Plannng and research. I would like to open a African restaurant, food from all over the continent Africa. My aim is to have different races come and try what real African food and try food from that side of the world

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I would like to open a African restaurant, food from all over the continent Africa. My aim is to have different races come and try what real African food and try food from that side of the world .I believe that a restaurant is a place of relaxation and comfort ability both environmentally and in the catering. I want the restaurant to be a home away from home. I want there to be a tropical feeling and where it feels like the world has been condensed into one place.

Restaurants generally provide a service. The provide food. All restaurants all different, it may be Chinese, Indian, English or Italian

Restaurant patrons want to be delighted, but not necessarily surprised. If they're anticipating a family-style steakhouse but find themselves in a more formal environment with a bewildering gourmet menu, the surprise alone may keep them from enjoying the restaurant. Concepts give restaurateurs a way to let patrons know what to expect and also provide some structure for operation. Some of the more popular restaurant concepts include: Casual-dining restaurants, Family-style restaurants, Ethnic restaurants, Seafood and Steakhouses

Family- style establishments offer speedy service and menus appealing to a broad range of customers, from children to seniors. Family-style restaurants have prices slightly higher than those at fast-food restaurants, yet still provide table service.

Quick-service seafood restaurants generally offer a `limited range of choices, often restricted to fried fish and shrimp. Miscalled and upscale restaurants offer a wider selection of seafood items, prepared in ways other than fried, including baked, broiled and grilled. Seafood can be risky, as seafood prices are always changing and many kinds of seafood are seasonal. Beware: Quality can vary tremendously.

Steakhouses are part of the miscalled and upscale markets. Miscalled steakhouses are typically family-oriented, offering a casual environment with meals perceived as good values. Comfort is emphasized, and Western themes are popular. Upscale steakhouses offer a more formal atmosphere and may serve larger cuts of meat of better quality than those served in miscalled restaurants. Upscale establishments offer guests more privacy and focus more on adult patrons than on families.

I want to create a casual dining restaurant serving Ghanaian food. Casual-dining restaurants appeal to a wide audience, ranging from baby boomers to kids to Gen Hers to seniors, and they provide a variety of food items. Many successful casual-dining restaurants centre on a theme that's incorporated into their menus and décor.

Step 2: Set Up Your Facility

Layout and design are major factors in your restaurant's success. I'll need to take into account the size and layout of the dining room, kitchen space, storage space and office. Typically, restaurants allot 40 to 60 percent of their space to the dining area, approximately 30 percent to the kitchen and prep area and the remainder to storage and office space.

Dining area

This is where I'll be making the bulk of your money, so I don't cut corners when designing your dining room. I will visit restaurants in your area and analyze the décor, watch the diners whether they react positively to the décor or not.

Are it comfortable, or are people shifting in their seats throughout their meals.

I will note what works well and what doesn't. The space required per seat varies. For a small, casual-dining restaurant, you'll need about 15 to 18 square feet per seat to assure comfortable seating and enough aisle space so servers have room to move between the tables.

Production area: Too often, the production area in a restaurant is inefficiently designed, and the result is a poorly organized kitchen and less than top-notch service. Keep your menu in mind as you determine each element in the production area. I'll need to include space for receiving, storage, food preparation, cooking, baking, dishwashing, production aisles, trash storage, employee facilities and an area for a small office where I can perform daily management duties. I will arrange my food production area so that everything is just a few steps away from the cook. My design should also allow two or more cooks to work side by side during my busiest hours.

Step 3: Plan Your Inventory

Before I open my restaurant, you need to make sure it will be adequately stocked. To calculate basic stock accurately, review actual sales during an appropriate time period, such as a full year of business. Of course, during my start-up, I won't have previous sales and stocking figures to guide me, so I'll project my first year's stock requirements based on my business plan.

Depending on the size and type of my restaurant, during my first year I can expect to spend anywhere from £4000 to £30000 on food, £1000 to £9000 on beverages, and £200 to £500 on paper products.

My employees will help define my restaurant's reputation. There are several categories of personnel in the restaurant business: manager, cooks, servers, busboys, dishwashers, hosts and bartenders. When my restaurant is still new, some of the duties may cross over from one category to another. For example, I the manager may double as the host, and servers may also bus tables. I will be sure to hire people who are willing to be flexible in their duties. My payroll costs, including my salary and that of your co- managers, should be about 24 to 35 percent of your total gross sales.

Step 4: Hire Your Staff

For the Manager the most important employee in most restaurants is the manager. My best candidate will have already managed a restaurant in your area and will be familiar with local buying sources, suppliers and methods. My also want a manager with leadership skills and the ability to supervise personnel while reflecting the style and character of your restaurant.

To get the quality of manager I want, you'll have to pay well. Depending on your location, expect to pay a seasoned manager £20,000 to £30,000 a year, plus a percentage of sales. An entry-level manager will earn £12,000 to £20,000 but won't have the skills of a more experienced candidate. If I can't offer a high salary, work out a profit-sharing arrangement--it's an excellent way to hire good people and motivate them to build a successful restaurant. Hire a manager a month before you open so he or she can help me set up my restaurant. Once the business is running, the manager can anticipate slower times of the day or week to schedule his or her off-hours.

Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy identifies customer groups which a particular business can better serve than its target competitors, and tailors product offerings, prices, distribution, promotional efforts, and services toward those market segments. Ideally, the strategy should address unmet customer needs that offer adequate potential profitability. A good strategy helps a business focus on the target markets it can serve best.

