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Restaurant Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Restaurant Business Plan

You’ve come to the right place to create your restaurant business plan.

We have helped over 100,000 entrepreneurs and business owners with how to write a restaurant business plan to help them start or grow their restaurants.

Below is a restaurant business plan template to help you create each section of your business plan.

Restaurant Business Plan Example

Executive summary, business overview.

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is a new restaurant and steakhouse located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The menu of Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will include bistro-type dishes that are authentically created and crafted by acclaimed Chef Peter Logan. It will be located in the trendy part of town, known as the Plaza District. The restaurant will be surrounded by classy art galleries, live theater, high-end restaurants and bars, and expensive shopping.

Owned by emerging restaurant operators Chef Peter Logan and Anastasia Gillette, Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse’s mission is to become Oklahoma City’s best, new restaurant for patrons to celebrate their next big event, have a nice date night, or gather with friends or family for a fun evening while dining over finely crafted entrees, desserts, and cocktails.

Products Served

The following are the menu items to be offered by Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse:

• Soups & Salads
• Gourmet sides
• Wine, Beer & Spirits

Customer Focus

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will target adult men and women between the ages of 21 – 65 with disposable income in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Within this demographic are millennials, young professionals, newlyweds, young families, more established families, and retirees. Because of the pricing structure of the menu, the patrons will likely be upper middle class to the wealthy population of Oklahoma City.

Management Team

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is owned and operated by fellow Oklahoma City natives and culinary enthusiasts, Chef Peter Logan and Anastasia Gillette. Both come with a unique skill set and complement each other perfectly. They formerly worked together at another OKC fine dining establishment and made a great team for serving guests delectable food and wine while ensuring the highest level of customer service.

Chef Peter will manage the kitchen operations of Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse, while Anastasia will oversee front of the house operations, maintain and ensure customer service, and manage all reservations.

Financial Highlights

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is seeking $300,000 in debt financing to open its start-up restaurant. The funding will be dedicated for the build-out and design of the restaurant, kitchen, bar and lounge, as well as cooking supplies and equipment, working capital, three months worth of payroll expenses and opening inventory. The breakout of the funding is below:

• Restaurant Build-Out and Design – $100,000
• Kitchen supplies and equipment – $100,000
• Opening inventory – $25,000
• Working capital (to include 3 months of overhead expenses) – $25,000
• Marketing (advertising agency) – $25,000
• Accounting firm (3 months worth and establishment/permitting of business) – $25,000

Company Overview

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is a new restaurant and steakhouse located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will serve a wide variety of dishes and beverages and will cater to the upper middle class to wealthier population of Oklahoma City. The menu of Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will include bistro-type dishes that are authentically created and crafted by acclaimed Chef Peter Logan. It will be located in the trendy part of town, known as the Plaza District. The Plaza District is one of Oklahoma’s trendy neighborhoods and is considered the “it” area for newlyweds, millennials, professionals, and young singles. The restaurant will be surrounded by classy art galleries, live theater, high-end restaurants and bars, and expensive shopping.

Owned by emerging restaurant operators Chef Peter Logan and Anastasia Gillette, the restaurant’s mission statement is to become the best new steak restaurant in OKC. The following are the types of menu items Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will serve- shareables, steaks, soups, gourmet sides and salads.

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse History

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is owned by two Oklahoma City natives, Chef Peter Logan and Anastasia Gillette. They have both worked around the country in fine dining establishments and have a combined twenty years in the restaurant industry. Upon working alongside each other at another fine dining establishment in Oklahoma City, the two of them became good friends and decided to venture into owning their own restaurant.

Chef Peter is the kitchen guru and critically acclaimed chef, while Anastasia manages the front of the house and is a certified Sommelier. Together, with both of their expertise and knowledge, Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is destined to become Oklahoma City’s next big restaurant.

Industry Analysis

The Restaurant industry is expected to grow to over $220 billion in the next five years.

Consumer spending is projected to grow. The Consumer Confidence Index, a leading indicator of spending patterns, is expected to also grow strongly, which will boost restaurant industry growth over the next five years. The growth in consumer confidence also suggests that more consumers may opt to segment their disposable income to eating outside the home.

Additionally, an increase in the number of households earning more than $100,000 annually further contributes to the industry growth, supporting industry operators that offer more niche, higher-end products.  This group is expected to continue to grow in size over the next five years.

The urban population represents a large market for the industry. Specifically, time-strapped individuals living in urban areas will likely frequent industry establishments to save time on cooking. The urban population is expected to increase, representing a potential opportunity for the industry.

Customer Analysis

Demographic profile of target market, customer segmentation.

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will primarily target the following customer profile:

• Upper middle class to wealthier population
• Millennials
• Young professionals
• Households with an average income of at least $75k
• Foodies and culture enthusiasts

Competitive Analysis

Direct and indirect competitors.

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will be competing with other restaurants in Oklahoma City. A profile of each competitor is below. The Press Located in the trendy area known as the Plaza District, The Press has reimagined our favorite foods of the surrounding regions through the lens of home.

The menu consists of appetizers, soups, burgers and sandwiches, bowls, main dishes, sides, desserts, and a large selection of alcoholic beverages. The Press serves craft beer, domestic beer, wine spritzers, house cocktails, wine, and mimosas. They also offer brunch. The menu of The Press is affordable with the most expensive dish being $16. The wine menu is also not pretentious as the wine is sold either by the glass or bottle, with the most expensive bottle being $52 for the Gruet Sparkling Brut Rose. Oak & Ore Oak & Ore is a craft beer and restaurant in OKC’s Plaza District. They have a 36-tap beer selection and offer vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free dining options. Oak & Ore offers a rotating, 36-tap selection of their favorite brews from Oklahoma and around the world. Each beer is thoughtfully paired with a craft beer-inspired dining experience.

The food menu of Oak & Ore offers starters, salads, wings, fried chicken, sandwiches, tacos, banh mi, and sides. They also have a selection of kids dishes so the whole family can enjoy comfort food while sampling one of their delectable beers.

The Mule OKC The Mule is a casual, hip restaurant offering a large beer and cocktail menu plus sandwiches and more. Located in the constantly growing and buzzing hub that is the Plaza District, The Mule takes the timeless favorite and contorts it into a whole menu of wild offerings.

There is also a fantastic assortment of soups offered and The Mule shakes up a seasonal list of cocktails designed by their bar staff. During the winter months, patrons can stave off the cold with their versions of hot toddies and buttered rum. For the beer drinkers, they always have a reliable line-up of fresh cold brews on draft, as well as a wide selection of can.

Competitive Advantage

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse offers several advantages over its competition. Those advantages are:

• Gourmet dishes elegantly prepared to the finest standard.
• Selection of steaks sourced from local Oklahoma farms.
• An exclusive and unique wine menu that includes a wine selection of all price points.
• Highly sought after location: Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will be located in the trendy and attractive neighborhood known as The Plaza District.
• Trendy, welcoming, and energetic ambiance that will be perfect for a night out or a celebration.

Marketing Plan

Promotions strategy.

The marketing strategy for Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is as follows: Location Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse’s location is a promotions strategy in itself. The Plaza District is a destination spot for locals, tourists, and anyone looking for the trendiest food fare in Oklahoma City. The Plaza District is home to OKC’s most popular bars and restaurants, art galleries, theaters, and boutique shopping. The millennials, young professionals, and foodies will frequent Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse for the location itself.

Social Media Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will use social media to cater to the millennials and Oklahoma City residents. Chef Peter and Anastasia plan to hire an advertising agency to take professional photographs of the menu items and location to create appealing posts to reach a greater audience. The posts will include pictures of the menu items, as well as upcoming featured options. SEO Website Marketing Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse plans to invest funds into maintaining a strong SEO presence on search engines like Google and Bing. When a person types in “local fine dining restaurant” or “Oklahoma City restaurant”, Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will appear in the top three choices. The website will include the full menu, location, hours, and lots of pictures of the food, drinks, and steaks. Third Party Delivery Sites Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will maintain a presence on sites like GrubHub, Uber Eats, Doordash, and Postmates so that people looking for local food to be delivered will see Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse listed near the top.

Operations Plan

Operation functions:.

The company will hire the following:

• 4 sous chefs
• 2 bartenders
• 2 hostesses
• The company will hire an advertising agency and an accounting firm

Milestones:

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse aims to open in the next 6 months. The following are the milestones needed in order to obtain this goal.

7/1/202X – Execute lease for prime location in the Plaza District.

7/2/202X – Begin construction of restaurant build-out.

7/10/202X – Finalize menu.

7/17/202X – Hire advertising company to begin developing marketing efforts.

8/15/202X – Start of marketing campaign

8/22/202X – Final walk-thru of completed restaurant build-out.

8/25/202X – Hire team of sous chefs, servers, and bussers.

9/1/202X – Decoration and set up of restaurant.

9/15/202X – Grand Opening of Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will be owned and operated by Chef Peter Logan and Anastasia Gillette. Each will have a 50% ownership stake in the restaurant.

Chef Peter Logan, Co-Owner

Chef Peter Logan is an Oklahoma City native and has been in the restaurant industry for over ten years. He was trained in a prestigious Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Academy in San Francisco and has worked in some of the nation’s most prestigious fine dining restaurants. His tenure has took him from the west coast to the east coast, and now he’s back doing what he loves in his hometown of Oklahoma City.

Chef Peter will manage the kitchen operations of Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse. He will train and oversee the sous chefs, manage inventory, place food inventory orders, deal with the local food vendors, and ensure the highest customer satisfaction with the food.

Anastasia Gillette, Co-Owner

Anastasia Gillette was born and raised in Oklahoma City and has garnered over ten years in the restaurant industry as well. While in college, Anastasia worked as a hostess at one of the area’s most prestigious restaurant establishments. While there, she was eventually promoted to Front of the House Manager where she oversaw the hostesses, servers, bussers, bartenders, and reservations. Her passion always led to the beverage portion of the restaurant so she obtained her Sommelier certificate in 2019. With her wine education, Anastasia is able to cultivate an interesting and elegant wine selection for the restaurant.

Anastasia will oversee front of the house operations, maintain and ensure customer service, and manage all reservations. She will also be in charge of the bar and wine ordering, training of front of the house staff, and will manage the restaurant’s social media accounts once they are set up.

Financial Plan

Key revenue & costs.

The revenue drivers for Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will come from the food and drink menu items being offered daily.

The cost drivers will be the ingredients and products needed to make the menu items as well as the cooking materials. A significant cost driver is the fine dining equipment, serving dishes, and beer and wine glasses. Other cost drivers will be the overhead expenses of payroll for the employees, accounting firm, and cost of the advertising agency.

Funding Requirements and Use of Funds

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is seeking $300,000 in debt financing to open its start-up restaurant. The breakout of the funding is below:

Financial Projections

Income Statement

  Balance Sheet

  Cash Flow Statement

Restaurant Business Plan FAQs

What is a restaurant business plan.

A restaurant business plan is a plan to start and/or grow your restaurant business. Among other things, it outlines your business concept, identifies your target customers, presents your marketing plan and details your financial projections.

You can  easily complete your restaurant business plan using our Restaurant Business Plan Template here .

What Are the Main Types of Restaurants?

There are many types of restaurant businesses. Restaurants can range in type from fast food, fast casual, moderate casual, fine dining, and bar and restaurant types. Restaurants also come in a variety of different ethnic or themed categories, such as Mexican restaurants, Asian restaurants, American, etc.  Some restaurants also go mobile and have food trucks.

How Do You Get Funding for Your Restaurant Business Plan?

Restaurant businesses are most likely to receive funding from banks. Typically you will find a local bank and present your business plan to them. Another option for a restaurant business is to obtain a small business loan. SBA loans are a popular option as they offer longer loan terms with lower interest rates.

What are the Steps To Start a Restaurant Business?

1. Develop A Restaurant Business Plan - The first step in starting a business is to create a detailed restaurant business plan that outlines all aspects of the venture. This should include potential market size and target customers, the services or products you will offer, pricing strategies and a detailed financial forecast.  

2. Choose Your Legal Structure - It's important to select an appropriate legal entity for your restaurant business. This could be a limited liability company (LLC), corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship. Each type has its own benefits and drawbacks so it’s important to do research and choose wisely so that your restaurant business is in compliance with local laws.

3. Register Your Restaurant Business - Once you have chosen a legal structure, the next step is to register your restaurant business with the government or state where you’re operating from. This includes obtaining licenses and permits as required by federal, state, and local laws. 

4. Identify Financing Options - It’s likely that you’ll need some capital to start your restaurant business, so take some time to identify what financing options are available such as bank loans, investor funding, grants, or crowdfunding platforms. 

5. Choose a Location - Whether you plan on operating out of a physical location or not, you should always have an idea of where you’ll be based should it become necessary in the future as well as what kind of space would be suitable for your operations. 

6. Hire Employees - There are several ways to find qualified employees including job boards like LinkedIn or Indeed as well as hiring agencies if needed – depending on what type of employees you need it might also be more effective to reach out directly through networking events. 

7. Acquire Necessary Restaurant Equipment & Supplies - In order to start your restaurant business, you'll need to purchase all of the necessary equipment and supplies to run a successful operation. 

8. Market & Promote Your Business - Once you have all the necessary pieces in place, it’s time to start promoting and marketing your restaurant business. This includes creating a website, utilizing social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, and having an effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. You should also consider traditional marketing techniques such as radio or print advertising. 

Learn more about how to start a successful restaurant business:

• How to Start a Restaurant Business

Where Can I Get a Restaurant Business Plan PDF?

You can download our free restaurant business plan template PDF here . This is a sample restaurant business plan template you can use in PDF format.

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When starting a business—no matter what type of business that may be—a business plan is essential to map out your intentions and direction. That’s the same for a restaurant business plan, which will help you figure out where you fit in the landscape, how you’re going to differ from other establishments around you, how you’ll market your business, and even what you’re going to serve. A business plan for your restaurant can also help you later if you choose to apply for a business loan .

While opening a restaurant isn’t as risky as you’ve likely heard, you still want to ensure that you’re putting thought and research into your business venture to set it up for success. And that’s where a restaurant business plan comes in.

We’ll go through how to create a business plan for a restaurant and a few reasons why it’s so important. After you review the categories and the restaurant business plan examples, you can use the categories to make a restaurant business plan template and start your journey.

Why you shouldn’t skip a restaurant business plan

First-time restaurateurs and industry veterans alike all need to create a business plan when opening a new restaurant . That’s because, even if you deeply understand your business and its nuances (say, seasonal menu planning or how to order correct quantities), a restaurant is more than its operations. There’s marketing, financing, the competitive landscape, and more—and each of these things is unique to each door you open.

That’s why it’s so crucial to understand how to create a business plan for a restaurant. All of these things and more will be addressed in the document—which should run about 20 or 30 pages—so you’ll not only have a go-to-market strategy, but you’ll also likely figure out some things about your business that you haven’t even thought of yet.

Additionally, if you’re planning to apply for business funding down the line, some loans—including the highly desirable SBA loan —actually require you to submit your business plan to gain approval. In other words: Don’t skip this step!

How much do you need?

with Fundera by NerdWallet

We’ll start with a brief questionnaire to better understand the unique needs of your business.

Once we uncover your personalized matches, our team will consult you on the process moving forward.

How to write a restaurant business plan: Step by step

There’s no absolute format for a restaurant business plan that you can’t stray from—some of these sections might be more important than others, for example, or you might find that there’s a logical order that makes more sense than the one in the restaurant business plan example below. However, this business plan outline will serve as a good foundation, and you can use it as a restaurant business plan template for when you write your own.

Executive summary

Your executive summary is one to two pages that kick off your business plan and explain your vision. Even though this might seem like an introduction that no one will read, that isn’t the case. In fact, some investors only ask for the executive summary. So, you’ll want to spend a lot of time perfecting it.

Your restaurant business plan executive summary should include information on:

Mission statement: Your goals and objectives

General company information: Include your founding date, team roles (i.e. executive chef, sous chefs, sommeliers), and locations

Category and offerings: What category your restaurant fits into, what you’re planning to serve (i.e. farm-to-table or Korean), and why

Context for success: Any past success you’ve had, or any current financial data that’ll support that you are on the path to success

Financial requests: If you’re searching for investment or financing, include your plans and goals here and any financing you’ve raised or borrowed thus far

Future plans: Your vision for where you’re going in the next year, three years, and five years

When you’re done with your executive summary, you should feel like you’ve provided a bird’s eye view of your entire business plan. In fact, even though this section is first, you will likely write it last so you can take the highlights from each of the subsequent sections.

And once you’re done, read it on its own: Does it give a comprehensive, high-level overview of your restaurant, its current state, and your vision for the future? Remember, this may be the only part of your business plan potential investors or partners will read, so it should be able to stand on its own and be interesting enough to make them want to read the rest of your plan.

Company overview

This is where you’ll dive into the specifics of your company, detailing the kind of restaurant you’re looking to create, who’s helping you do it, and how you’re prepared to accomplish it.

Your restaurant business plan company overview should include:

Purpose: The type of restaurant you’re opening (fine dining, fast-casual, pop-up, etc.), type of food you’re serving, goals you have, and the niche you hope to fill in the market

Area: Information on the area in which you’re opening

Customers: Whom you’re hoping to target, their demographic information

Legal structure: Your business entity (i.e. LLC, LLP, etc.) and how many owners you have

Similar to your executive summary, you won’t be going into major detail here as the sections below will get into the nitty-gritty. You’ll want to look at this as an extended tear sheet that gives someone a good grip on your restaurant or concept, where it fits into the market, and why you’re starting it.

Team and management

Barely anything is as important for a restaurant as the team that runs it. You’ll want to create a section dedicated to the members of your staff—even the ones that aren’t yet hired. This will provide a sense of who is taking care of what, and how you need to structure and build out the team to get your restaurant operating at full steam.

Your restaurant business plan team and management section should have:

Management overview: Who is running the restaurant, what their experience and qualifications are, and what duties they’ll be responsible for

Staff: Other employees you’ve brought on and their bios, as well as other spots you anticipate needing to hire for

Ownership percentage: Which individuals own what percentage of the restaurant, or if you are an employee-owned establishment

Be sure to update this section with more information as your business changes and you continue to share this business plan—especially because who is on your team will change both your business and the way people look at it.

Sample menu

You’ll also want to include a sample menu in your restaurant business plan so readers have a sense of what they can expect from your operations, as well as what your diners can expect from you when they sit down. This will also force you to consider exactly what you want to serve your diners and how your menu will stand out from similar restaurants in the area. Although a sample menu is in some ways self-explanatory, consider the following:

Service : If your brunch is as important as your dinner, provide both menus; you also might want to consider including both a-la-carte and prix fixe menus if you plan to offer them.

