How Can I Be a Successful Restaurant Owner?

You have a vast array of transferable skills. Open your mind to consider many types of businesses you can run. Many who have not had restaurant management experience become quite successful. Time and time again I hear people come to us with incredible backgrounds who have narrowed down their options to a very limited number of businesses because they think that what they have done in the past is all they know.

One of our most wonderful clients came to us with exactly that type of thinking. He had years of experience in accounting, years but no real experience in food, liquor or customer service. But he had great transferable skills in terms of leadership, business analysis, and management. He has now run one of the most successful restaurants and bars on a little nearby Florida island. It turned out that he came to realize that he had a great set of skills that allowed him to be a great leader, a great business development person, and the great manager who took the business and significantly increased its profitability in the first year. He has done so well that he now keeps an eye out for his next acquisition.

If you are willing to learn and work hard, at least at first, you may find yourself in a similar position. Look at the backgrounds of people like Ray Kroc (McDonald’s) or Howard Schultz (Starbucks). If you desire it, then learn it, prepare, for it, and then do it.