Target Marketing

Owners of small businesses usually have limited resources to spend on marketing. Concentrating their efforts on one or a few key market segments - target marketing - gets the most return from small investments. There are two methods used to segment a market:

Geographical segmentation - Specializing in serving the needs of customers in a particular geographical area. For example, a neighbourhood convenience store may send advertisements only to people living within one-half mile of the store.

Customer segmentation - Identifying those people most likely to buy the product or service and targeting those groups.

Managing the Market Mix

Every marketing program contains four key components:

Products and Services

Promotion

Distribution

Pricing

These are combined into an overall marketing program.

Products and Services

Product strategies may include concentrating on a narrow product line, developing a highly specialized product or service, or providing a product-service package containing unusually high-quality service.

Promotion

Promotion strategies include advertising and direct customer interaction. Good salesmanship is essential for small businesses because of their limited ability to spend on advertising. Good telephone book advertising is also important. Direct mail is an effective, low-cost medium available to small business.

Price

The right price is crucial for maximizing total revenue. Generally, higher prices mean lower volume and vice-versa; however, small businesses can often command higher prices because of their personalized service.

Distribution

The manufacturer and wholesaler must decide how to distribute their products. Working through established distributors or manufacturers' agents generally is easiest for small manufacturers. Small retailers should consider cost and traffic flow in site selection, especially since advertising and rent can be reciprocal: A low-cost, low-traffic location means spending more on advertising to build traffic.

The nature of the product or service is also important in sitting decisions. If purchases are based largely on impulse, then high traffic and visibility are critical. On the other hand, location is less a concern for products or services that customers are willing to go out of their way to find. The recent availability of highly segmented mailing lists, purchased from list brokers, magazines, or other companies, has enabled certain small businesses to operate from any location yet serve national or international markets.

Marketing Performance

After implementing a marketing program, entrepreneurs must evaluate its performance. Every program should have performance standards to compare with actual results. Researching industry norms and past performance will help to develop appropriate standards.

Entrepreneurs should audit their company's performance at least quarterly. The key questions are:

Is the company doing all it can to be customer-oriented?

Do employees ensure the customers are satisfied and leave wanting to come back?

Is it easy for the customer to find what he or she wants at a competitive price?

Some Marketing Ideas

Marketing is all about satisfying customer needs. The following represents a comprehensive list of marketing ideas. Use the list of marketing ideas to help better understand customer needs and ways to satisfy those needs.

A business plan precisely defines your business, identifies your goals, and serves as your firm's resume. The basic components include a current and pro forma balance sheet, an income statement, and a cash flow analysis. It helps you allocate resources properly, handle unforeseen complications, and make good business decisions. Because it provides specific and organized information about your company and how you will repay borrowed money, a good business plan is a crucial part of any loan application. Additionally, it informs sales personnel, suppliers, and others about your operations and goals.

Using the Plan

A business plan is a tool with three basic purposes: communication, management, and planning.

As a communication tool, it is used to attract investment capital, secure loans, convince workers to hire on, and assist in attracting strategic business partners. The development of a comprehensive business plan shows whether or not a business has the potential to make a profit. It requires a realistic look at almost every phase of business and allows you to show that you have worked out all the problems and decided on potential alternatives before actually launching your business.

As a management tool, the business plan helps you track, monitor and evaluate your progress. The business plan is a living document that you will modify as you gain knowledge and experience. By using your business plan to establish timelines and milestones, you can gauge your progress and compare your projections to actual accomplishments.

As a planning tool, the business plan guides you through the various phases of your business. A thoughtful plan will help identify roadblocks and obstacles so that you can avoid them and establish alternatives. Many business owners share their business plans with their employees to foster a broader understanding of where the business is going.

These are a few ways to promote a restaurant

Publicity stunts - Stunt is a word with negative connotations for restaurant owners, but I wanted to use a word that conjured up images that are different than traditional press relations efforts. Sending a standard press release about a new menu may result in a small write-up. To cut through the clutter and generate extensive exposure, you need a newsworthy angle. Something likes a celebrity chef cook-off, really unique contest or other major event. Think beyond typical events like golf tournaments and simple fundraisers. Challenge your staff or marketing firm to think what you'd have to do to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records. Challenge them to think much bigger and come up with ideas that tie in to what your club stands for but also have potential for national exposure. If you create events that have only local appeal, you'll be limited with your media exposure potential and may not even make the local paper. If you think much larger, you' won't have to worry about getting coverage. A well-constructed publicity stunt can be worth its weight in gold in terms of positive exposure for your restaurant.

Public relations - Public relations has been called advertising that you don't have to pay for. If you have a successful public and media relations program, you'll get increased exposure and prestige without spending a fortune. For this to work; though, you'll need to create and publicize newsworthy stories. Hiring a new chef isn't always enough to garner the kind of attention you deserve. Create other angles that are unique and make your restaurant stand out. Also, review your restaurant's marketing and advertising expenses over the last three years. Then determine the percentage that was spent on traditional advertising compared to public relations. It's worthwhile to spend 15-30 percent of your budget on a solid public relations program. Find a firm that has creativity and excitement about your restaurant. If that firm doesn't seem genuinely curious and interested in your restaurant and what it has to offer, it'll have a hard time creating interest with the media.
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Bounce backs - This is an underutilized tool that bounces guests from peak times to off-peak times and can also work to encourage frequency in your food and beverage operations. While simple in theory and execution, this tactic can produce far more in revenues per dollar invested than traditional advertising. All you do is offer incentives at the point of purchase on popular services to encourage the guest to try your restaurant another time. For instance, if you're busy for lunch and need to drive sales for dinner, offer bounces back certificates that can only be redeemed during ...

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