Beverage/wine service: If you’ll have an emphasis on specialty beverages or wine, a separate drinks list could be important.

Seasonality: If you’re a highly seasonal restaurant, you might want to consider providing menus for multiple seasons to demonstrate how your dishes (and subsequent purchasing) will change.

Market analysis

This is where you’ll begin to dive deeper. Although you’ve likely mentioned your market and the whitespace you hope to address, the market analysis section will enable you to prove your hypotheses.

Your restaurant business plan market analysis should include:

Industry information: Include a description of the restaurant industry, its size, growth trends, and other trends regarding things such as tastes, trends, demographics, structures, etc.

Target market: Zoom in on the area and neighborhood in which you’re opening your restaurant as well as the type of cuisine you’re serving.

Target market characteristics: Describe your customers and their needs, how/if their needs are currently being served, other important pieces about your specific location and customers.

Target market size and growth: Include a data-driven section on the size of your market, trends in its growth, how your target market fits into the industry as a whole, projected growth of your market, etc.

Market share potential: Share how much potential there is in the market, how much your presence will change the market, and how much your specific restaurant or restaurant locations can own of the open market; also touch on any barriers to growth or entry you might see.

Market pricing: Explain how you’ll be pricing your menu and where you’ll fall relative to your competitors or other restaurants in the market.

Competitive research: Include research on your closest competitors, how they are both succeeding and failing, how customers view them, etc.

If this section seems like it might be long, it should—it’s going to outline one of the most important parts of your strategy, and should feel comprehensive. Lack of demand is the number one reason why new businesses fail, so the goal of this section should be to prove that there is demand for your restaurant and show how you’ll capitalize on it.

Additionally, if market research isn’t your forte, don’t be shy to reach out to market research experts to help you compile the data, or at least read deeply on how to conduct effective research.

Marketing and sales

Your marketing and sales section should feel like a logical extension of your market analysis section, since all of the decisions you’ll make in this section should follow the data of the prior section.

The marketing and sales sections of your restaurant business plan should include:

Positioning: How you’ll describe your restaurant to potential customers, the brand identity and visuals you’ll use to do it, and how you’ll stand out in the market based on the brand you’re building

Promotion: The tools, tactics, and platforms you’ll use to market your business

Sales: How you’ll convert on certain items, and who/how you will facilitate any additional revenue streams (i.e. catering)

It’s likely that you’ll only have concepts for some of these elements, especially if you’re not yet open. Still, get to paper all of the ideas you have, and you can (and should) always update them later as your restaurant business becomes more fully formed.

Business operations

The business operations section should get to the heart of how you plan to run your business. It will highlight both internal factors as well as external forces that will dictate how you run the ship.

The business operations section should include:

Management team: Your management structure and hierarchy, and who is responsible for what

Hours: Your hours and days of operation

Location: What’s special about your location that will get people through the door

Relationships: Any advantageous relationships you have with fellow restaurateurs, places for sourcing and buying, business organizations, or consultants on your team

Add here anything you think could be helpful for illustrating how you’re going to do business and what will affect it.

Here, you’ll detail the current state of your business finances and project where you hope to be in a year, three years, and five years. You’ll want to detail what you’ve spent, what you will spend, where you’ll get the money, costs you might incur, and returns you’ll hope to see—including when you can expect to break even and turn a profit.

Financial statements: If you’ve been in business for any amount of time, include existing financial statements (i.e. profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow, etc.)

Budget: Your current budget or a general startup budget

Projections: Include revenue, cash flow, projected profit and loss, and other costs

Debt: Include liabilities if the business has any outstanding debt or loans

Funding request: If you’re requesting a loan or an investment, lay out how much capital you’re looking for, your company’s valuation (if applicable), and the purpose of the funding

Above all, as you’re putting your financials together, be realistic—even conservative. You want to give any potential investors a realistic picture of your business.

Feel like there are other important components but they don't quite fit in any of the other categories (or make them run too long)? That’s what the restaurant business plan appendix section is for. And although in, say, a book, an appendix can feel like an afterthought, don’t ignore it—this is another opportunity for you to include crucial information that can give anyone reading your plan some context. You may include additional data, graphs, marketing collateral (like logo mockups), and more.

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The bottom line

Whether you’re writing a restaurant business plan for investors, lenders, or simply for yourself and your team, the most important thing to do is make sure your document is comprehensive. A good business plan for a restaurant will take time—and maybe a little sweat—to complete fully and correctly.

One other crucial thing to remember: a business plan is not a document set in stone. You should often look to it to make sure you’re keeping your vision and mission on track, but you should also feel prepared to update its components as you learn more about your business and individual restaurant.

This article originally appeared on JustBusiness, a subsidiary of NerdWallet.

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How to Write a Restaurant Business Plan in 2024 (Step by Step Guide with Templates)

A restaurant business plan is a framework that guides you to plan and forecast every element of restaurant management and operations.

This includes anything from your restaurant's menu design , location, financials, employee training , and a lot more.

Creating a solid business plan is important, as it helps:

• Transform your restaurant ideas into reality.
• Boosts entrepreneurial success by 16% (Harvard Business Study) .
• It equips you to navigate challenges before they arise.
• Attracts potential investors.

Planning is key to restaurant success. Without a plan, you're more likely to join the 26% of restaurants that fail within a year.

Create a business plan to set yourself up for success.

Here's how to get started. 

What is a restaurant business plan? 

Before writing a business plan, it is important to understand its fundamentals.

It serves as a roadmap for starting and running your restaurant , making it easy for outside parties, such as investors, to understand your objectives, vision, and plan of action for your restaurant.

The length and level of detail of business plans vary, ranging from brief synopses to large papers. Investors can benefit from clear insights and additional information provided by beginning with a concise plan and working their way up to a detailed one.

In short, a thorough description of the resources allocated to the success of your restaurant should be included in your business plan.

Steps to include in your business plan 

Your restaurant and mission statement needs to reflect your brand and goals, but you don't have to start from scratch.

The Eat App Restaurant Business Plan template , created by industry professionals and packed with insider information, is your go-to manual for creating a profitable business plan.

Your finalized business plan should have 11 essential elements, no matter how you write it. Continue reading below. 

1. Executive summary

A restaurant business plan should always begin with an executive summary. Why?

• 80% of venture capitalists say they read the executive summary first.
• 62% of investors say they would not continue reading a business plan if the executive summary did not capture their interest.
• A strong executive summary can increase the likelihood of securing funding by up to 40%.

An executive summary not only acts as the introduction to your restaurant business plan samples but also as a summary of the entire idea.

The main aim of an executive summary is to draw the reader (oftentimes an investor) into the rest of your business plan.

The executive summary also helps you envision the identity of your restaurant which essentially shapes the customer experience and sets you apart from competitors.

To establish a distinct identity, you need to focus on c ommon elements of an executive summary, including:

• A mission statement  
• Proposed concept development
• Cuisine selection
• The overall execution
• The potential costs
• Expected return on investments (ROI)

Let's take a more in-depth look at the concept development, cuisine selection, and mission statement.

Further reading

• How to write a restaurant executive summary

Concept Development

Selecting the type of restaurant, service style, and atmosphere is the first step towards creating a unique dining experience. Whether you envision a sample menu for a:

• cozy, intimate bistro
• bustling quick-service deli
• fast-casual restaurant
• fine dining establishment

Your concept should reflect your passion and expertise in the industry.

Cuisine Selection

The cuisine you select for your restaurant can significantly influence its success.

Choosing the appropriate cuisine is vital for distinguishing your establishment from competitors and attracting your target market.

To make an informed decision, consider factors such as:

• Market demand
• Expertise and passion
• Ingredient availability
• Competition
• Profitability
• Cultural fit
• Seasonality
• Dietary restrictions and trends

In the highly competitive restaurant industry, keeping track of current and emerging cuisine trends can be a significant advantage.

Creating a mission statement

A well-constructed mission statement communicates the purpose, values, and goals of your restaurant to potential investors and customers alike.

A mission statement serves as a guiding light for decision-makers and employees, fueling their efforts to achieve your restaurant’s objectives.

To create an impactful mission statement, consider the following steps:

• Identify the purpose of the restaurant.
• Contemplate the brand’s image.
• Account for the target audience.
• Incorporate company values.
• Ensure brevity and comprehensiveness.

Related content:  How to Write a Restaurant Mission Statement  

Remember, your mission statement should not only differentiate your restaurant from competitors but also resonate with your target market .

2. Company description

This is where you carefully introduce the company in the restaurant business plan. Include the name of the restaurant you are launching in this field along with its address, phone number, and other important information. Then, also include the owner's information as well as a synopsis or explanation of their background. The restaurant's legal position and its short- and long-term objectives should be outlined in the second section of the company description. To demonstrate your understanding of the changes in the local food business and the reasons why the most independent restaurant investors will be successful in this market, please submit a brief market research.

Here's an example of the page layout:  

Company Description

Restaurant Name: [Restaurant Name]

Location: [Restaurant Address]

Contact: [Restaurant Phone Number] | [Restaurant Email Address]

Owner: [Owner Name]

Experience: [Owner Name] has over [Number] years of experience in the restaurant industry. They have worked in various roles, including [List of Roles]. They are passionate about food and creating a memorable dining experience for their guests.

Legal Standing: [Restaurant Name] is a [Type of Legal Entity] registered in [State/Province].

3. Market analysis

The market analysis portion of the restaurant business plan is typically divided into three parts.

3.1 Industry analysis

What is your target market? What demographics will your restaurant cater to?

This section aims to explain your target market to investors and why you believe guests will choose your restaurant over others.

Comprehending your target market is key to customizing your restaurant offerings to their preferences and needs.

By diving into demographics, preferences, dining habits, and trends, you can fine-tune your concept and marketing strategy to reach and appeal to your target audience effectively.

An example of analyzing your target market

  Comprehending your target market is key to customizing your restaurant offerings to their preferences and needs.

Demographics and preferences

Identifying your primary target market involves considering factors such as:

For example, a neighborhood with a high concentration of families might prefer a family-friendly restaurant with a diverse menu catering to various age groups and dietary preferences.

Conversely, a trendy urban area with a predominantly young and affluent population may gravitate towards upscale dining experiences and innovative cuisine.

Cultural and ethnic backgrounds also have a significant impact on restaurant preferences, with people from different backgrounds having distinctive tastes and customs that influence their dining choices.

By thoroughly understanding the demographics and preferences of your target market, you’ll be better equipped to create a restaurant concept that resonates with them and ultimately drives success.

Dining habits and trends

As the restaurant industry continues to evolve, staying informed about dining habits and trends is crucial for adapting your offerings and attracting customers.

For example, the rise of online ordering and delivery services has significantly influenced dining habits, with many consumers seeking the convenience of having their meals delivered to their doorstep.

Health trends have also had an impact on dining habits, with an increasing number of individuals seeking healthier options when dining out.

• How to find your restaurant's target market

3.2 Competition analysis

It's easy to assume that everyone will visit your new restaurant first, so it is important to research your competition to make this a reality.

What restaurants have already established a customer base in the area?

Take note of everything from their prices, hours, and service style to menu design to the restaurant interior.

Then explain to your investors how your restaurant will be different.

3.3 Marketing analysis

Your investors are going to want to know how you plan to market your restaurant. How will your marketing campaigns differ from what is already being done by others in the restaurant industry?

How do you plan on securing your target market? What kind of offers will you provide your guests? Make sure to list everything.

The menu is the most important part of a restaurant's debut. Your restaurant wouldn't be able to operate without it.

You most likely don't have a final draft at this time, but you should aim to create a mock-up for your restaurant business plan. You can choose a design that you can envision yourself using and add your logo to the mock-up.

• Top Free Restaurant Menu Makers

There are several resources available online if you need assistance with menu design or don't want to hire a designer.

But the price should be the most important component of your sample menu. The cost research you've completed for investors ought to be reflected in your prices. They will have a clearer idea of your restaurant's intended price range as a result.  You'll quickly see how important menu engineering can be, even early on.

5. Employees

The company description section of the restaurant business plan briefly introduces the owners of the restaurant with some information about each. This section should fully flesh out the restaurant's business plan and management team.

The investors don’t expect you to have your entire team selected at this point, but you should at least have a couple of people on board. Use the talent you have chosen thus far to highlight the combined work experience everyone is bringing to the table.

6. Restaurant design

The design portion of your restaurant business plan is where you can really show off your thoughts and ideas to the investors. If you don’t have professional mock-ups of your restaurant rendered, that’s fine.

Instead, put together a mood board to get your vision across. Find pictures of a similar aesthetic to what you are looking for in your restaurant.

The restaurant design extends beyond aesthetics alone and should include everything from restaurant software to kitchen equipment. 

7. Location

The location you settle on for your restaurant should be well aligned with your target market (making it easier to cater to your ideal customer) and with your business plans.

At this stage in the process, it's not uncommon to not have a specific location in mind - but you should at the very least have a few options to narrow down.

Pro Tip: When you approach your investors about potential locations, make sure to include as much information as possible about each venue and why it would be ideal for your brand. 

Example for choosing an ideal location

Choosing the ideal location for your restaurant is a pivotal decision that can greatly influence your success. 

To make the best choice, consider factors such as foot traffic, accessibility, and neighborhood demographics.

By carefully evaluating these factors, you’ll be better equipped to maximize visibility and attract your target market.

Foot traffic and accessibility

Foot traffic and accessibility are important factors in selecting a location that will attract customers and ensure convenience.

A high-traffic area with ample parking and public transportation options can greatly increase the likelihood of drawing in potential customers.

Additionally, making your restaurant accessible to individuals with disabilities can further broaden your customer base and promote inclusivity.

Neighborhood demographics

Analyzing neighborhood demographics can help you determine if your restaurant’s concept and cuisine will appeal to the local population.

Factors such as income levels, family structures, and cultural diversity can all influence dining preferences and habits.

By understanding the unique characteristics of the neighborhood, you can tailor your offerings and marketing efforts to resonate with the local community.

Conducting a market analysis can be a valuable step in this process.

To gather demographic data for a particular neighborhood, you can utilize resources such as the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and reference maps.

Armed with this information, you can make informed decisions about your restaurant’s concept, menu, and pricing, ensuring that your establishment is well-positioned for success within the community.

Conducting market research will further strengthen your understanding of the local demographic.

8. Market overview

The market overview section is heavily related to the market research and analysis portion of the restaurant business plan. In this section, go into detail about both the micro and macro conditions in the area you want to set up your restaurant.

Discuss the current economic conditions that could make opening a restaurant difficult, and how you aim to counteract that. Mention all the other restaurants that could prove to be competition and what your strategy is to set yourself apart.

9. Marketing

With restaurants opening left and ride nowadays, investors are going to want to know how you will get word of your restaurant to the world.

The next marketing strategy and publicity section should go into detail on how you plan to market your restaurant before and after opening. As well as any plans you may have to bring a PR company on board to help spread the word.

Read more: How to write a restaurant marketing plan from scratch

10. External help

To make your restaurant a reality, you are going to need a lot of help. List any external companies or software you plan on hiring to get your restaurant up and running.

This includes everything from accountants and designers to suppliers that help your restaurant perform better, like POS systems and restaurant reservation systems .

Explain to your other potential investors about the importance of each and what they will be doing for your restaurant.

11. Financial analysis

The most important part of your restaurant business plan is the financial section . We would recommend hiring professional help for this given its importance.

Hiring a trained accountant will not only help you get your own financial projections and estimates in order but also give you a realistic insight into owning a restaurant.

You should have some information prepared to make this step easier for the accountant.

He/she will want to know how many seats your restaurant has, what the check average per table will be, and how many guests you plan on seating per day.

In addition to this, doing rough food cost calculations for various menu items can help estimate your profit margin per dish. This can be achieved easily with a free food cost calculator. 

• Important restaurant metrics to track

A well-crafted restaurant business plan serves as a roadmap to success, guiding every aspect of the venture from menu design to employee training.

By carefully considering each component of the plan, aspiring restaurateurs can increase their chances of securing funding, attracting customers, and achieving their long-term goals.

Remember, a restaurant business plan is not just a document to satisfy investors; it is a living tool that should be revisited and updated regularly as the business grows and evolves.

By staying committed to the plan and adapting it as needed, restaurateurs can ensure that their culinary dreams have a solid foundation for success.

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Saif Alnasur used to work in his family restaurant, but now he is a food influencer and writes about the restaurant industry for Eat App.

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500+ business plans and financial models

How to Write a Restaurant Business Plan: Complete Guide

• January 31, 2023
• Food & Beverage

👇 Check all our resources on restaurants 👇

Whether you’re looking to raise funding from private investors or to get a loan from a bank (like a SBA loan) to open a restaurant , you will need to prepare a solid business plan.

In this article we go through, step-by-step, all the different sections you need in the business plan of your restaurant . Use this template to create a complete, clear and solid business plan that get you funded. Let’s dive in!

1. Restaurant Executive Summary

The executive summary of a business plan gives a sneak peek of the information about your business plan to lenders and/or investors.

If the information you provide here is not concise, informative, and scannable, potential lenders and investors will lose interest.

Though the executive summary is the first and the most important section, it should normally be the last section you write because it will have the summary of different sections included in the entire plan.

Why do you need a business plan for a restaurant?

The purpose of a business plan is to secure funding through one of the following channels:

• Obtain bank financing or secure a loan from other lenders (such as a SBA loan )
• Obtain private investments from investment funds, angel investors, etc.
• Obtain a public or a private grant

How to write your restaurant’s executive summary?

Provide a precise and high-level summary of every section that you have included in your business plan. The information and the data you include in this segment should grab the attention of potential investors and lenders immediately.

Also make sure that the executive summary doesn’t exceed 2 pages in total: it’s supposed to be a summary for investors and lenders who don’t have time to scroll through 40-50 pages, so keep it short and brief.

The executive summary usually consists of 5 major sub-sections:

• Business overview : start by introducing your restaurant and the products and services that you intend offer. Mention the type of restaurant you intend to open (such as fine dining, casual dining, fast casual, ghost restaurant, café, pub, etc.), the menu and prices. Also add here the total number of customers your restaurant can host at once, its location, and some details on the surface and the design layout
• Market analysis : summarise the market where you will operate and provide a brief about the target audience, market size , competitors, etc. No need to provide granular data here, save it for the Market Overview section later on (or the appendix)
• People : introduce your restaurant’s management and employee structure. Provide a brief (no more than a couple of sentences each) of the knowledge and experience of the team. Also, speak about your hiring plans.
• Financial plan : how much profit and revenue do you expect in the next 5 years? When will you reach the break-even point and start making profits? You can include here a chart depicting your key financials statements
• Funding ask : what loan/investment/grant are you seeking? How much do you need? How long will this last?

