ‘Grill & Wok’. The journey wasn’t easy. He says ‘I had to convince my father that it was what I really wanted to do, I invested all my savings, money that I made while working and with the help of some loans, we opened our first branch.

‘Each day is a learning experience for me. I realized that this was really a tough challenge. In order to do business one had to know everything. This is where my partners helped me a lot. I was taking care of the kitchen and my team and my other partners would take care of the operations, accounts and marketing. This was a team effort, and I realized it in the beginning. Alone, I would struggle to keep up. The first few months were trial and error, but the learning was immense. We ended up expanding the place and converted it to a dine in due to high footfall and demand as it was the main market of DLF 3. Running my own restaurant, gave me a different high, doing my own thing. The happiness on the customer’s face, the pleasure I got from just watching them enjoy their meal and get valuable feedback on the dishes in the menu, made us learn a lot.’ From my interview I learnt that it’s not that easy to run a restaurant. You have to invest your time, money and emotions. Your social life will suffer, as you are occupied from morning to night, you have to take care of everything from food supply to vendor management to staff handling and operational issues. Weekends are even busier so Paul doesn’t get time to spend with his kid. Often, he reach home at midnight when the kid is asleep. The most important learning for him has been managing people, now he know what big things teamwork can help you achieve.

Hospitality is not at all an easy sector, there is a lot of competition, and you always feel that food line is the best business but there are many examples from café to restaurants that are in the red and some restaurants have also shut down due to some issue or the other. There are many aspects to a hospitality business. Even one glitch can make you suffer badly. Few such examples are Jolly Rogers (Time Tower MG Road), Lemp Brew Pub (Star Mall), Jiji Bakery & Kitchen (Sector 15, Part-2), One Night Stand (Sector-29) Tea Room Co. etc. The list is endless.

Hence, it is ideal that you own the property as rents are very high. As it is, you end up investing a lot on interiors so rent is a big factor when it comes to earning a return on your investment. Even if you have a great concept it is advisable to take a bank loan than go and invest your savings in a restaurant business. The hospitality sector may look very bright from the outside but it sure is a tough nut to crack. The glamour is the least part of it. In today’s world when information is a click away, the customer is the new king and it’s imperative for restaurant’s to be constantly innovative and creative. The menu should be constantly revamped and without few special go to dishes, which pulls a customer to your restaurant it is very tough to stand apart and drive customers to your place repeatedly.