Are you going to open a restaurant but you don’t have much experience in the field?

One of the first things you need to do is to write a business plan.

In fact, a clear and detailed business plan will help you clarify your business idea, the target market, the potential profit and the best way to reach it.

What is it about?

The business plan is a document that summarizes the contents and the characteristics of your project.

Why is it so important? Let’s find out 5 reasons why you can’t do without it.

• It helps define the concept and mission of your restaurant:

It may seem obvious but when you want to start a business, it’s not always easy to have a clear idea of the type of place you want to open.
The business plan helps you answer these questions: what is the kind of service (haute cousine, fast casual, etc.) that I want to offer?
What kind of food do I want to serve (seasonal, signature dishes, creative gastronomy, typical of a region, international, ecological, vegan…)? What kind of activities do I want to promote (family, traditional, specialized, macro restaurant, franchising, small bistro, tapas bar)? What is the profile of my potential customer (women, men, young people, families, couples, businessmen, tourists, students …)? 

• It shows the feasibility of the project:

 The birth of a new entrepreneurial activity must be supported by market        research, capable of providing a series of data to trace the guidelines for setting up the project. One of these data is, for example, the analysis of competitors. Checking what your restaurant’s competition is, allows you to understand the potential and limits of the market, as well as the potential and limits of your competitors. As a result, you will be able to define, in the business plan, the strengths and weaknesses of your restaurant, modifying and improving your initial profile. 

• It’s useful to demonstrate to potential lenders that the business idea is sustainable:

The business plan is also the fundamental document examined by lenders, necessary to access subsidized public financing and bank credit, as it contains a series of economic-business data (initial investment and starting costs, estimate of profitability, plan to cover operating costs, etc.). 

• It helps define the marketing plan:

With all the information acquired in the market analysis, and once you have identified the strengths, you can create the marketing strategy of your restaurant, answering these questions: which channels will you use to promote your business? What methods do you want to use to promote the restaurant? How do you stand out from your competitors?

• It’s useful for business planning and management:

Once the company is started, the business plan becomes the guide for the  management which must be constantly checked, modified and updated; being, in fact, a prediction based on statistical or estimated data, the data are sometimes difficult to find or in any case may vary over time.

Learning how to make a correct business plan will allow you not only to have a clearer and more effective project of your business idea; it will also give you the opportunity to launch your restaurant at its best and to have the revenues of the first years under control.