Restaurant Financial Model

Download an expert-built 5-year Excel financial model for your business plan

2. Restaurant Business Overview

This is the section where you will provide details about your restaurant and the chosen business model. You must address some important questions that lenders and/or investors generally ask .

Here is a quick list of some of those questions you must address:

• What is the rationale behind you opening this type of restaurant today?
• What’s the restaurant’s location and why did you select that location?
• Why did you select the type of restaurant you want to open?
• What will be the products and services you will offer?
• What will be your pricing strategy and why?
• What will be your opening days / hours?
• How many customers can you serve at once (capacity)?
• What is the surface of your restaurant? How is the restaurant designed (incl. dining rooms and kitchen area)?
• What will be the legal structure of your company?

a) History of the Project

Any business must have two components:

• Passion & experience of the business owner
• Rationale behind starting this type of business today

Passion & experience

You may or may not have prior experience. If you have experience, speak about it and how it will help you to run your business. For instance, you may have been a restaurant manager in a popular restaurant for 6 years, and now you want to start your own restaurant and use your knowledge to run it more efficiently.

However, if you don’t already have experience, that’s fine. You must demonstrate your passion and some industry knowledge (you may have conducted thorough research).

What is your restaurant’s mission?

For example, there may not be any fine dining restaurant in your area where wealthy residents or tourists can enjoy an upscale meal experience in a sophisticated and elegant environment.

But that’s not all: your market must be suitable for your business to thrive.

For instance, if you are planning to open a fine dining restaurant in a low-income area, it is probably not going to attract many customers. Similarly, if the population of the target market has a high percentage of people preferring takeaway/delivery food options because of their busy lifestyle, a fine dining restaurant may not be a good idea.

b) Business Model

This sub-section of the Business Overview will explain your business model. Describe the following points briefly:

• Will you buy an existing restaurant and do some remodeling, or will you start a new restaurant and design it from scratch?
• Will you buy a franchise or do you plan to open an independent restaurant instead?
• The type of restaurant you want to open and why

What are the different types of restaurants?

There are multiple types of restaurants. Some of them that you may consider include, but are not limited to:

• Fine Dining : They provide upscale meal experience with several courses. The atmosphere is sophisticated and classy. They can be franchises or individually owned. Of course, they are quite expensive.
• Casual Dining : This type of restaurants serve customers at their tables and the food prices are moderate. The atmosphere is not very sophisticated. Though the décor is often unique, it can be based on the type of food a restaurant serves.
• Fast Casual : These restaurants will make your food available quickly, but the food is healthier than fast food. Also, food is cheaper than casual dining. They have a counter service (you must collect food from the counter) and the décor is more contemporary.
• Ghost Kitchens : ghost kitchens (or “dark kitchen”) restaurants do not have a storefront, a dining room, signage, or décor. They operate using food delivery partners and take orders through online ordering or phone ordering.
• Fast Food : Think of Taco Bell , KFC, Burger King, etc. The food is relatively cheap and is served quickly. Food ingredients are usually preheated or precooked, and food delivery happens over the counter or via a drive-through window.
• Buffet Style : These restaurants are similar to the Family Style restaurants but with a fundamental difference. People get to select from a selection of food that are made available against a fixed price. However, customers need to serve themselves and they are allowed to return to the buffet for as many times as they want.

c) Products & Services

Of course, the products you will offer in your restaurant will depend on the type of restaurant you are opening. A Buffet Style restaurant, for example, usually prefer specialty cuisines like Indian, pizza, home cooking, Chinese, etc. Similarly, if you are opting for a Diner, you will most likely offer fried foods (fish & chicken), breakfast items, burgers, etc. at a low cost.

It is a good idea to give a list of food and drinks that you want to sell. Depending on the scale of your operations, you may have too many menu items. It is not possible to list every item on your menu, but make sure that you are listing the most important ones. If you specialize in one or a few specific dishes, mention that, too.

d) Pricing Strategy

In this sub-section, you must explain the pricing strategy of your restaurant. If you have multiple competitors (in the same niche) in the vicinity, you cannot have huge pricing variation, especially for the similar food items. Pricing will, of course, depend on the type of restaurant you are opening, and the food items you are offering.

For example, if you are sourcing the raw materials only from organic farms that do not use fertilizers and pesticides, your menu items will have a higher price tag.

Similarly, you cannot expect to charge expensive Fine Dining-like prices if you are opening a Casual Dining restaurant instead.

Create a pricing table and ensure to provide an average price range for your products. You don’t need to provide exact pricing for each product. Use price ranges instead.

Offering a pricing table is important because your pricing strategy will allow investors to tie your pricing strategy with your financial projections .

e) Legal Structure

Finally, your business overview section should specify what type of business structure you want. Is this a corporation or a partnership (LLC)? Who are the investors? How much equity percentage do they own? Is there a Board of Directors? If so, whom? Do they have experience in the industry?

3. Restaurant Market Overview

A complete understanding of the market where you want to operate is important for the success of your business.

For example, if your intentions are to open a classy Fine Dining restaurant in a low-income area, you will not attract enough customers. Similarly, if you want to open a fast-food restaurant in a place where family dining is more popular, it will be a disaster.

Therefore, you must cover here 3 important areas:

• Market size & growth : how big is the restaurant industry in your area? What is its growth rate (or decline rate) and what are the factors contributing to its growth or decline?
• Competition overview : how many competitors are there? How do they compare vs. your business? How can you differentiate yourself from them?
• Customer analysis : who is your target audience? What type of restaurants do they prefer? How regularly do they visit restaurants for dining? What type of food do they prefer? How much do they spend at restaurants on average?

a) Restaurant Industry Status Quo

How big is the restaurant industry in the us.

According to Finance Online , there were over 1 million restaurants (all types combined) in the US in 2021. The industry recovered post a 60% drop in sales in April 2020 due to the pandemic, and recorded an annualised market size of over $1 trillion dollars in July 2022 ($1,033 billion)..!

How big is the restaurant industry in your area?

Once you provide the overall picture of the US, divert your attention to the area where you want to operate. It might not be possible to find region or area-specific studies, and hence, you must estimate the market size .

For example, if there are 1,000,000 restaurants in the country with total annual revenue of $1 trillion, the average annual revenue for each establishment is around $1 million.

Therefore, if the area where you want to open your restaurant has 30 restaurants, you can safely assume that the restaurant industry in your area is worth approximately $30 million.

How fast is the restaurant industry growing in the area?

You must show the expected growth rate of the restaurant industry in your area. This information may not be available via online research papers. However, assessing the growth rate will not be difficult as you can use metrics such as the number of competitors in your area.

For instance, if there were 25 restaurants in 2018 and 30 restaurants in 2022, the average annual growth rate would be 5%.

What are the current restaurant market trends in your area?

It is vital to understand the trends of the restaurant industry in your area. Understanding trends will allow you to devise marketing strategies.

Understanding trends won’t be easy. You must conduct research and talk with your target audience. Additionally, you must also study your competitors to understand their target audience, the products they sell, etc.

Some common questions you may ask the target audience include:

• What type of restaurants do they prefer?
• At what time of the day do they prefer to visit a restaurant (breakfast, lunch, dinner)?
• How frequently do they visit restaurants?
• What type of foods do they usually order?

You can ask as many questions as you need to understand the evolving trends.

b) Competition Overview

Studying your competitors’ business models is vital. You need to understand what makes them successful or why they fail. A clear understanding of their food offerings, marketing strategies, etc., will allow you to provide a better service.

If your competitors are offering nearly the same products & services, then what is their market share and how do they market their products & services to attract new customers?

It is always a good idea to do some research (if necessary, physically visit your competitors without revealing your business intentions) and create a comparative table summarizing their product & service offerings, marketing strategies, target audience, etc.

Here is a sample table that you can use:

The table you will create will depend on what information you need and want to include based on your proposed business model.

Restaurant SWOT Analysis

Try to provide a SWOT analysis . It must be crisp and highly focused. SWOT stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats.

Here is a sample that you can use as a reference:

• Strength: 8 years of senior manager experience in a reputed Michelin Star Fine Dining restaurant operated & owned by a renowned chef and a master’s degree in Hospitality management, experienced senior chef with 22 years of experience
• Weakness: Startup cost, zero reputation
• Opportunities: An affluent neighborhood with a rising demand for fine dining establishments, only one fine dining restaurant in the 3-mile radius
• Threats: Increasing cost of raw materials because of geo-political turmoil restricting international trade routes

A clear understanding of your strengths and weakness along with opportunities and threats in the real market can help you to design your marketing strategy. It also helps potential investors to assess the risk and reward profile of your business.

c) Customer Analysis

This is the sub-section where you will provide a detailed analysis of your target audience.

Some important points that you must include in your customer analysis include:

• Age and gender distribution (you can get local demographic data from census.gov )
• Per capita expenditure on dining
• Frequency of restaurant visits
• Average monthly income and disposable income
• Average bill size per visit
• Average yearly or monthly spending on food at restaurants
• Type of restaurants preferred
• The expected price range for food
• Inclination towards loyalty programs & free perks
• Things they dislike about existing restaurants and what they expect to be improved

You can add as many data points as required to validate your business decision. The idea here is to display your deep understanding of the target audience and their needs, preferences, and expectations. This knowledge can help you to tailor your products & services to attract new customers and increase sales .

4. Sales & Marketing Strategy

This is the segment where you outline your customer acquisition strategy. Try to answer the following questions:

• What is your USP ?
• What are the different marketing strategies you will use?
• How do you intend to track the success of your marketing strategy?
• What is your CAC or customer acquisition cost ?
• What is your marketing budget?
• What introductory promos and offers do you intend to provide for attracting new customers?

Let’s expand a bit on a few questions below:

What marketing channels do restaurants use?

A few marketing channels that restaurants typically use are:

• Word-of-mouth, recommendations,
• Local listing & reviews (e.g. Google reviews)
• Online booking platforms (e.g. TheFork , Opentable , etc.)
• Influencer marketing
• Print media, etc.

It is not necessary to use all channels. You can start by focusing on a few of them and include other marketing strategies later instead.

What is your unique selling proposition?

In other words, how do you differentiate yourself vs. competitors? This is very important as you might need to win customers from competitors.

A few examples of USPs can be:

• Organic raw materials : we source organic farm fresh raw materials from local farmers
• Authentic Indian food : prepared by a Michelin Star chef from India
• Family run restaurant : run by a family, helping families connect over delicious food
• Price : affordable food & menu for the quality vs. competitors
• Location : the restaurant is located in a busy street, thereby attracting many customers who can easily glance over the menu
• Uniqueness : you may be the only tapas-style restaurant around, in an area where people are fond of this type of restaurant

5. Management & People

You must address 2 things here:

• The management team and their experience / track record
• The organizational structure : different team members and who reports to whom?

a) Management

Small businesses often fail because of managerial weaknesses. Thus, having a strong management team is vital. Highlight the experience and education of senior managers that you intend to hire to oversee your restaurant business.

Describe their duties, responsibilities, and roles. Also, highlight their previous experience and explain how they succeeded in their previous roles.

It is also important that you explain how their experiences and qualifications help you in implementing the restaurant you are proposing. If they have specialized training, achievement, and experience (such as a degree in hospitality management, 3 Michelin stars, experience in developing menus for 5-star hotels, etc.), add that information.

b) Organization Structure

Even if you haven’t already hired a restaurant manager, server, chef, head cook, busser, cashier, bartenders, and other relevant staff members, you must provide here a chart of the organizational structure defining the hierarchy of reporting.

6. Financial Plan

The financial plan is perhaps, with the executive summary, the most important section of any business plan for a restaurant.

Indeed, a solid financial plan tells lenders that your business is viable and can repay the loan you need from them. If you’re looking to raise equity from private investors, a solid financial plan will prove them your restaurant is an attractive investment.

There should be 2 sections to your financial plan section:

• The startup costs of your project (if you plan to start a new restaurant, renovate your restaurant, etc.)
• The 5-year financial projections

a) Startup Costs

Before we expand on 5-year financial projections in the following section, it’s always best practice to start with listing the startup costs of your restaurant . For a restaurant, startup costs are all the expenses you incur before you open your restaurant and start making sales . These expenses typically are:

• The leasing deposit for the space (if you rent) or to buy the real estate (if you buy)
• Renovations and improvements
• Equipment & appliances
• Furniture & tableware

Of course, the startup costs depend on a number of factors, like the size of your restaurant, its location, the facilities, the menu, etc.

On average, it costs $484,000 to $685,000 to open a casual restaurant with 150 seats (2,500 sq. ft.) in the US.

Note that these costs are for illustrative purposes and may not be fully relevant for your business. For more information on how much it costs to open and run a restaurant, read our article here .

b) Financial Projections

In addition to startup costs, you will now need to build a solid 5-year financial model for your restaurant.

Your financial projections should be built using a spreadsheet (e.g. Excel or Google Sheets) and presented in the form of tables and charts in the business plan of your restaurant.

As usual, keep it concise here and save details (for example detailed financial statements, financial metrics, key assumptions used for the projections) for the appendix instead.

Your financial projections should answer at least the following questions:

• How much revenue do you expect to generate over the next 5 years?
• When do you expect to break even ?
• How much cash will you burn until you get there?
• What’s the impact of a change in pricing (say 15%) on your margins?
• What is your average customer acquisition cost?

You should include here your 3 financial statements (income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement). This means you must forecast:

• The number of covers (customers or orders) over time ;
• Your expected revenue ;
• Operating costs to run the business ;
• Any other cash flow items (e.g. capex, debt repayment, etc.).

When projecting your revenue, make sure to sensitize pricing, cost of raw materials (food supplies) and your sales volume. Indeed, a small change in these assumptions may have a significant impact on your revenues and profits.

7. Use of Funds

This is the last section of the business plan of your restaurant. Now that we have explained what your restaurant’s business model and concept are, what is your menu, your marketing strategy, etc., this section must now answer the following questions:

• How much funding do you need ?
• What financial instrument(s) do you need: is this equity or debt, or even a free-money public grant?
• How long will this funding last?
• Where else does the money come from? If you apply for a SBA loan for example, where does the other part of the investment come from (your own capital, private investors?)

If you raise debt:

• What percentage of the total funding the loan represents?
• What is the corresponding Debt Service Coverage Ratio ?

If you raise equity

• What percentage ownership are you selling as part of this funding round?
• What is the corresponding valuation of your business?

Use of Funds

Any restaurant business plan should include a clear use of funds section. This is where you explain how the money will be spent.

Will you spend most of the loan / investment in paying your employees’ salaries? Or will it cover mostly the cost for the lease deposit and the renovation?

Those are very important questions you should be able to answer in the blink of an eye. Don’t worry, this should come straight from your financial projections. If you’ve built solid projections like in our restaurant financial model template , you won’t have any issues answering these questions.

For the use of funds, we also recommend using a pie chart like the one we have in our financial model template where we outline the main expenses categories as shown below.

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Everything You Need to Write a Restaurant Business Plan

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Before your car was built, it was a series of lines on an engineer’s laptop screen. Before your favorite album was recorded, a musician scribbled out some rhymes in a notebook. And before your restaurant is going to launch, you likewise have to begin with the intense work of creating a blueprint of your idea — your restaurant’s themes, its physical spaces, its food, its drink, its staff, its marketing, its tech, and its expenses. The title for this package of art, chemistry, design, and accounting goes by the extraordinarily humble title of your business plan.

With a business plan, you show the world — or, more precisely, potential investors and partners — exactly what you intend to create, if you can secure the money and the help. You don’t need to know everything about the future in order to make a convincing plan. You should do your best to figure out what it costs to hire a sous chef in Seattle and the price of bread flour in Honolulu and what A/C costs for a barbecue joint in July in Tulsa. Don’t get blindsided by the obvious costs of your unique project, because not-so-obvious ones will be all around you.

To get you started, we got the download from two people who know the score: Sean F Hennessy and Richie Karaburun, both clinical associate professors at New York University’s Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality. They underlined how difficult this process is in any environment, and how it’s only becoming tougher as investors steady themselves from the whipsaw of the past few years. “The strength of the market research being applied will support the comfort level of investors in your business,” Hennessey said. “The industry is a bigger leap of faith for investors. Your business is only as good as how many customers you’ve had during the last meal, period.”

But don’t let the world economy discourage your very personal idea. If you know you have the goods, charge ahead and get that bag. Here’s how to build a restaurant business plan that will lead you into a future of your making.

Begin with your executive summary

Your executive summary should present the tl;dr of your business plan. Think of it like the back cover of a novel. This is where you boil down the tightest possible description and pitch for your establishment, drawing from all the other facets of your business plan. As you continue developing your business plan, your executive summary will evolve to reflect your learnings and structure. You may write this first, but be prepared to revise it constantly. Ideally by the time you're finished, a reader will think, Oh, yeah, that should totally be a business — this will work .

Next, bang out a business description

Start by describing what kind of restaurant you want to create. Think through such questions as: What kind of food will you serve? Are you going for fine dining, casual, or quick-serve? What kind of ambiance or vibe will you create? And what sorts of customers do you expect to attract? Paint a picture for your reader. 

Explain your value proposition

Your value proposition is what you bring to the table (heh) that no one else does, or what you bring better than anyone else. Identify your competitive advantage. This could be a combination of things: an amazing location, a winning concept for décor, a brilliant chef, your grandmother’s secret recipes. What sets you apart? Lean into whatever this is as you plan and create your concept. The world is full of restaurants already. Your value proposition is what you have figured out that makes you original (and, ideally, profitable).

Describe your background and credentials

If you have history as a restaurateur, describe your successes. If you are or have a notable chef on your team, say so. If you have deep ties to a specific community or neighborhood, or another network to draw from (professional, academic, spiritual, whatever it might be) bring it to the fore. Sell yourself. Ask: Why would you fund you?

Build and develop your menu

You probably wouldn’t even be considering opening a restaurant if you didn’t have the beginnings of a menu in mind. Still, go further than that. The menu determines not just what customers eat, but your food costs, your build-out needs, your competition, and in many cases the very location you’ll choose. Your menu should be price-competitive, yet creative enough to set you apart. You want to be reliable, yet flexible. Your menu also must work in concert with your overall brand identity and with your business model. Some foods are amazing at delivery — pizza and wings are the champs there, and drive many ghost kitchen concepts . Other foods simply aren’t going to drive as much revenue through food delivery or pickup. 

So don’t simply wave your hand and say “we’re a roti joint” or “we’re going to be a New American concept.” Get down into the weeds. Is your ideal menu seasonal or perennial? Will you be serving family style? Small plates? Can you source your ingredients from vendors you can afford? And will you have back-up vendors, just in case? What does your drinks program look like ? Are you doing NA cocktails , on-tap cocktails, or to-go cocktails ?

