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lily 07/06/07 |
Hi Ellen's
My name is Lily. I’m seeking your expert suggestion in food industry. Mainly briyani rice, noodles, soups and dessert and home made ice creams. I knew that I’ve asked a lot but this is really a way to learn from an expert.
Thank you. |
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ellen 07/06/07 |
Hi, Lily, I am not clear- are you looking at opening a restaurant? Catering a single meal? What number of meals over what time? The professional board for aspiring restauranteurs is chef2chef.com- go look. |
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lily 07/06/07 |
I’m planning to do single meals mainly lunch and dinner. Peak hour will be lunch and I must sell at least 100 plates in order to cover expenses and some profits. Do you think how many cook and helper would I need? To prepare Briyani rice, Beef soup with white rice, BBQ chicken 2 dessert and home made ice cream. Thank you lily |
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ellen 07/07/07 |
Lily, you still don't say whether this is a buffet, sit down restarant, take out or catering situation. Each of these requires a different amount of help, space and equipment. You need to be prepared to make no profit for 18-24 months if you want to be a success- most food businesses fail in the first two years, because they are under-capitalized and the owners lack necessary experience. Food costs are expected to go up 20-50% over the next 5 plus years- are you sure you want to be in the food business? |
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lily 07/07/07 |
I’ve been helping my god-mother in Thai -restaurant. About 50-70 seats. lunch-dinner Packed almost everyday. I knew that she facing staff problem as she try to cut down the labour cost (that why I’m helping her). And she gave meal in return for appreciation. I knew that only passionate alone definitely is insufficient to run business. I’m thinking of doing only one or two in single meal dish as I do not want to jeopardizing her business. I’m planning either small casual-dining restaurant or just get a food stall like Taiwan street food stall that they just sell-take away that locate near the food court their menus are oyster mee sua and deep fried crispy chicken, chicken floss crepe with a few chairs less than 10 seats. Approximately 200-300sqft. I wanted to sell briyani rice, oxtail soup, chicken barbeque and two desserts, tapioca and mango with sticky rice for a dessert and home made ice cream… Do you think how many cook, helper, I should hire? In that location nobody doing these kind of dish that I wanted to sell. So I think I wanted to do more research and get some suggestion from you before I started. As I mentioned earlier, my god-mother doing restaurant 6 cooks including her and 1 for made dessert …her son one person doing cashier and take order…the rest is run like a mad dog when customer come at the same time…no waiter waitress and no proper training in the kitchen. Which is I don’t want that. If I wanted to hire someone for cooking inside I want standard everything measure for quality every customer get the same taste in each bowl of oxtail soup. Of course, I knew how to cook and create some recipe but it doesn’t mean that I capable of running business that why I’m seeking suggestion from you. So I would like to ask: in 90,000us dollars budgets What equipment must I have if only briyani-rice white rice, oxtail-soup thai style. Dessert tapioca, sticky rice with mango and home made ice cream. If I wanted to add bbq chicken should I buy grill or convention oven… Concept design, kitchen design, menu design, I mentally prepared that…but the rest if you have suggestion please kindly..advise me Thank you. lily |
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ellen 07/08/07 |
The food cart is an interesting idea. $90,000 is not really enough to get a restaurant off the ground. You will need to deal with having a licensed commercial kitchen (can you use your godmother's before or after hours?) Most restaurant kitchen equipment can be purchased used, but I am not the right person to advise you- I deal with cooking in home kitchens for non-commercial purposes, and it is very different. Try to visit some Indian or Thai restaurant kitchens and see what equipments trhey use. Three people can handle a 30 seat restaurant when it is not busy. but it takes 4-5 when busier. |
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chef daniels 04/11/09 |
fine dinning/casual. al a carte menu i need major help! the restaruant sits 130..very small kitchen...its an al a carte menu...were open from 7am to 2am(tapas served to 1am)...we suppose to server breakfast lunch and dinner thru the whole day and night...the owner wants to make 6k everyday from the back of the house and wants a food cost at 15% to 18% max and just wants 3 cooks total(including myself)and 1 dish washer...the menu has a total of 42 items breakfast, lunch, and dinner...what is wrong with picture! were opening up the end of April of 09...is this an impossible task? what can i tell the owner to correct goals so the kitchen can run right without draining us in the kitchen...the stuff the owner is talking about is impossible...please help me! |
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ellen 04/11/09 |
Chef, your owner is nuts or VERY inexperienced or both. 30% average is traditional food cost. A 60 seat Denny's has 2 cooks continuously, and you are talking twice that many seats with a 19 hour stretch daily- no way 3 chefs can do that alone, never mind one dishwasher. 6K gross (surely s/he does not mean net) for 130 seats is $45 per chair with 100% occupancy, which you won't have for months or years. That is basically over 500 customers per day; 3 cooks? 1 dishwasher? Restaurant business planners say that anyone who opens a restaurant needs to have the resources to keep it open WITHOUT PROFIT for at least 2 years, or it is undercapitalized and will probably fail. And that is just for starters. You can go to chef2chef.com and post your plea for a whole lot more help/ comment. This has failure written all over. |
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ellen 04/11/09 |
Have a look at this costing survey for startups. www.restaurantowner.com/public/811.cfm |