Good news is, a menu by no means needs to be long to be profitable. The price of your food, your prep, and your labor all will come to bear on your bottom line. For everything you intend to execute, consider cost, consider feasibility, and consider its possible appeal. Also — consider your own personal enjoyment. Don’t build a menu around foods or kitchen tasks that you can't find a way to enjoy. Your menu should make people happy, and you are the most important person in this entire equation.

Sketch out an organizational chart

You’re as successful as the people around you, and you can’t do this by yourself. Write out your org chart: who does what tasks, and who reports to whom.

Maybe you won’t need to hire immediately because your first phase is a food truck or a very small mom-and-pop. You should nonetheless consider staff planning. Figure out how many and what kinds of staffers you’ll need, what shift schedules will look like, and how much your labor will cost. Those projections are essential to building out a budget and any other financial planning (such as your expected restaurant prime cost ).

Outline your technology plan 

Take a deep breath, clear your mind, and consider your tech needs. They’re going to be several. For some restaurants the sum of your technology tools, or the so-called tech stack , is surprisingly straightforward: Pizza joints , tap rooms , and coffee shops , for example, use a handful of go-to tools. Most everyone else has to improvise a bit.

First thing, you’ll need a point-of-sale system — a huge choice, and one that will determine many other downstream tech choices. A good POS can simplify financial reports and analysis, stock turnover, and more. Your POS will be your best business management tool for day to day operations. Many businesses have transitioned to a cashless model by accepting sources like Apple Pay, Venmo, and credit card systems . Do some shopping, and don’t be shy about haggling over the price with your eventual provider.

You might need delivery and marketing services like DoorDash and GrubHub (or you might decide to launch your own delivery service ). Digital menus and ordering, virtual check-in, mobile payment systems , and a solid website all belong in this section. You might also push the boundaries further with e-commerce , reservation software , inventory management, payroll and staffing and hiring, food waste monitoring, your kitchen display systems , and online ordering platforms. So many aspects of a restaurant’s operation are propelled or assisted by different tech tools, you’re going to want to get nerdy with it, and check those price tags.

Show off some elements of your restaurant design 

Plan and consider the experience when you first walk into your restaurant following through every step of your space. What do you want your customers to experience? What environment do you want to create to represent your brand identity and how should it influence the dining experience? What about your workers — will they have their own bathroom? Lockers?

This vision will vary depending upon your type of restaurant, the space you’re working with, and your budget. Get creative. Depending upon how you expect to use the space at different times of the year and day, you may want a space that can transition to present different energies for different settings. The general design aesthetic may be something to test run at a soft opening or in feedback surveys.

Lay out your market analysis

Failing to do enough unbiased, thorough research is perhaps the greatest mistake restaurateurs make in business planning. With so many factors to consider, a guess or your gut aren’t the most reliable guides. Do your research, gather data, and make the best-educated decisions possible for your location, your budget, your concept, and your model.

Here are some broad areas to consider, with some questions to get you probing.

Location. This includes both your specific address and the rest of the neighborhood. What is foot traffic or driving traffic like? And will you have high traffic and good visibility? Who lives nearby, what do they spend, and what are their dining habits?

Have a look around, within a short drive or walking distance. Are there other restaurants with similar offerings to yours? This might not be a bad thing — opening a gelato shop on a block with an Italian restaurant might benefit you both. But if they are similar, how does their menu stack up to yours? Is their location more visible? If so, how can you set your establishment apart?

Competitive analysis. This is somewhat related to location. How well you do will depend on who else exists in your area that is both a direct and indirect competitor.

Do a SWOT analysis — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. What demand will there be for your restaurant? Who are your top competitors, and what advantages do you have that they don’t?

Competitive analysis information for restaurants can be tricky. Business intelligence in this industry commonly travels as mostly word of mouth, which doesn’t always paint a full picture. If you have the budget, consider hiring a consultant or data firm to help you figure out the landscape. While it may be difficult to get some competitive market data, you have to be thorough.

Performance KPIs. Know how to calculate top restaurant key performance indicators, and know the most appropriate metrics of your type of restaurant. You want to set realistic financial goals.

Target marketing. Without limiting yourself, ask who is your ideal customer? Age, income, background, tastes, family size, you name it. You’re going to want to build your brand to appeal to them, without needlessly alienating other possible customers. Restaurant owners commonly overestimate how much their target demographic will spend — for instance young, hip diners are great for bringing energy and attention, but they’re often cash-poor. Know what people in your area have to spend so that you can set realistic expectations for sales.

Theme. Branding, branding, branding. This again draws from your value proposition and your overall design. Know your theme and maintain consistency to build your brand .

Financial analysis. This might be the most important analysis. If you’re spending faster than you’re earning, you’ll be sunk, and for a variety or reasons it’s easy to overestimate your profitability. Do the math — pitting all your costs against your projected revenue. Then run those calculations back while considering how you would withstand a shock to the system such as another pandemic , supply chain woes, or a bird flu that sends the price of eggs soaring. Economics is known as the dismal science for a reason. Confront the hard questions about whether you can turn a profit. 

Soft openings. Have you attempted a trial run, or a pop-up ? Do you have some other solid form of proof that your ideas — your menu, your marketing plans, your vibes — can draw an audience? If not, figure out a way to present a proof-of-concept menu of items to 50 or 100 people to get their customer feedback on quality, experience, and price point. Incorporate their testimony (and suggestions) into your overall plan, and use the test run to let investors know you’ve prototyped your concept. It gives them confidence.

Sketch out your marketing plan 

Second perhaps only to your market analysis, your marketing plan may be the most important aspect of your business plan. Your marketing plan should at the very least include: a website, a plan to use social media, a plan to use Google, a plan to use incorporate loyalty programs, any relevant traditional media (such as print or radio ads), and any other direct-to-consumer outreach — coupons, flyers, mailers, email, and so forth. Figure out what it all costs and include that estimate into your expenses.

As you imagine your marketing, picture how the other aspects of your business plan connect to it. Does your restaurant design lend itself to creating the sort of vibe you want to showcase on Instagram, for instance? Does your menu include items that perform especially well on TikTok? Is the lighting suitable for content creators to make posts of their favorite menu items? Make a note of it. Part of the business plan’s essential function is itself to market your idea to people who might back your restaurant and encourage them to bring more people next time they visit. The marketing plan thus has a dual function. It lays out your strategies and ideas; it also serves to market the business plan itself. So think of it as a place where the other components of your overall plan converge.

If you’re stumped for ideas, scope out this quick rundown of top restaurant marketing tools and digital marketing tips . Then check out ways to build a great restaurant website , strategies to win on SEO and on local SEO in particular , a primer on setting up a Google Business Profile , basic social media best practices , specific best practices for Instagram , strategies for marketing your restaurant on TikTok (plus some TikTok accounts to follow ), pointers on how to shoot great food video , how to use email as your secret weapon, and how, after all of this, to get the best returns from your restaurant marketing budget .

Finally, put the business plan to use by presenting to investors

Now, to the point of the plan: Showing people who might want to invest in your restaurant that you’ve got a chance to turn a buck. Restaurants fail all the time. Top of your investors' minds will be the question you've been considering all along now, namely: How will this venture survive to make a profit?

Ideally you’re presenting to investors around your soft launch. If the soft launch and the pitch are successful, you may get some capital lined up and get to move ahead to the hard launch.

Whether you win over private investors or secure a business loan, this business plan will allow you to present a strong, metrics-based pitch that shows a path to success grounded in realistic expectations and thorough market research. By the time you’ve honed your business plan, tweaking and adjusting as you interrogate your ideas, you should feel ready for anything.

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Restaurant Startup Costs: How Much Does It Cost To Start a Restaurant?

The answer, of course, depends on several variables. The type of restaurant, the location, the menu, and the size all play a role in how much it will cost to get the doors open, and all these factors should be thoroughly analyzed in your restaurant business plan .

However, on average you can expect anywhere from a few thousand to a few million. According to a survey by RestaurantOwner, the median cost to open a restaurant is $375,500 or $3,586 per seat. If owning the building is figured into the amount, the cost increases to $525,500 or $5,018 per seat.

In this article, we’ll explore the different restaurant startup costs associated with opening a new restaurant to help new restaurant owners can get a better idea of what it will take to make restaurant concept a reality.

Average Restaurant Startup Costs Breakdown

The cost to open a restaurant will include everything from the rent or mortgage payments on the building to the price of the dishware. Here is a list of some of the most common expenses associated with opening a new restaurant:

Business, Liquor and City Licensing Fees

You will need to obtain a business license as well as any other local permits required by your city or state including a liquor license. These fees can range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars depending on the location and type of restaurant.

Construction and Remodeling Costs

If you’re renting your commercial space that needs some work to be done, you’ll need to factor in construction costs. This can include anything from painting and repairs to building out a kitchen. Construction costs can range from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the scope of work that needs to be done.

Cooking and Food Service Equipment

Another big expense when starting a restaurant is purchasing equipment for the kitchen and dining room. This can include items like stoves, ovens, cold food tables, dishwashers, and refrigerators for the kitchen as well as tables, chairs, and booths for the dining room. The cost of this equipment will depend on the quality and quantity that you need.

You can expect to spend anywhere from $5,000 to $100,000 on restaurant equipment. To save on some restaurant costs, you may want to consider leasing equipment instead of purchasing it outright or purchasing used equipment.

Dishware and Glassware

In addition to the kitchen equipment, you’ll also need to purchase dishware for your restaurant. This includes plates, glasses, and silverware. The cost of this will depend on the type of restaurant you’re opening and the quality of dishware you select, but you should budget for at least $1,000.

In addition to furniture, you’ll also need to decorate your restaurant. This can include paintings, posters, and other wall hangings. The cost of this will depend on the type of decor you select and how much you need. You should budget for at least $500 for restaurant decor.

Point of Sale System & Other Restaurant Technology

A point of sale (POS) system is a must-have for any restaurant. This system allows you to take orders and process payments. The cost of a POS system will vary depending on the features you need, but you can expect to spend at least $1,000.

You’ll also need to purchase other restaurant technology like computers, printers, and software. The cost of this will depend on the type and quantity of equipment you need. You should budget for at least $1000 for this technology equipment.

In today’s world, a restaurant website is a must. Not only will it allow customers to find your restaurant, but it can also be used to take online orders. The cost of a website will vary depending on how many features you need, but you should budget for at least $500.

Labor Costs

Of course, you’ll also need to factor in labor costs when starting a restaurant. This includes the cost of hiring chefs, cooks, servers, and other staff. The cost of labor will depend on the number of employees you need to hire and their hourly wages.

You can expect to spend at least $7,000 per month on labor but will increase as the need for more employees increases.

Marketing Costs

Finally, you’ll need to factor in marketing costs when starting a restaurant. This includes the cost of advertising through the restaurant’s social media platforms, PR, and online marketing, all of which should be outlined in your restaurant marketing plan .

The cost of marketing will vary depending on the type of marketing you do and how much you spend. Incorporating a comprehensive restaurant marketing plan can guide your efforts, ensuring they are both effective and cost-efficient. The average start-up cost for marketing should be about $1000, but should include targeted marketing for the grand opening to ensure maximum impact.

Now that we’ve gone over some of the most common expenses associated with opening a new restaurant, let’s take a look at how much it will actually cost to open one.

The cost to open a restaurant will vary depending on the type of eatery you’re starting, the location, and the size. However, you can expect to spend anywhere from $150,000 to $450,000 to get your restaurant up and running.

Of course, the amount of money you’ll need to start your restaurant will also depend on how much you’re willing to do yourself. For example, if you have experience in the food industry, you may be able to get by with a smaller budget. Additionally, if you’re opening a smaller eatery, you may not need to spend as much money on equipment and decor.

Other Ongoing Expenses

In addition to the startup costs, there are also a number of ongoing restaurant expenses you’ll need to factor in when starting a restaurant. These include food costs, rent, utilities, and insurance.

Food Expenses

One of the biggest ongoing restaurant expenses is food costs. This includes the cost of ingredients as well as the cost of labor to prepare the food. The food cost will vary depending on the type of restaurant you’re running, but you can expect to spend 30% to 35% of your revenue on food.

Rent and Building Fees

Another big expense for restaurants is rent. The amount you’ll need to pay will depend on the size and location of your eatery. For example, if you’re opening a restaurant in a major city, you can expect to pay much more in rent than if you were opening in a smaller town.

Your initial cost usually includes the lease security deposit, the first and last month’s rent, and any build-out fees associated with getting the space ready for your restaurant.

In addition to rent, you’ll also need to factor in the cost of any building fees, such as CAM (Common Area Maintenance) charges.

Restaurant Utilities

Another ongoing expense for restaurants is utility costs. This includes the cost of electricity, gas, water, and trash service. The amount you’ll need to pay will vary depending on the size of your restaurant and how often you’re open.

Restaurant Insurance

Finally, you’ll also need to factor in the cost of insurance when starting a restaurant. This includes property insurance, general liability insurance, and liquor liability insurance. The amount you’ll need to pay will depend on the size and location of your eatery, as well as the type of insurance you choose.

As you can see, there are a lot of costs associated with starting a restaurant. However, if you’re prepared for these expenses, you’ll be one step closer to opening your dream eatery.

Factors That Effect Restaurant Startup Costs

There are a few factors that will have a big effect on how much it costs to start your restaurant:

The next thing to consider is the location of your restaurant. The cost of renting or leasing a restaurant space will vary depending on the market you’re in. For example, a commercial space in a prime location will likely be more expensive than one in a rural area. Additionally, the cost of build-out and renovations will also vary depending on the location.

Type of Restaurant

Another factor that will affect how much it costs to start your restaurant is the type of eatery you’re opening. For example, a fast food restaurant will have different start-up costs than an upscale restaurant.

Your restaurant’s menu will also play a role in how much it costs to start up. If you’re planning to serve simple, inexpensive dishes, your food costs will be lower than if you’re aiming for a more upscale menu. Additionally, the cost of ingredients will also vary depending on the season and where you source them from.

Finally, the size of your restaurant will also impact how much it costs to get started. Obviously, a larger space will require more money for rent or lease, build-out, and renovations. But you’ll also need to purchase more cooking equipment and supplies, and you’ll likely have higher labor costs.

The actual cost of starting a restaurant will vary depending on the specific type of restaurant, location, menu, and size, but you don’t need to break the bank.

How To Save Money When Opening Your Own Restaurant

As a new restaurant owner, there are a few general tips you can follow to help keep your costs down:

Do Your Research

Before you get started, it’s important to do your research. This includes everything from understanding the ins and outs of the restaurant industry to knowing how much it will cost to lease a space in your desired location.

Start Small

One of the best ways to save money when starting a restaurant is to start small. This means leasing a smaller space, outfitting it with less expensive fixtures and furnishings, and keeping your menu simple. You can always expand your operation later down the road as your business grows.

Bargain Shop

Another great way to save when opening a restaurant is to bargain shop. This includes everything from negotiating lower prices with vendors to scouring Craigslist for used kitchen equipment or furniture.

Opening a new restaurant is a big undertaking, but with careful planning and a bit of thriftiness, you can keep your costs under control.

So, How Much Does It Cost?

The actual cost of starting a restaurant will vary depending on the specific type of restaurant, location, menu, and size of your dream restaurant. However, with careful planning and a solid restaurant https://www.growthink.com/businessplan/help-center/sample-restaurant-business-plansbusiness plan, including insights from a sample restaurant business plan , you can open the restaurant of your dreams without breaking the bank.

Free Restaurant Business Plan Example PDF

Download our restaurant business plan pdf here. This is a free restaurant business plan example to help you get started on your own restaurant plan.  

How to Finish Your Restaurant Business Plan in 1 Day!

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How to write a restaurant business plan

A small restaurant business plan is the roadmap you use to open a successful spot. As a first step to creating yours, ask your friends and colleagues to share restaurant business plan examples. Their restaurant business plan samples can inspire yours.

Once you’ve studied those examples, it’s time to start writing your own. No matter how much thought you’ve put into your concept or how many trusted colleagues have assured you of its greatness, you must write a restaurant business plan. It will prove the viability of your concept to potential investors and provide them with a clear and engaging answer to the question: “Why does the world need this restaurant?”

“The point of a business plan is to show that you’ve done your homework,” says Charles Bililies, owner of Souvla , a fine casual Greek restaurant in San Francisco that has received national acclaim since opening in the spring of 2014.

“You have to show any potential investor that you have an actual plan, you know what you’re talking about, it looks professional, and you’re not just screwing around.”

Quick links Branded cover Table of contents Concept Sample menu Service Management team Design Target market Location Market overview Marketing and publicity Specialists and consultants Business structure Financials

1. Branded cover

Include your logo (even if it’s not finalized), the date, and your name.

2. Table of contents

A table of contents in a restaurant business plan provides an organized overview of the document’s structure and content. It typically appears at the beginning of the plan and lists the major sections and subsections with their corresponding page numbers.

The table of contents is important for several reasons. Firstly, it allows readers to quickly navigate through the plan, enabling easy access to specific sections of interest. Secondly, it helps in presenting a professional and well-structured document, showing that you have carefully organized your thoughts and ideas. It also improves readability and comprehension, as readers can easily locate and refer back to relevant information

3. Restaurant concept

Describe your restaurant concept and get the reader excited about your idea. Specify whether the restaurant will be fine dining or more casual. Include an executive summary and go into detail about the food you’ll be serving, inspiration behind your concept, and an overview of service style.

Define clearly what will be unique about your restaurant and include your mission statement. This section should include a market analysis that shows how your restaurant will be similar and different from competing restaurants.

4. Sample menu

The menu is the most important touchpoint of any restaurant’s brand, so this should be more than just a simple list of items. Incorporate your logo and mock up a formatted menu design (tap a designer for help if needed).

Your sample menu should also include prices that are based on a detailed cost analysis. This will:

• Give investors a clear understanding of your targeted price point
• Provide the info needed to estimate check averages
• Show the numbers used create financial projections for starting costs
• Show investors that you’ve done the homework
• Prove you can stay within a budget

This section is most relevant for:

• Fine-dining concepts
• Concepts that have a unique service style
• Owners who have particularly strong feelings about what role service will play in their restaurant.

It can be a powerful way of conveying your approach to hospitality to investors by explaining the details of the guest’s service experience.

Will your restaurant have counter service and restaurant hostess software designed to get guests on their way as quickly as possible, or will it look more like a theater, with captains putting plates in front of guests simultaneously?

If an extensive wine program is an integral part of what you’re doing, will you have a sommelier? If you don’t feel that service is a noteworthy component of your operation, address it briefly in the concept section.

6. Management team

Write a brief overview of yourself and the team you have established so far. You want to show that your experience has provided you with the necessary skills to run a successful restaurant and act as a restaurant business owner.

Ideally, once you have described the strong suit of every member of your team, you’ll be presenting a full pitch deck. Most independent restaurant investors are in this for more than just money, so giving some indication of what you value and who you are outside of work may also be helpful.

Incorporate some visuals. Create a mood board that shows images related to the design and feeling of your restaurant.

Whether you’re planning to cook in a wood-burning oven or are designing an eclectic front-of-house, be sure to include those ideas. Photos of materials and snippets of other restaurants that you love that are similar to the brand you’re building are also helpful.

8. Target market

Who is going to eat at your restaurant? What do they do for a living, how old are they, and what’s their average income? Once you’ve described them in detail, reiterate why your specific concept will appeal to them.

9. Location

There should be a natural and very clear connection between the information you present in the “Target Market” section and this one. You probably won’t have a specific site identified at this point in the process, but you should talk about viable neighborhoods.

Don’t assume that potential investors will be familiar with the areas you’re discussing and who works or lives there—make the connections clear. You want readers to be confident that your restaurant’s “ideal” diner intersects with the neighborhood(s) you’re proposing as often as possible.

If you don’t have a site , this is a good place to discuss what you’re looking for in terms of square footage, foot traffic, parking, freeway accessibility, outdoor seating , and other important details.

10. Market overview

Address the micro and macro market conditions in your area and how they relate to licenses and permits. At a macro level, what are the local and regional economic conditions?

If restaurants are doing poorly, explain why yours won’t; if restaurants are doing well, explain how you’ll be able to compete in an already booming restaurant climate. At a micro level, discuss who your direct competitors are. Talk about what types of restaurants share your target market and how you’ll differentiate yourself.

11. Marketing and publicity

The restaurant landscape is only getting more competitive. Discuss your pre- and post-opening marketing plans to show investors how you plan to gain traction leading up to opening day, as well as how you’ll keep the momentum going.

If you’re going to retain a PR/marketing company, introduce them and explain why you’ve chosen them over other companies (including some of their best-known clients helps). If not, convey that you have a solid plan in place to generate attention on your own through social media, your website , and media connections.

12. Specialists and consultants

List any outside contractors you plan to retain, such as:

• General contractor
• PR and marketing

Briefly explain the services they’ll be providing for you, why you chose them, and any notable accomplishments.

13. Business structure

This section should be short and sweet. What type of business structure have you set up and why did you make that specific decision? You will need to work with an attorney to help you determine what business structure is best for you.

“Step one: write a business plan. Step two: hire a good attorney. In addition to helping me build a smart, sustainable business structure, my attorney was also a great resource for reviewing my business plan because she’s read thousands of them. She was a very helpful, experienced outside perspective for more than just legal matters,” says Charles Bililies.

14. Financial projections

Let your accountant guide you through this portion of your business plan. It is crucial that whoever you hire to help you with your finances has a wealth of restaurant experience (not just one or two places). They should be familiar with the financial specifics of starting a restaurant and know what questions to ask you.

Before creating realistic financial projections, your accountant will want to know:

• How many seats the restaurant will have
• What your average check will be
• How many covers per day you plan to do

Being conservative in these estimations is key. These three data points will be used as the basis for figuring out whether your concept is financially feasible.

Lou Guerrero, Principal at Kross, Baumgarten, Kniss & Guerrero, emphasizes, “You’ll get a lot of accountants that tell you that they’ve done a couple of restaurants, but you have to choose someone that has a deep expertise in what you’re doing. There’s nothing to gain from going with someone that doesn’t have a very restaurant-centric practice.”

A well-vetted accountant with restaurant experience will know exactly what you’ll need to have prepared to show investors.

The key projections you can expect to work on are:

• Pro forma profit and loss statement for the first three to five years of operation
• Break even analysis
• Capital requirements budget

Writing a comprehensive restaurant business plan is a crucial step towards opening a successful establishment. By seeking inspiration from examples, demonstrating your expertise, and addressing all the essential components, you can prove the viability of your concept to potential investors.

Remember, a well-prepared business plan demonstrates professionalism and a clear understanding of your goals, increasing your chances of achieving long-term success in the competitive restaurant industry.

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Fine Dining Restaurant Business Plan

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Gabri's Restaurant & Lounge

Executive summary executive summary is a brief introduction to your business plan. it describes your business, the problem that it solves, your target market, and financial highlights.">, opportunity.

The rapidly expanding borough of Long Branch, New Jersey ‘on the shore’ is in need of a warm and friendly place with excellent food. A place where you always know you will get the best of everything. 

More opportunity than problem, actually … unless it’s dinnertime and you’re in Long Branch. 

Gabri’s Lounge & Restaurant will feature a cozy dining room and an elegant lounge. Comfortable furnishings and decor with soothing warm tones. The lounge has comfy couches and antique love seats with a softly lit bar. It will be the perfect place to stop in for a bite to eat, for a drink or for a small business meeting. For extra comfort and to please a large group of people we will make up special hors d’ oeuvre platters for customers.

The outlook for the future of Long Branch is promising. Developers are recreating a $150 million first-class resort project. The old pier will be rebuilt with ferry service to Manhattan, New York City, beach cabanas, boardwalk and a bike path over a total of 25 acres. There will be 100,000 sq. ft. of commercial space, and over 700 residential units with condo and townhouses ranging from $200,000-$500,000; rentals from $1000-$2,500 a month, and a two-tier garage. The combination of these elements will provide the city with a year-round economy.

Competition

Our biggest competition is the town next to Long Branch, called Red Bank which has a large selection of restaurants. Currently, many people who live in Long Branch drive seven miles to Red Bank to dine out. With the redevelopment in Long Branch and with Gabri’s Lounge & Restaurant, we will convince these people to stay in Long Branch and eat at our restaurant.

Gabri’s is a great place to eat, combining an intriguing atmosphere with excellent, interesting food. The mission is not only to have great tasting food, but have efficient and friendly service because customer satisfaction is paramount. We want to be the restaurant choice for all families and singles, young and old, male or female. Employee welfare will be equally important to our success. Everyone will be treated fairly and with the utmost respect. We want our employees to feel a part of the success of Gabri’s Lounge and Restaurant. Happy employees make happy guests.

We will combine menu variety, atmosphere, ambiance, special theme nights and a friendly staff to create a sense of ‘place’ in order to reach our goal of over all value in the dining/entertainment experience. We want fair profits for the owners, and a rewarding place to work for the employees.

Expectations

The most important assumption in the Projected Profit and Loss statement is the gross margin, higher than industry averages. We are also planning to spend more on payroll than the industry average.

We do see moderate growth over the first three years, because restaurants depend on word of mouth and we’ll be able to meet capacity requirements to grow as shown here. 

Financial Highlights by Year

Financing needed.

$465,000 of funding is needed to finance $300K startup expense (in detail in company section) plus $85K of startup cash reserve and $80K non-cash assets at launch. We plan to put in $225K owner investment and land a $240K long-term SBA loan. 

Problem & Solution

Problem worth solving.

The area is in need of a warm and friendly place with excellent food. A place where you always know you will get the best of everything. The residents need a food place in long branch that has great food and fits their needs. They currently need to drive 7 miles for the closest "local" spot. 

Our Solution

Target Market

Market Size & Segments

615,301 people live in Monmouth County, 50% between 25-55 years old. That is the age group that dines out two to three times a week and spends an average $795 a month on food and drinks.

There are 224,447 households in Monmouth County and an average 2.7 persons per household. The median family income in Monmouth County averages, $64,271/year. There are 636 registered businesses in Long Branch with 7,885 employees. 

We mention that there are over 200,000 Scandinavians living in New Jersey and most of them live within 30 miles of Long Branch. We will be serving some Swedish cuisine as there is no Scandinavian restaurant in New Jersey.

Our primary customer base is from Long Branch, West Long Branch, Monmouth Beach, Rumson, Little Silver, Middletown, Red Bank, Shrewsbury, Deal, Eatontown, Freehold, Oceanport, Allenhurst, & Asbury Park.

Between they have combined population of 100,000 people with median income of $70K

Gabri’s focuses on local and tourist restaurant seekers. People that have a desire for good food and a fascinating atmosphere.

Long Branch is located 50 miles south of New York City and 75 miles north of Atlantic City on the ‘Jersey shore.’ The city of Long Branch is in the process of revitalizing. In 2003, the city will be developing a new look and will be attracting a larger community of affluent residents.

Long Branch tomorrow:  The ocean front district includes five sectors which are identified as:

• Pier/Village Center (mixed commercial, entertainment & residential),
• Beach Front North (residential & entertainment),
• Beach Front South (residential),
• Hotel Campus (office & hotel) and
• Broadway Gateway (mixed commercial).

The boundaries for Pier Village are Melrose Terrace to Laird Street, and from Ocean Avenue to Ocean Boulevard. The developer has broken ground to build 420 residential units, including a two-tier garage, 100,000 sq. ft. of commercial space, beach cabanas and a restoration of the boardwalk.

Beach Front North is located above the Hotel Campus and just south of Seven Presidents Park. It will have 350 residential units, 1,100 parking spaces, and a bike path over an area of 25 acres. This project, along with Pier Village, will change the face of the city’s ocean front for the next hundred years and provide a major economic boost to the city of Long Branch. 

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The new, 600-foot pier offers ferry service to Manhattan, New York City. The hotel facility now hosts 60,000 guests a year and is planning to add a tower with 250 more rooms.

As the city of Long Branch is re-developing, we can see that a fine dining establishment like Gabri’s  is needed here. The city will have much to offer and the people that it draws expect a place where they will get the best of everything. Gabri’s Lounge and Restaurant will offer a new fine dining concept to the area. The elegant atmosphere, our excellent food and our friendly staff will stand out and make a name in Long Branch and Monmouth County. We will succeed by giving people a combination of excellent and interesting food in an environment that attracts successful people that want to get a little bit more out of life than just the ordinary!

Market Segmentation

Gabri’s Lounge & Restaurant intends to cater to a wide group of people. We want everyone to feel welcome and relaxed in a cozy atmosphere with a wide and varied menu. It is our goal to have "something for everyone" everyday on our menu. In looking at our market analysis, we have defined the following groups as targeted segments. 

The Business Man: They work hard all day and often stay overnight in a strange city. He needs a competent establishment that helps impress his clients and prospects. Afterward, they want to relax and use the money they are making. They are the people that spend the most on drinks, food and tips.

Happy Couples: The restaurant will have an intimate, romantic, sophisticated atmosphere that encourages people to bring dates and to have couples arrive. Gabri’s wants to be a search place where people meet each other and develop a network. These young couples are generally very successful but balanced and won’t be spending as much on drinks.

The Family: The perfect place for a family dinner. Families will come for the accommodative menu and friendly service. The excellent value in their meals will keep Gabri’s in favor with the parents. 

High-end Singles: We will attract them with our decor and layout. Our international menu, striking artwork, wine tasting evenings and events, excellent service and engaging clientele will confirm the feeling of being in "the coolest place" in Monmouth County.

Tourists: Long Branch is a city that attracts many vacationers during the summer months of May through September. Gabri’s will be a destination with its attractive atmosphere, international menu, and outdoor patio.

Gabri’s Lounge & Restaurant will focus on attracting a wide and diverse clientele ages 25-60 with an annual income of at least $30,000.

We want the business man, happy couples, high-end singles, families, tourists with money, wealthy image seekers and compulsive spenders. We focus on these specific groups because these are the types of people who frequent other restaurants and bars in the area. They are the ones that are willing to spend their money on good dining and service at a value price. We generally know the characteristics of our clientele with the available demographics.

Our demographics include people from the local Long Branch area, restaurant patrons from neighboring cities, and tourists from other cities and states. The characteristics of our clientele will be people who are creative, entertaining and sophisticated diners.

Current Alternatives

There are three restaurants in Long Branch that are similar to Gabri’s. These are also the three most popular places in Long Branch. Each of these restaurants will be important to us. We feel the clientele they have is the class of clientele that Gabri’s will appeal to.

• The first place is an 80 seat restaurant, open six days a week and serves lunch and dinner located uptown on Broadway. It is very busy for lunch as well as at dinner time. Their price range is $7-$15 for lunch and $12-$29 for dinner entrees. 
• The second is an upscale lounge/food bar with a small menu. It is located in the West End district two blocks away from the ocean. They are only open for dinner. The small items on there menu range from $8-$15 and a mixed drink is $8-$10. 
• The third place is an upscale Contemporary American restaurant at the Ocean. They are open seven days a week, dinner for two without wine averages $100.

Everyone that sells prepared meals is our competition though because we all compete for the same home meal replacement dollar. However, there are two segments of the restaurant industry that are our main competition: the casual dining restaurant concept and the fine dining value restaurant. If the value of the food and price and service is better at a fine dining restaurant than a casual restaurant, where will is a customer more likely to go?

The key is to deliver the best food at the best price with the highest level of service. This is the very definition of value. This concept is at the heart of Gabri’s Restaurant & Lounge.

Our Advantages

People will choose us for: 

 Location – they can walk to our place instead of driving 7 miles of traffic to our competitor red bank. This matters to locals, they don’t have a neighborhood place to eat. 

Hours – We will be open Monday night for "Restaurant Night" where owners and staff of other restaurants can come in and enjoy a meal on their nights off. This is special since bars and restaurants in the area are closed Mondays. 

Special Evenings – these are mostly Wine Tastings which are a five-course meal featuring new wines sponsored by our distributors. Customers can come and learn more about wine and food! Other special evenings at Gabri’s are Easter dinner, Swedish Midsummer, our famous Smörgåsbord, Fourth of July celebrations, Labor Day weekend and Christmas dinners.

A place with a "little extra" – They can have business meetings here, a place for a quiet conversation, or for a special occasion. We will make up special hors d’oeuvre platters or full-course meals for customers’ special occasions.

Keys to Success

• The creation of a unique and innovative fine dining atmosphere will differentiate us from the competition. The restaurant will stand out from the other restaurants in the area because of the unique design and decor. We will offer a fine dining experience in a cozy atmosphere.
• Product quality. Not only great food but great service and atmosphere.
• The menu will appeal to a wide and varied clientele. It is International with an interesting twist.
• We will have special theme nights like restaurant nights, local artist’s openings, Easter dinners, Swedish Midsummer party, Fourth of July celebration, Labor Day weekend, wine tasting dinners, special ethnic food nights, and Swedish smörgåsbord. All this will attract a varied clientele to Gabri’s.
• Leave it to Linda Catering already has an established clientele in the area.
• Controlling costs at all times without exception.

Marketing & Sales

Marketing plan.

We will employ three different marketing tactics to increase customer awareness of Gabri’s Lounge & Restaurant. Our most important tactic will be social media word-of-mouth/in-store marketing. This will be by far the cheapest and most effective of our marketing programs.

Word-of-mouth/In-store Marketing

•  V.I.P. Party – We will host a V.I.P. Dinner before the ‘Grand Opening.’ This will serve the dual purpose of training our staff and introducing ourselves to the community. The list of individuals we will invite comes from the Chamber of Commerce. We will also include a raffle on Facebook allowing some lucky members of the public to participate in the opening night. 
• Grand Opening celebration.
• Once a month invite a new local artist to show their work in the lounge. Social media outlets will be employed to get people interested with "surprise musical guest" or "local love". Good for the artists, and good for us. 
• "Restaurant Night" –  Every Monday night we will have a special evening for restaurant people. A perfect night for the local area’s restaurant owners and staff to get together on a night off!
• Valentine’s Day.
• Easter dinner.
• Swedish Midsummer party.
• Fourth of July celebration.
• Labor Day weekend party.
• Wine tasting dinner.
• Swedish Smörgåsbord.
• New Years Eve party.
• Special ethnic food nights.
• Memorial Day.

Local Store Marketing

• Make a brochure for the large hotels and popular bed & breakfast establishments in town to provide to their guests, containing interior pictures of our restaurant, menus and prices.
• There are several nursing homes in the city of Long Branch. We will approach them to sponsor meals for the elderly. This will offer us higher visibility to a group that may not be as mobile and we’ll be contributing to the community in a material way. Word-of-mouth referral is very powerful and particularly amongst the elderly to both their peers and their extended families.

Local Media

• Direct mail piece – Containing interior pictures of our restaurant, our menu, "Theme Nights," catering and an explanation of our concept.
• Target social media campaign to market directly to businesses for regular business lunch and dinner entertaining.

Our sales plan is to establish and maintain position with our local customers. The strategy is to build more customers in order to increase revenue. Sales in our business is client service. It is repeat business. We will focus on making all our customers happy with our food, service and entertainment options.

Our strategy in the restaurant is to have an experienced staff that know the food, wine and liquor. We will train every new employee so they will fit in with Gabri’s concept, which is "Wonderful food, reasonably-priced wine and knowledgeable service in an outstanding atmosphere."

Locations & Facilities

We are looking for a restaurant space approximately 2,000 – 2,500 sq. ft. in Long Branch, New Jersey. We will open Gabri’s in March 2003. We will be open 7 days a week. Serving lunch Monday – Friday 11:30 AM – 2:30 PM. Dinner Sunday – Thursday, between 5 PM – 10 PM. Friday and Saturday Dinner 5 PM – 11 PM. The lounge will be open until 2 AM Friday and Saturday. Sunday – Thursday the lounge will stay open till 12 AM. Saturday and Sunday we will serve brunch between 11 AM – 3 PM. We will be closed on New Years Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. We will be open on large holidays such as Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day weekend. These are three big weekends ‘down the shore’ that brings many tourists to the area.

Milestones & Metrics

Milestones table, key metrics.

Key Metrics 

• Sales, gross margin, expenses, and profits, obviously. 
• We need to watch sales per customer, sales per table, sales per square foot
• Meals served per month
• Drinks served per meal
• Drinks served per month
• Total customer traffic
• Catering sales
• Catering leads and closes. 

Ownership & Structure

Ownership and Structure

The restaurant will start out as a LLC corporation, owned by its founders Linda Andersson and John Billeci. Ms. Andersson will function as the General Manager and Mr. Billeci as managing partner.

Mission Statement

Specific plan objectives

Gabri’s Lounge & Restaurant’s objectives for the first three years of operation includes:

• Keeping food cost under 35% revenue.
• Keeping employee labor cost between 24-29% of revenue.
• Stay as a small restaurant with excellent food and service.
• Averaging sales between $1,000,000-1,500,000 per year.
• Promote and expand Leave it to Linda Catering in New Jersey & New York City.
• Expand our marketing and advertising in New Jersey and New York.
• Achieve 12% return on investment to investors for the first two years and 15% for the next three years.

Management Team

Personnel table, financial plan investor-ready personnel plan .">, key assumptions.

Our financial plan depends on important assumptions, most of which are shown in the following table as annual figures. The key underlying assumptions are:

• We assume a slow-growth economy, without major recession. This means our customer’s have money to pay for a meal out. 
• We assume that there are no unforseen changes in the expectancy in the popularity of our restaurant. 
• We assume access to investments and financing are sufficient to maintain and fulfill our financial plan as shown in the tables.

Revenue by Month

Expenses by month, net profit (or loss) by year, use of funds.

We plan on using the funds we receive will be used for: equipment, furniture, painting, reconstruction, rent, start-up labor, liquor license, six months operating cash, and legal and consulting costs associated with opening our restaurant. We plan on making our location look like new, and upgrade so we can service our restaurant customers as well as our catering customers 

Startup Expenses

Startup expenses of $300K break down as follows:

They appear on our balance sheet as a negative $300K retained earnings at launch. 

Startup Assets

As indicated on the balance sheet, our startup assets include $85K cash reserves, plus $50K long-term assets (mostly kitchen and furniture), $30K inventory, and $1K other current assets. 

Sources of Funds

We are personally committing $225,000 of owner investment (which appears as paid-in capital in the balance sheet at launch) plus a $240,000 long-term loan from our local bank with SBA loan guarantee. 

Projected Profit & Loss

Projected balance sheet, projected cash flow statement.

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• Restaurant Business Plan

Article Index:

2.0 Company Description

3.0 daily operations and production, 4.0 market analysis, 5.0 marketing strategy and implementation, 6.0 organization and management, 7.0 financial plan.

1.0 Executive Summary

The Traditional Home-Style Restaurant (“THR”) will be a moderately priced 86 seat restaurant offering family style food and service. Broasted chicken, pot roast, steaks and pork chops along with classic hamburgers, wraps and generous salads are all on the menu. We will offer specialty selections including a lighter options and smaller portions for a children’s menu.

The restaurant will be family owned and operated by Jeff and Betty Wright. Together they have over 25+ collective years experience in the restaurant and catering industry.

The Wrights will be leasing a 3,400 square foot space located at West Roads Shopping Center, an existing retail center located in Benbrook, a suburb in Fort Worth, Texas. The site was previously leased as an Italian Restaurant. Although the location was previously utilized as a restaurant, the former tenant removed the majority of the furniture, fixtures and equipment which will need to be replaced. The location will also require some additional renovation to update the lavatories and increase table space in the dining area.

The décor will feature wood accented chairs with blue and white checked table cloths. Dinner style tables will be surrounded by wooden chairs with comfortable seating cushions.

Sales projections assume 1700 customers per week resulting in weekly sales of just over $19,777, or $1,028,000 annually. This equates to around $302 per square foot in sales annually which positions THR as a highly desirable concept for ownership in a table service market where $200 to $325 per square foot is considered moderately profitable and therefore a good investment. Total start up costs will be $363,000, $174,000 of which will be contributed by the owners and the remainder will be secured by a proposed bank loan.

1.1 Business Objectives

The primary objectives of the business plan for Restaurant are below:

• To be the premier home-style restaurant in western Fort Worth, Texas
• To provide quality meals at reasonable prices with exemplary service
• Achieve Cover ratios of 1.00X at each lunch and dinner serving
• To achieve Prime Cost Ratios lower than 65%

1.2 Mission Statement

Our Mission is to provide a unique and relaxing dining experience – similar to dining at home. We will strive to achieve this goal by: 1) by providing menu items incorporating quality ingredients at reasonable prices, and 2) we will be mindful of the well being of our customers and staff– treating each and everyone with dignity and respect – just like we would at our own home!

1.3 Guiding Principles

• Being Mindful of our Customers and our Staff Coinciding with our family values, we will treat both our customers and staff in a manner in which we ourselves would want to be treated (or better!).
• Gratitude “An attitude of gratitude” shown to our customers, employees and vendors – because without their input, service, labor and time, our business would not be here without them!
• Our Service Provide the warm and friendly service expected from a family-style restaurant creating an informal, comfortable environment which will make the customers satisfied and want to return again and again.

1.4 Keys to Success

• Repeat business. Every customer who comes in once should want to return, and recommend us. Word–of–mouth marketing is a powerful ally.
• Hire top notch chefs and offer training to keep the chef on top of his/her game, and pay top wages to ensure they stay with us.
• Location. Convenience is essential to us; we need to be close to our market because we are not trying to get people to travel to reach us.
• A variety of menu offerings with a “down home” theme, reasonably priced to establish credibility, but not so high as to limit customers.

The Traditional Home-Style Restaurant will be located 7950 Camp Bowie West Blvd, Fort Worth, Texas. The restaurant will be wholly owned and operated by Jeff and Betty Wright. The restaurant will serve a variety of classic home-style favorites from pot roast and mashed potatoes to patty melts and vanilla ice cream.

The restaurant will be open 7 days a week with hours as follows:

Monday 11:00 am – 9:00 pm Tuesday 11:00 am – 9:00 pm Wednesday 11:00 am – 9:00 pm Thursday 11:00 am – 9:00 pm Friday 11:00 am – 10:00 pm Saturday 11:00 am – 10:00 pm Sunday 12:00 pm – 5:00 pm

2.1 Ownership

The restaurant will be owned by Jeff Wright. Jeff began his restaurant career at the age of 15 working in a quick-service foodservice operation and earned his way through college as a server and bartender. After earning his degree, he worked for a regional restaurant chain and an independent fine dining restaurant. In these organizations he held the positions of Assistant Manager and then General Manager.

Betty Wright received her Culinary Degree from the Art Institute in Dallas. After graduation she was employed by a local chain restaurant and then at a Five Star Hotel in Dallas. Betty will be employed as the Kitchen Manager.

With the high turnover of help for startup restaurants, we will rely on family to fill in where required until we are off the ground and making a profit.

2.2 Legal Form

THR will be organized as a sole proprietorship, wholly owned and operated by Jeff Wright d/b/a Traditional Home-Style Restaurant. THR is registered in the state of Texas a community property state.

2.3 Start-Up Summary

The cost to open the restaurant is $363,000. The majority of the expenses are in furniture fixtures and equipment totally $110,000. The location requires some build-out and renovation totally $50,000 and will require approximately 30 days to complete. The Wrights will sub-contract the work themselves. Costs are detailed in a later section of this restaurant business plan.

$175,000 of the start-up costs will be funded by the owners. The owner’s source of funds is a combination of liquid assets and marketable securities, primarily from their existing catering business.

2.4 Location and Facilities

The 3,400 square foot restaurant will be located in a West Roads Shopping Center, a retail strip center located in the Benbrook suburb of Fort Worth, Texas. The restaurant is located in a major traffic area, at the intersection of Camp Bowie and Cherry Road.

Benbrook, a suburb of Fort Worth, Texas, has a population of over 51,000 according to the 2010 U.S. Census Report. The residential population in the immediate area is comprised of a mixture of single family and multi-family housing. The median household income is $46,532. Major employers include Union Pacific and Bank of America.

THR will be open 7 days a week for lunch and dinner requiring multiple shifts. Jeff will write the schedules. The schedules will be written in a manner that will allow the ability to increase or decrease hourly labor according to sales volume in order to maintain a consistent labor cost control.

Proper labeling and rotation techniques, accompanied by ample storage facilities will ensure that high quality prepared product will be sufficiently available to meet the demands during peak business hours. Replenishment and ongoing preparation will continue during off peak business hours.

Jeff Wright will be responsible for ordering, receiving and maintaining sufficient inventory to meet production demands. Ordering schedules will be staggered with perishable products being ordered multiple times per week to preserve freshness. Standard grocery and supply orders will be ordered less often, according to a predetermined schedule and storage capacity.

Mr. Wright will rely on operational checklists to verify that each work shift has been properly prepared for and to insure the operational standards are followed before, during and after work shifts.

The restaurant layout, including the dining room, kitchen and serving line, has been designed for efficiency and flexibility to accommodate the fluctuation in customer traffic and peak meal periods.

Upon arrival, guests will be greeted immediately by either the assistant manager or a server and asked for the seating preference. Drink orders will be taken and guests can munch on our complimentary rolls. Once the customer’s order is taken, the order will automatically be printed to a requisition printer located in the grill area. The grill cook will use the printed ticket to keep track of orders and place the meal under the heating lamps until the order is complete. The kitchen preparation line has been designed to be operated by a minimum staff of 1 line cook and a maximum of 4 cooks. This design allows line staffing to be adjusted to the business volume. Shift changes for all staff will involve cleanup, restocking and preparation. All monies will be settled at the end of each shift. The closing shift will involve designated closing duties that will leave the restaurant clean and fully prepared for the next day.

3.2 Competitive Comparison

The US restaurant industry includes about 480,000 restaurants with combined annual revenue of about $400 billion. Major companies include Brinker International which owns Chili’s Grill & Bar) and Maggiano’s, Ruby Tuesdays McDonald’s; YUM! Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell); and Darden Restaurants (Olive Garden, Red Lobster). The industry is highly fragmented: the 50 largest companies hold just 20 percent of the market.

Local competitors within a five mile radius are as follows.

• Hedarys Restaurant – This is a full service family restaurant established in 1977. The 5,000 SF restaurant run as a sole proprietorship, has 17 employees and generates $1.7 million in revenue annually. Prices are higher than THR and range from $8.00-$20 per entrée.
• Applebee’s – this is a chain restaurant offering standard fare. The food quality is average. Entrées range from $6.99 – $20.
• Chili’s – this is a chain restaurant also offering standard fare. Food choices are varied and prices range for $8-$21.
• Barbeque Ben’s – This is sole proprietorship offering primarily barbeque item. Although the food offering does not compete directly with the subject, the restaurant targets the same neighborhood families and has been operating at the single location since 1978. Entrée range from $8.99-$12.
• Cracker Barrel – located along Interstate 30, the restaurant is not located within the target market area. However due to its menu offering of home comfort food, the restaurant attracts a similar market, although Cracker Barrel’s attract the tourist business as well. Entrées range in price from $7.99-$14.

3.3 Suppliers

Because of their years of experience combined with their existing catering business, Jeff and Betty Wright have established relationships with qualified suppliers. These suppliers can provide reasonably priced products, delivered according to the schedule.

3.4 Management Controls

The Wrights will practice sound management procedures in order to control costs, insure quality of product and provide friendly customer service. The following systems will be used by management:

Order Guide: The restaurant will use an item specific order guide to track order history and maintain designated levels of product in inventory.

Weekly Inventory: Management will conduct a weekly inventory to determine valuation for use in the preparation of weekly profit and loss reports.

Daily Inventory Tracking: Daily inventory will be taken on specific items. Movement will be compared to sales data to ensure designated products have been properly accounted for.

3.5 Administrative Systems

With a limited staff, it is crucial that the Wrights remain current with daily cash outlay. The purchase of a POS system will immensely help them with these daily administrative reports:

Daily Cash Control.  Sales and receipts recorded by the POS system will be compared to actual cash and credit card deposits on a daily basis. Acceptable over/short amounts will be limited to $5.00 per day. Discrepancies greater than $5.00 will prompt management to conduct an immediate audit to account for the difference. Monthly totals will be compared to actual P&L statements for accuracy. Cash, debit card and credit card receipts will be deposited in a deposit.

Weekly Prime Cost Report.  Jeff Wright will prepare a weekly report that shows the gross profit margin after cost of goods sold and labor cost has been deducted from the sales revenue. The prime cost for this type of restaurant is expected to range from 60% to 65%. Proper control of the prime cost is the single most effective measure of management’s ability to operate the restaurant.

Purchasing Records/Payables.  A part time bookkeeper will process and record invoices and credits daily. Reports detailing cash expenditures, payments by check, and accounts payable transactions will be readily available. Check disbursements will be prepared by the bookkeeper. Check signing authority for the general operating account will be given to the general manager.

Payroll Processing.  Payroll checks will be issued bi-monthly. Jeff Wright will run reports from the time & attendance system, make necessary adjustments, and prepare for transfer to the payroll system. Payroll will be processed by a payroll processing service.

3.6 Future Services

THR has future plans to provide catering services for family reunions, weddings and other events desiring a “home-style” menu. This could potentially become a large portion of gross sales. The Wrights are targeting Year 2 and at that point, a sales agent would be hired to directly market the products for daily delivery or catered functions.

The restaurant industry is a large and diverse business: Restaurant-industry sales are forecast to reach $580.1 billion in 2010 – an increase of 2.5 percent over 2009. Restaurant-industry sales are projected to total $604 billion in 2011 and equal 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. The overall economic impact of the restaurant industry is expected to exceed $1.7 trillion in 2011. On a typical day in America in 2010, more than 130 million people will be foodservice patrons. Sales at full service restaurants reached $184.2 billion in 2010. Sales at limited service restaurants increased to $164.8 billion in 2010, while snack and non-alcoholic-beverage bar sales rose to $24.7 billion. (National Restaurant Association).

The US restaurant industry includes about 480,000 restaurants with combined annual revenue of about $400 billion. Major companies include McDonald’s; YUM! Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell); and Darden Restaurants (Olive Garden, Red Lobster). The industry is highly fragmented: the 50 largest companies hold just 20 percent of the market. (First Research).

The industry consists of full-service restaurants (FSR) and limited service eating places, which include quick-service restaurants (QSR); cafeterias; buffets; snack bars; and nonalcoholic beverage bars. (First Research)

4.1 Industry Analysis

This analysis is based on the Standard Industry Code (“SIC”) 5812: Eating and Drinking Places Establishments primarily engaged in the retail sale of prepared food and drinks for on-premise or immediate consumption. It is also based on the North American Industry Classification System (“NAICS”) 722110 – Full-Service Restaurants.

This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in providing food services to patrons who order and are served while seated (i.e., waiter/waitress services) and pay after eating. These establishments may provide food services to patrons in combination with selling alcoholic beverages, providing carry out services, or presenting live nontheatrical entertainment.

Demographics, consumer tastes, and personal income drive demand. The profitability of individual companies can vary: while QSRs rely on efficient operations and high volume sales, FSRs rely on high-margin items and effective marketing. Large companies have advantages in purchasing, finance, and marketing. Small companies can offer superior food or service. The industry is labor-intensive. (First Research)

Wages form a significant proportion of operating costs. The existence of a statutory minimum wage in most states increases the need for players to keep other costs as lean as possible, which in turn increases the importance of suppliers. A slight complication is that in some states, foodservice employers are able to treat tips received by their staff as contributing to their wages; in such states, this policy reduces the impact of the minimum wage from the employers’ perspective. (Data Monitor)

Annual revenue per worker is less than $50,000.

Restaurants compete with companies that serve meals or prepared foods, including grocery stores, warehouse clubs, delis, and convenience stores. In addition, restaurants compete with home cooking.

Among FSRs, most establishments focus on Italian cuisine, steak, or seafood. Hamburger joints make up a majority of QSR locations, along with pizza parlors and sub sandwich shops. Industry revenue is roughly evenly split between FSRs QSRs.

In FSRs, waiters take orders, serve beverages and meals, present the check, and process payment. FSRs include casual dining (full bar); family dining (limited bar); and fine dining establishments.

Annual sales average $860,000 for FSRs.

An FSR’s square footage and the number of seats and tables dictate how many patrons it can serve (also known as table turns or covers) directly affects sales. Because the restaurant industry is highly competitive, site selection is critical: companies may consider population density, household income, competition, visibility, accessibility, and traffic.

Companies carefully manage inventory of perishable food products, such as fresh seafood and dairy goods, to reduce losses due to spoilage.

Computerized information systems can improve and link food preparation and serving operations. Touch screen ordering programs ensure accurate communication of customer orders. Timing systems monitor meal progress and can alert staff if an order is running behind schedule. Reservations programs maximize traffic flow and seating. Inventory management systems track supply levels and can help reduce waste due to spoilage. Cost accounting programs help companies determine the profitability of individual menu items. Handheld point-of-sale (POS) devices allow servers to place orders and print checks tableside, improving accuracy and reducing ordering time. Some handhelds can also print customer checks and process credit card payments. (First Research)

4.1.1 Market Size

The US restaurant industry includes about 480,000 restaurants with combined annual revenue of about $400 billion.

4.1.2 Industry Participants

Major participants include Major companies include McDonald’s; YUM! Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell); and Darden Restaurants (Olive Garden, Red Lobster).

4.1.3 Main Competitors

The following restaurants are located within a five mile radius of THR:

• Applebee’s – This is a chain restaurant offering standard fare. The food quality is average. Entrées range from $6.99 – $20.
• Chili’s – This is a chain restaurant also offering standard fare. Food choices are varied and prices range for $8-$21.
• Cracker Barrel – Located along Interstate 30, the restaurant is not located within the target market area. However due to its menu offering of home comfort food, the restaurant attracts a similar market, although Cracker Barrel’s attract the tourist business as well. Entrées range in price from $7.99-$14.

4.1.4 Market Segments

THR will appeal to a broad base of consumers in both the residential and business community. The location selected for THR was chosen primarily to appeal to the growing number of households in the area.

The suburb of Benbrook located in western Forth Worth, TX has a population of over 51,000 according to the 2010 U.S. Census Report. The residential population in the immediate area is comprised of a mixture of single family and multi-family housing. The median household income is $46,532 for 2010 and estimated to be $54,646 for 2015. (US Census).

Major employers include Union Pacific Railroad and Bank of America.

(www.Business Decision. Info)

4.2 Market Tests

For the past 10 years, Jeff and Betty have been catering part-time. Their home-style menu is very popular with family reunions. More often than not, the couple gets asked to open a restaurant full-time so that patrons can return again and again.

Through Constant Contact (an online marketing program) the couple has stayed in touch with their host and hostesses, and has been asked to return to provide catering services to several repeat events. Home-Style Catering as also grown by word of mouth.

The couple also co-authors a home-style blog – attracting foodies nationwide and globally, swapping recipes, compiling the most sought after home-style comfort recipes, and identifying current trends, for example, providing expanded menus for children and for those with food allergies.

The Wrights already have a customer base through their catering business and local blog visitors. These customers will be the first to be contacted when they announce the grand opening of the brick and mortar restaurant.

4.3 Target Market Segment Strategy

Jeff and Betty Wright selected the subject area for its restaurant primarily because of its location to the very busy intersection of Cherry Street and Camp Bowie. The restaurant located in a retail strip center is located on “going home” side of Camp Bowie. This will encourage families tired from a day of work to stop in for a home cooked meal they can enjoy – without the cleanup!

Cherry Road which runs North and South is connected to the busy Interstate 30 corridor, 1/2 mile north of the shopping center. Camp Bowie which runs East and West connects to the newer western suburbs of Fort Worth.

4.3.1 Market Needs

The Benbrook area is in great need of a family style restaurant. This section of Camp Bowie is commonly referred to as “fast food alley” The selection of fast food is vast however; the area is limited on its family restaurant choices. THR’s nearest competitor, The Hedary Restaurant is located over 5 miles away from the location. Further, established in the 1970’s the Hedary Restaurant’s customers are older than the targeted family group THR focuses on.

4.3.2 Market Trends

According to the National Restaurant Association, the top 10 trends for are:

• locally sourced meats and seafood,
• locally grown produce,
• sustainability as a culinary theme,
• nutritious kids’ dishes,
• hyper-local items, (networked locally grown – like a Craigslist for restaurants)
• children’s nutrition as a culinary theme,
• sustainable seafood,
• gluten-free allergy conscious items,
• back to basics cuisine, and
• farm brand ingredients.

4.3.3 Market Growth

US consumer spending on services, an indicator of restaurant sales, rose 1.8 percent in November 2011 compared to the same month in 2010. The average US retail price for diesel and regular gas, which influences discretionary consumer spending on eating out, rose 13.1 percent and 9.3 percent respectively in the week ending January 16, 2012, compared to the same week in 2011. US tourism spending for food services and drinking places, an indicator for restaurant revenues, increased 6.1 percent in the third quarter of 2011 compared to the same period in 2010. (First Research)

4.4 Positioning

Consumers believe that meals at home are healthier and higher quality than eating at restaurants. At THR, we will position ourselves as the premier home-style restaurant by preparing quality home cooked meals with simple wholesome ingredients. Jeff and Betty Wright will also provide home cooked fare that appeals to the current trends of healthier food and offer menu selections which will appeal to this group. THR will be positioned as the premier traditional home-style restaurant.

THR will position itself as the premier home-style restaurant in the Benbrook suburb of Fort Worth, Texas. We will do this by providing quality home style meals, prepared with quality ingredients at a reasonable prices. Customers will enjoy the quaint surroundings inside with the wood tables and checkered table cloths. Our restaurant will provide a relaxed atmosphere and when customers walk in they will be greeted by warm smiles and greeted just as they were arriving home.

The chains have tried to create home-style restaurants but where they have failed is in the personal aspect of the business. The POS system known as “The Expediter” used to monitor inventories and time meals has replaced one of the most important aspects of a restaurant – the friendliness of the staff! And in light of this, a handful of chain restaurants are beta testing self-pay tables!

Our customers will enjoy our standard menu fare, along with seasonal menus so that we can better take advantage of cost savings and stay current with some of the food industry trends.

At THR we plan to be the premier restaurant to work for as well. We believe that the restaurant industry is a great place to begin one’s career or pursue full-time. In fact, according to the Restaurant Association, nearly half of all adults have worked in the restaurant industry at some point during their lives, and more than one out of four adults got their first job experience in a restaurant. At THR we believe that our restaurant will provide job opportunities both for the entry level applicant was well as for the part-time worker searching for flexibly in job hours. We will pay our employees a competitive salary and believe we can do so by meticulously keeping our records, including daily review of the Prime Cost Report, and utilize Cost Accounting Systems, to prevent inventory shortfalls. We will be proactive with our employees by scheduling regular performance reviews, and provide bonuses and other incentives to motivate our staff. We will also provide our employees with the most current training programs regarding safe food handling, and worker protection. (Additional information regarding our employees is explained in Section 6.1 which follows).

THR will also remain current with current industry marketing tends. In addition to a website with our menu, map and driving directions, we will also have a Facebook page and utilize other social media such as Twitter. We will team up with Groupon and Yelp. We will offer a loyalty club and birthday club which recent reports indicate increases earnings as much as 15%.

5.1.1 Strengths

• Prime location with easy access from Interstate 30
• Exceptional staff with the can do attitude. Combined 25 years in the restaurant industry
• Because owner has catering industry experience, he already has established a customer market and approved vendors
• Due to our small size, we believe we can provide exceptional quality by hand selecting our market specials when compared to our larger corporate competitors
• The same concept holds true in our staffing requirements, by hand selecting our employees we will strive to offer unsurpassed service when compared to our larger competitors

5.1.2 Weaknesses

• Recruiting and retaining quality employees
• Tight margins will allow little wiggle room for error

5.1.3 Opportunities

• Little barriers to entry allows for immediate business opportunities
• Offer additional catering services

5.1.4 Threats

• Government mandates (restaurant operation, food safety, and worker protection at the federal level and health, sanitation, safety, fire at the local level)
• Rising operating costs
• Building/maintaining sales volume
• Supermarkets and convenience stores
• Consumers that believe that meals at home are healthier than those prepared in restaurants.

5.2 Strategy Pyramid

Strategy:  Be the Benbrook area’s premier Home-Style Food Restaurant in Customer Satisfaction.

Tactics:  First create awareness– our signage on the front of restaurant will bring customers to us and once inside, we will immediately acknowledge the customer with the warmest and most sincere greeting and begin the service process anticipating repeat customers.

Programs:  Provide employee training on customer service and retention; offer ongoing training programs for employees keeping them current on industry trends and food safety. Keep track of employee’s progress through performance reviews and offer employees incentives attracting and retailing customers. Employ Mystery Shoppers. Employ the use of surveys both at the table and online.

5.3 Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

THR will be able to offer home-style meals for a reasonable price in a comfortable ‘home-like’ setting. The average check price is expected to be between $8-$15 which appears in line with industry standards below $25.00 (First Research). Because of our current expertise with vendors, and our excellent credit, we can negotiate better credit terms than say someone brand new starting a restaurant. We will also be able to keep our menu reasonably priced by offering menu items that take advantage of seasonal produce further reducing price. Finally we will keep our prices in check by meticulous monitoring of our controllable expenses – keeping close eye on our Prime Cost Report and Inventory. By initially employing family members who will work for lower and reduced wagers, for example, we can further reduce our controllable expenses.

5.4 Competitive Edge

THR’s competitive edge is in its people. We truly believe that your business is not only as good as your products (meals) but the quality of your staff as well. Our staff is a reflection of us. Initially, we intend to employ our family members who will work for lower and reduced wages. Our long term goal is to hire team members that are truly hand selected and have the same honest to goodness family values we do. And unlike our big chain competitors, because of our lean size, we can turn on a dime when economically pushed and make changes quickly allowing us to be proactive. (Whereas our corporate competitors have to adhere more closely to their company policies thus impeding their reaction time)

5.5 Marketing Strategy and Positioning

We realize the success of THR will have to be achieved by doing more that serving great food, and providing friendly service. We will utilize a restaurant marketing plan to build customer traffic. At THR we will continually strive to win more customers by being proactive rather than reactive in our marketing efforts and stay current with popular industry trends. We will achieve these goals by using the following:

• Database: We will begin our campaign by marketing to our existing database of customers. We will email fliers announcing our grand opening. We will continually update our database by providing a fishbowl for business cards in the lobby and offer a weekly or monthly drawing.
• Loyalty Program/Birthday Program. THR will offer a birthday/loyalty club proving a complimentary hamburger or chicken sandwich or wrap to the for the birthday person. A recent report from the National Restaurant Association explained how this simple technique can increase revenues as much as 15% due to repeat business.
• Our restaurant team will also be active in the local community and we plan to take an active role by participating, sponsoring, and donating to local churches, sports clubs or teams in the market area.
• We will also strive to develop rapport with local business as a quick, comfortable lunch choice. In the future, we plan on establishing a marketing campaign to call on the local business in the market area, deliver samples, and encourage them to consider our restaurant as the restaurant of choice for their next business luncheon

5.5.1 Positioning Statement

THR will be the premier home-style dining restaurant in western Fort Worth. We will offer reasonably priced meals, in a warm, relaxed and comfortable setting. We have a wide selection on our menu and also have menu options for lighter fare as well as a children’s menu. We are open 7 days a week and unlike our chain competitors, our servers won’t try to be your best friend our rush you thought your meal. Our name says it all  “Traditional Home-Style Restaurant – – honest to goodness food served to you by honest to goodness people!”

5.5.2 Pricing Strategy

At THR, cost accounting is important, since the profitability of individual dishes can vary significantly and will initially determine the cost of the menu items. We will take advantage of our excellent credit terms with our suppliers and will also update our menu to take advantage of seasonality for example in local produce items. We will also closely monitor the Prime Cost Report which focuses on the controllable expenses of Cost of Goods Sold and Labor. As a new start-up we can currently control employee cost by hiring family members who will work for low and reduced wages.

5.5.3 Promotion and Advertising Strategy

• Location- The restaurant will be located in a strip center at the busy intersection of Cherry road and Camp Bowie. With easy access to Interstate 30 (less than ½ mile south) and located on the “going home side” (Western Corner) of the intersection. We will have Signage on the West Roads Shopping Plaza as well as signage over our entrance
• Word of Mouth – We already have a database of existing catering customers and will rely heavily on this method to attract and grow new business.
• Participate with Costco as Small Business of the Month – We will leave our menu, a fishbowl for business cards and a small ‘homey’ display with the retailer announcing us as new entrants in the local restaurant arena.
• Direct Mail – Bulk mailing either directly to potential customers or by including a postcard in a value-pack-type mailing.
• Event Marketing -We plan on joining our local chamber of commerce and utilizing their networking services for our grand opening

5.5.4 Website

• We will stay current with industry trends and have a webpage, Facebook page and Twitter site. Our menu, map, and hours of operation will be easily accessed. In the future we may consider fax or email orders as well a phone application.

5.5.5 Marketing Programs

• Our initial marketing campaign will consist of contacting our databases clients and notifying them of our grand opening. We will seek the use of a local mailing service program to assist us in the implementation of the campaign.
• Ongoing- we will meticulously keep our database current and use the Constant Contact program
• Loyalty and Birthday Club members will notified of upcoming special menu items and to alert them of our catering service.

5.6 Sales Strategy

Customer service is of the utmost importance. Customer surveys estimate that only 1 in 20 customers that have a problem in a restaurant will tell management about it. It will be our goal to provide a wonderful home-style meal combined with superior customer service. Training programs will include teaching materials to train our employees about service attitudes, customer perception and how to handle guest complaints. Jeff and Betty will conduct periodic staff meetings intended to review policy, increase guest satisfaction and to keep a general line of communication between staff and management. All guest complaints will be acknowledged by the staff and referred to management. Programs will be in place for all types of guest complaints. More serious complaints will be documented and kept on file. Customer feedback will be accomplished by customer surveys or the use of mystery shoppers.

5.6.1 Sales Forecast

We are expecting a conservative 5% increase in sales revenues annually over the next 3 years. The growth is adjusted for inflation. With the addition of catering revenues, sales will increase by 12.93% in Year 2 and 6.02% in Year 3.

The following table shows expected Sales Forecast for the next 3 years:

5.6.2 Sales Programs

We will encourage our employees to grow our customer base and provide incentives and regular bonuses to employees for referrals and repeat customers. These initiatives are still in the planning stages as we gear up to hire and staff. They will play an active role in our employee culture.

It is also anticipated that as we grow our catering business, along with our lunch business group, we will hire a sales director to facilitate this portion of the business. The sales director will be compensated similarly to their national peers (national Restaurant Association)

Initially we will be formed a sole proprietor: Jeff Wright d/b/a Traditional Home Style Restaurant. The State of Texas is a community property state. Over time, the couple plans to form a Limited Liability Company.

5.8 Milestones

Our initial milestones are as follows:

6.1 Organizational Structure

THR expects to hire 19 employees. Together, Jeff and Betty Wright will personally select each candidate. They’ve adopted an effective interview process designed to staff the restaurant with highly qualified people for each position. Each applicant will be rated and evaluated according to a pre-defined set of standards designed for each position. Background checks will be utilized for designated positions. Recruiting efforts will always center on referrals.

6.2 Management Team

Betty Wright received her Culinary Degree from the Art Institute in Dallas. After graduation she was employed by a local chain restaurant and then at a Five Star Hotel in Dallas. Betty will initially be employed as the Kitchen Manager.

6.3 Management Team Gaps

Initially Jeff and Betty will fill in many of the management gaps. Jeff has been responsible for developing the restaurant business plan and will be developing the marketing plan. Over time, they have plans to hire a sales director, a general manager, and a kitchen manager.

To meet the gaps associated in payroll, inventory management, and cost accounting, the Wrights will purchase have considered a POS (point of sale system) that it simplifies communications between the kitchen and the wait staff. Orders go through the computer, directly to the kitchen printer. Another benefit of a restaurant POS programs is that it can track everything from food usage, to the most popular menu items. Because the POS system acts as a time clock, it can also help prepare payroll – which will save some money in the bookkeeping department. Along with the daily operations of running a restaurant, a POS system can organize profit and loss statement and sales tax.

6.4 Personnel Plan

The following sections outline our financial plan:

• Required Cost of Start-Up
• Profit and Loss
• Balance Sheet
• Financial Ratios
• Hourly Labor Costs
• Weekly Sales Projections

7.1 Important Assumptions

• Meal Price range from $8.00 – $15.00
• Average lunch price: 8.79
• Average dinner price: 13.74
• The restaurant is located in the West Roads Shopping Center and is comprised of 3,400 square feet
• The dining room will be comprised of 20 tables with a seating capacity of 86 seats and 40 available parking spaces to meet the needs of the customers.
• The restaurant will employ 19 employees
• $860,000 -1,200,000 revenue target; Industry average for casual restaurant average of $860,000.
• Annual 3% increase for inflation and 5% annual increase in revenues
• Year 2 Assumes Catering Business in Place. Assumes 4 parties monthly @ $15 per plate and $50 persons. Catering will escalate to 8 parties monthly in month 20 and then 10 parties monthly thereafter. Also assumes additional increase in staffing (4 persons to be hired at 6 hours @ $8.00 per hour.

7.2 Start-Up Costs

Total start up costs will be $363,000, $174,000 of which will be contributed by the owners and the remainder will be secured through a proposed bank loan.

7.3 Source and Use of Funds

Total start-up costs are estimated to be $363,000. The majority of the costs are associated with the restaurant equipment, inventory and furniture and furnishings for the dining room. Total costs for these items are reported to be $110,500. The costs are associated with build out and renovation of the restaurant to provide updated plumbing and creating additional space in the dining area by removing a non-supporting wall: $50,000. Additional start up expenses are in the form of working capital and contingency $182,500.

Jeff and Betty Wright will contribute $174, 000 and are requesting an additional $189,000 in the form of a bank loan. The loan is expected to be a fully amortizing 5 year term note secured by UCC filings on all furniture fixtures and equipment.

7.4 Break-Even Analysis

Total fixed costs associated with the restaurant are $669,186 and represent the annual expenses. The variable cost (overhead) is estimated to be $4.51 per meal. Based on the assumption of $11.37 as the average meal price, the breakeven revenue then is $1,108,970 or 97,535 meals (units). This is further depicted in the Table Below and the Graph that follow:

7.5 Projections

7.5.1 projected profit and loss.

The profit and loss demonstrates modest increases in revenues over the three expected years with adjustments for inflation.

7.5.2 Projected Cash Flow

The statement of cash flow shows the incoming and outgoing cash of the business.

7.5.3 Projected Balance Sheet

Table 7.5.3 Pro Forma Balance Sheet

7.6 Business Ratios

7.7 Hourly Labor Schedule

7.8 Weekly Sales Projections

Money: Manifestation warning as people swear it's bagged them '£2,000 in bank account'

We delve into the world of manifestation - but will a one-day course help our reporter land some extra cash and an engagement ring? Enjoy our weekend reads, and leave a comment, below, and we'll be back with all the latest personal finance and consumer news on Monday.

Saturday 27 April 2024 13:45, UK

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By Jess Sharp , Money team

My journey into the world of manifestation (the belief that you can attract success in your life through positive affirmations and visualisation) has taken me places I never thought I'd go.

Like woods in Edenbridge, where I stood meditating under a tree in the pouring rain. I don't yet know where my journey will end (I've been hoping for an engagement ring but my boyfriend hasn't yet seen my visualisations), but it started with a conversation with Jamie Greenlaw-Meek, one of many people who say manifestation has transformed their lives.

"About a year ago, there was something happening and I thought we just need two grand to cover the expense," Jamie, a former dancer from London, told me. "The following day £2,000 landed in my account."

It sounded like a coincidence to me, too.

But Jamie was adamant. His husband calls him "the master manifester" because of his "ability to bring in money".

"It's happened on so many occasions, like four, five times," he said. "I've become very clear on what I want and the amount of money I need and literally it can be within 24 hours that I get a phone call for a job and it's almost identical to what I asked for money-wise."

When I asked the now-psychic where the £2,000 actually came from, he said it was payment for a modelling job he had been offered.

"With manifesting you don't get caught up in the how, and often it comes in ways that you don't expect," he added, explaining it could come as the result of a claim after being in a car crash.

"It's not always coming in the way that you think but money is out there for us to take in the world. It's just having the confidence to receive it and we are worthy of it."

"Even if it is a placebo effect, does it matter?" he said.

The 43-year-old also believes he manifested his husband Fiongal after being diagnosed with cancer. While going through treatment and dating "a lot" of people, he decided to take matters into his own hands, or rather his own head, and started visualising his perfect partner.

"I decided to spend a good couple of weeks getting really, really, super clear in my mind what this person looked like. Then I started creating lists asking about personality traits, and all the things that I wanted that person to be," the former dancer said.

"The day I got the all clear from cancer I randomly met my husband and when I look at the list of the things I asked for, he pretty much ticks every single box. I really, really believe that is because I got super clear on what I wanted and I put that out to the universe to bring to me."

Jim Carrey and manifestation

If you think this is a new practice, it isn't. Jim Carrey was doing it back in the 90s. He famously wrote himself a $10m cheque for "acting services rendered" and dated it years in advance. Then in 1995, he was told he was going to make the exact amount for filming Dumb and Dumber.

The idea shot up in popularity again in 2006 after Rhonda Byrne published her self-help book The Secret.

Since then, it has hit every inch of the internet and has resurfaced on TikTok with videos posted under #manifesting accumulating a huge 13 billion views.

I tried to learn manifesting - I felt like an idiot

After hearing Jamie's story and seeing the idea was popular with so many people, I thought it best to try to learn manifestation myself. I mean, who wouldn't want money landing in their account and a work promotion from the universe?

As I stood in the woods, in the pouring rain, being told to imagine roots growing from the soles of my feet, I felt like an idiot.

I was soaking wet (of course I had forgotten a coat with a hood) and while my mind kept wandering through thoughts about being cold, if I'd hit traffic on the way home and how dirty my white trainers were getting, a gentle, soothing voice kept bringing me back to what I was supposed to be thinking about.

"How we are all connected, how the trees and plants produce oxygen that we breathe, and we breathe out carbon dioxide which they need to survive"

While some people focus their manifestation practices on being grateful to the universe, Tansy Jane Dowman believes we need to get "out of our heads, into our bodies", connect with nature and find our true selves before we can practice it successfully.

My meditation in the woods was just one part of a six-hour workshop run by Tansy, which aimed to send me off with a clearer vision of what I truly desired.

Tansy charges anywhere from £25 to £580 for her courses, which range from one-on-one sessions and an online six-week programme, to forest bathing workshops and weekend-long nature retreats.

But some courses have popped up online which cost more than £1,000.

Tansy started practising manifestation in 2018 after going through a difficult period in her life. She eventually quit her job in events management and started teaching others how to do it successfully.

"The way I manifest is not to focus on material wealth or gain. I would ask my clients what an abundant life means to them in terms of feelings, experiences, connections, people and places," she explained.

"The more authentic you are, the more of a beacon you become for those things to find you."

After spending time walking in the rain and meditating under a tree, Tansy and I sat in her dining room and explored some of the happiest moments in my life and the feelings I experienced. It became clear I like feeling accomplished, needed and excited.

We also spoke about challenging times, but the conversation focused on the positives, like how I had overcome them and what I had learned.

"It's so important to bring in your values with manifestation because sometimes we can get really confused with what we want, with social media especially," she told me.

Throughout her house, Tansy has a number of "abundance boards" proudly on display - some she has made with her children, others are from her annual January tradition of setting out her desires for the year.

"I've had some really wonderful goosebump things happen to me. I did a board at the beginning of 2020... I put a picture of a microphone on it. I just thought I really like that image and I didn't immediately place any meaning onto it," she said.

"Then as the world was shutting down for lockdown, I did a press event and I met a lady who worked for Wellbeing Radio and she wondered if I would be interested in trying out as a presenter."

She explained that some people will be very specific with their desires, like selecting a photo of the exact car they want, or the perfect house, but that isn't how manifestation works. There needs to be an element of trust in the universe giving them what they attract.

As we created my abundance board, which Tansy describes as being like a "personal algorithm", she told me to select images and words from heaps of magazines that called to me intuitively.

As you can see from the picture below, mine calls for being "financially fabulous", travelling, getting engaged (coughs loudly in earshot of boyfriend) and living stress-free.

And while I'd love a big cash injection, Tansy explained to me that money is "only a stepping stone to a feeling" and, ultimately, I'm aiming to create an emotion with it.

Manifesters more likely to go bankrupt

While all the manifestation believers I spoke to said there was no downside to the practice, a researcher has been looking into whether it really does pay off.

Based in Australia, Dr Lucas Dixon (who specialises in consumer psychology) created a scale from one to seven to rank a person's strength of belief and found those who practice it are more likely to have been victims of fraud and declared bankruptcy.

He said there was a "danger" that manifesting could become harmful if taken to an extreme level.

He found those who believe in manifesting tend to think more positively and have a confident attitude when it comes to success, and while that can be helpful in business, it can also cause them to take unnecessary risks.

"They weren't more objectively successful in terms of having higher income or higher education attainment," he said.

"We also found that they are more likely to believe in get-rich-quick schemes, more likely to take higher risks... to have risky financial investments and more likely to have investments in cryptocurrency rather than traditional stock."

Using the scale he created, Dr Dixon found those who have "very strong beliefs", ranking at a seven, were 40% more likely to have gone bankrupt.

"The danger comes in a couple of different forms," he said, explaining that a "worst case scenario" could see people getting into financial difficulty by being encouraged to "just look at the positives".

"Someone might say it's not harmful because it is really just thinking positively but I think even that can be harmful because of what you might call an opportunity cost," he said.

"You're spending time, energy and money doing something that doesn't have a lot of evidence behind it. We found it does make you feel good but you don't need to pay thousands to do it."

Okay, so back to me...

I did my manifestation course about two months ago, and I have done as I was instructed - my abundance board is up in sight inside the flat, and I often have a cup of coffee in front of it.

But, so far I'm still using a credit card, the most travelling I've done has been to work and back and there is still no rock on my finger. I have been given an annual pay rise, though, and would say I am less stressed.

Perhaps believing that I'm just doing my best and there's a chance that I'll be rewarded for that one day, eventually, in the future, maybe, is making me feel better... who knows?

Each week, Money blog readers share their thoughts on the subjects we've been covering, and over the last seven days your correspondence has been dominated by these topics...

• Iceland's new slogan
• Rising mortgage rates
• Giving kids cash for grades

Iceland's new catchphrase

We learnt on Monday that Iceland had dropped its tagline "That's why mums go to Iceland", replacing it with "That's why we go to Iceland".

The move was made to reflect the store is for everybody, said brand ambassador Josie Gibson. Readers were split - with some feeling so strongly that they're prepared, they suggest, to sacrifice those frozen Greggs steak bakes forever...

I previously contacted Iceland about their slogan because I didn't think it did single dads justice, as dads can go to Iceland too. Their response was that people understood that it's not just mums that go to Iceland. It's about time they changed the message. Dave T  

Neither I, my wife or my children will shop in Iceland again due to this stupidness and woke attitude. To hell with you [Iceland boss] Richard Walker. John  

Banks hike mortgage rates

This week we reported that high street lenders such as Halifax, TSB, NatWest, Barclays, Leeds Building Society, HSBC and Coventry had all hiked mortgage rates. 

You said...

With house prices at already extortionate levels, now mortgage rates rising again, is there any hope for first-time buyers? Honestly, the situation is so bleak, people may need to consider other countries. GenZ 

Why would this happen? So many young couples struggling to get on the property ladder. I live in Dorset - a one-bedroom flat costs from £230,000. In Scotland, one can get a beautiful two-bed house for that price. Feel sorry for all couples living down in the South. Need huge deposits. Barbs

Why are they called high-street banks? Most banks in my town have closed. Martin J

Parents offering cash for good grades

A lot of views came in after our feature exploring the positives and negatives of parents incentivising good school grades with cash...

We had scores of comments on this - with a fairly even split...

We did it for our son at GCSE time. We think it made a difference of about a grade on most subjects. Got a two-grade lift on maths. Cost us £350. Thought it was good value as it has taught him how things work in the world. Andy

The whole world is built on a reward system which symbolises access to money commensurate with effort and excellence. The Nobel prize goes with a cash reward! Tom Deggs

Employees are offered incentives for achieving targets, so why not offer kids incentives for better grades? Claire228 

But others had concerns...

I think it puts too much pressure on kids who are under enough pressure at exam time. Parents should encourage their kids to do the best they can, not add to their stress levels. Emma

Children should value their education without it being monetised. My parents expected my brother and I to have the motivation, maturity and self-discipline to work hard for our GCSEs. We both achieved all As and A*s. Eliza 

When I was at school, from 1964-83, my parents never gave me money for good exam results, because "I should want to do well for myself". No matter what my grades were, they said that they would be proud of me if I had tried my best. Cash kills self-motivation. Nicola B 

National insurance was cut this month, for the second time this year, from 10% to 8% on employee earnings between £12,570 and £50,270.

The change, announced by the chancellor in his March budget, impacts around 27 million payroll employees across the UK - starting this pay day.

The cut is worth almost £250 to someone earning £25,000 a year and almost £750 for those earning £50,000

Use our tool below for a rough guide to what tax changes can be expected for most people, as there are other variables not included which might affect how much tax you pay including being in receipt of the blind person's allowance or the marriage allowance. It also assumes you are not self-employed and are under pension age...

There are also national insurance cuts for the self-employed. This includes the scrapping of Class 2 contributions, as well as a reduction of the rate of Class 4 contributions from 9% to 6% for the £12,570 to £50,270 earnings bracket.

These will impact nearly two million self-employed people, according to the Treasury.

While many campaigners welcomed the national insurance announcement last month, they pointed out that the tax burden remains at record high levels for Britons - thanks in part to the threshold at which people start paying income tax being frozen, rather than rising with inflation.

The money story of the week has been mortgage rates - with a host of major lenders announcing hikes amid fears the Bank of England may delay interest rate cuts.

Swap rates - which dictate how much it costs to lend money - have risen on the back of higher than expected US inflation data, and concerns this could delay interest rate cuts there. 

US trends often materialise elsewhere - though many economists are still expecting a base rate cut from 5.25% to 5% in the UK in June.

The reliable Bloomberg reported this week: "Still, while some economists have since scaled back their predictions for BOE cuts, most haven't changed expectations for a summer move.

"Analysts at Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group, Capital Economics and Bloomberg Economics are all among those still anticipating a shift toward easing in June."

The publication also quoted Sanjay Raja, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, as saying: "Markets have superimposed the US cycle on the UK, but the US and UK are on very different tracks.

"The UK is coming out of technical recession. Inflation is falling more convincingly. Pay settlements are following inflation expectations. And crucially, real policy rates in the UK will be higher than in the US."

None of this reassurance changes the fact that financial markets, which dictate swap rates, are pricing in delays.

This week's hikes came from Halifax, BM Solutions, TSB, NatWest, Virgin, Barclays, Accord, Leeds Building Society, HSBC and Coventry.

This is what average mortgage rates looked like as of Thursday...

The next Bank of England decision on rates comes on 9 May - and pretty much no one is expecting a cut from the 16-year high of 5.25% at that stage.

The Money blog is your place for consumer news, economic analysis and everything you need to know about the cost of living - bookmark news.sky.com/money.

It runs with live updates every weekday - while on Saturdays we scale back and offer you a selection of weekend reads.

Check them out this morning and we'll be back on Monday with rolling news and features.

The Money team is Emily Mee, Bhvishya Patel, Jess Sharp, Katie Williams, Brad Young and Ollie Cooper, with sub-editing by Isobel Souster. The blog is edited by Jimmy Rice.

The family home where Captain Sir Tom Moore walked 100 laps to raise nearly £40m for the NHS during the first COVID lockdown is up for sale for £2.25m.

The Grade II-listed Old Rectory is described as a "magnificent seven-bedroom property" by estate agents Fine & Country.

In a video tour of the house, a sculpture of Captain Tom with his walking frame can be seen in the hallway, while a photo of the fundraising hero being knighted by the Queen is on a wall in the separate coach house building.

Introducing the property, an estate agent says in the tour video: "I'm sure you'll recognise this iconic and very famous driveway behind me as it was home to the late Captain Sir Tom Moore who walked 100 laps of his garden, raising over £37m for NHS charities."

It comes less than three months after the demolition of an unauthorised spa pool block in the grounds of the property in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire.

Speaking at an appeal hearing over that spa, Scott Stemp, representing Captain Tom's daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband, said the foundation named after the fundraising hero "is to be closed down" following a Charity Commission probe launched amid concerns about its management.

For the full story, click here ...

"Status symbol" pets are being given up by owners who get scared as they grow up, an animal charity has said, with the cost of living possibly paying a part in a rise in separations.

The Exotic Pet Refuge, which homes parrots, monkeys, snakes and alligators among others, says it receives referrals across the country, including from zoos and the RSPCA.

"They're a status symbol. People will say, 'OK, I'll have an alligator or a 10ft boa constrictor'," co-owner Pam Mansfield told the BBC.

"But when the animal gets big, they will get too frightened to handle them, and then the pet has to go."

She added people who want to get rid of the pets sometimes call zoos for help, which then call on her charity.

In some cases, owners don't have licences to own dangerous animals, she says, blaming a "lack of understanding" for what she says is a rise in the number of exotic animals needing to be rehomed.

She says people "just don't have the space" for some snakes, for example, with some growing to as much as 12ft and needing their own room.

The cost of living crisis has also forced owners to give their pets away, she says.

Her charity has also been affected by those increased costs, with the electricity bill rising to £10,000 a month at their highest, to fund things like heated pools for alligators.

Private car parks are accused of "confusing drivers" after introducing a new code of conduct - despite "doing all they can" to prevent an official government version.

The code of practice launched by two industry bodies - British Parking Association and the International Parking Community - includes a ten-minute grace period for motorists to leave a car park after the parking period they paid for ends.

It also features requirements for consistent signage, a single set of rules for operators on private land and an "appeals charter".

Private parking businesses have been accused of using misleading and confusing signs, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees.

That comes after a government-backed code of conduct was withdrawn in June 2022, after a legal challenges by parking companies.

RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: "We're flabbergasted that the BPA and the IPC have suddenly announced plans to introduce their own private parking code after doing all they can over the last five years to prevent the official government code created by an act of Parliament coming into force.

"While there are clearly some positive elements to what the private parking industry is proposing, it conveniently avoids some of the biggest issues around caps on penalty charges and debt recovery fees which badly need to be addressed to prevent drivers being taken advantage of."

BPA chief executive Andrew Pester said: "This is a crucial milestone as we work closely with government, consumer bodies and others to deliver fairer and more consistent parking standards for motorists."

IPC chief executive Will Hurley said: "The single code will benefit all compliant motorists and will present clear consequences for those who decide to break the rules."

Sky News has learnt the owner of Superdry's flagship store is weighing up a legal challenge to a rescue plan launched by the struggling fashion retailer.

M&G, the London-listed asset manager, has engaged lawyers from Hogan Lovells to scrutinise the restructuring plan.

The move by M&G, which owns the fashion retailer's 32,000 square foot Oxford Street store, will not necessarily result in a formal legal challenge - but sources say it's possible.

Read City editor Mark Kleinman 's story here...

NatWest says its mortgage lending nearly halved at the start of the year as it retreated from parts of the market when competition among lenders stepped up.

New mortgage lending totalled £5.2bn in the first three months of 2024, the banking group has revealed, down from £9.9bn the previous year.

The group, which includes Royal Bank of Scotland and Coutts, also reported an operating pre-tax profit of £1.3bn for the first quarter, down 27% from £1.8bn the previous year.

An unexplained flow of British luxury cars into states neighbouring Russia continued into February, new data shows.

About £26m worth of British cars were exported to Azerbaijan, making the former Soviet country the 17th biggest destination for UK cars - bigger than long-established export markets such as Ireland, Portugal and Qatar.

Azerbaijan's ascent has coincided almost to the month with the imposition of sanctions on the export of cars to Russia.

Read the rest of economics and data editor Ed Conway 's analysis here...

Rishi Sunak has hailed the arrival of pay day with a reminder his government's additional National Insurance tax cut kicks in this month for the first time.

At last month's budget, the chancellor announced NI will be cut by a further 2p - so some workers will pay 8% of their earnings instead of the 12% if was before autumn.

The prime minister has repeated his claim this will be worth £900 for someone on the average UK salary.

While this additional cut - on top of the previous 2p cut in January - does equate to £900 for those on average full-time earnings of £35,000, there are two key issues with Mr Sunak's claim:

• Once the effect of all income tax changes since 2021 are taken into account, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reports an average earner will benefit from a tax cut of £340 - far less than £900;
• Moreover, anyone earning less than £26,000 or between £55,000-£131,000 will ultimately be worse off.

In short, this is because NI cuts are more than offset by other tax rises.

We explain below how this is the case...

Tax thresholds

This is partly down to tax thresholds - the amount you are allowed to earn before you start paying tax (and national insurance) and before you start paying the higher rate of tax - will remain frozen. 

This means people end up paying more tax than they otherwise would, when their pay rises with inflation but the thresholds don't keep up. 

This phenomenon is known as "fiscal drag" and it's often called a stealth tax because it's not as noticeable immediately in your pay packet.

That low threshold of £12,570 has been in place since April 2021. 

The Office for Budget Responsibility says if it had increased with inflation it would be set at £15,220 for 2024/25.

If that were the case, workers could earn an extra £2,650 tax-free each year.

Less give, more take

Sky News analysis shows someone on £16,000 a year will pay £607 more in total - equivalent to more than three months of average household spending on food. 

Their income level means national insurance savings are limited but they are paying 20% in income tax on an additional £2,650 of earnings.

In its analysis , the IFS states: "In aggregate the NICs cuts just serve to give back a portion of the money that is being taken away through other income tax and NICs changes - in particular, multi-year freezes to tax thresholds at a time of high inflation."

Overall, according to the institute, for every £1 given back to workers by the National Insurance cuts, £1.30 will have been taken away due to threshold changes between 2021 and 2024.

This rises to £1.90 in 2027.

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A Russian court has ordered a journalist for the Russian edition of Forbes, Sergei Mingazov, to be placed under house arrest, Russia's state-owned RIA news agency reported on Saturday.

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The European Union criticised Russia on Saturday for putting subsidiaries of one Italian and one German company under the "temporary external management" of a Gazprom entity, saying the move underscored Moscow's disregard for international norms.

What is Sling TV?

How much is sling tv.

• What channels can you stream?
• Is there a free plan?
• What devices are supported?

What is Sling TV like to use?

Is sling tv worth it, the bottom line, sling tv review: essential cable channels for cord-cutters on a budget.

When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

Sling TV is one of the best live TV streaming services you can sign up for without breaking the bank. With plans starting at $40 a month, it's an excellent midrange option with a healthy assortment of popular channels and features that cord-cutters crave. 

But Sling isn't the only live TV option out there, and there are some areas where it falls behind more expensive services. To help you decide if Sling TV is the right choice for you and your household, we've broken down everything you need to know, including our thoughts on what it's like to use and how it stacks up to its main competitors.

For just the essentials without any extra fluff, Sling TV is the streaming service you're looking for. It's more customizable than other plans, with three options you can choose from, so you pay for only what you need. New members get their first month for $25 off.

• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Two affordable base plans to choose from
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Options with sports or local networks
• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Up to three simultaneous streams
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Certain channels are exclusive to Orange or Blue
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Gets pricey once you start adding extra channel packages
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Local channels limited to select cities and no option to get CBS

Sling is a live TV streaming service that offers access to many popular cable and satellite channels via an internet connection. That means no bulky cable boxes or tricky contracts, and you can get Sling for a fraction of the cost of most traditional pay-TV providers. 

The service offers two primary plans geared toward different types of programming: Sling Orange leans toward sports, and Sling Blue toward news and entertainment. You can also combine both plans to get access to all of their channels, and there are add-on packages you can buy to unlock even more networks and premium stations, like Starz and Showtime.

Sling TV offers three primary plans, with prices starting at $40 a month. All Sling plans include 50 hours of DVR storage, but members can pay $5 a month extra to unlock DVR Plus with 200 hours. 

Here's how much each of Sling TV's three main plans cost:

*Sling Blue and Orange + Blue pricing and total channel offerings vary depending on location. Local NBC, Fox, and ABC stations are only available in select cities. Members must pay an extra $5 in areas that include all three local stations.

What channels come with Sling TV?

Both Sling Orange and Blue start with the same selection of 25 channels, including popular cable networks like CNN, HGTV, Food Network, and more. But in addition to this base lineup, each plan has its own unique assortment of additional channels.

Orange has seven exclusive sports and family channels, including ESPN, Disney Channel, and Freeform. Meanwhile, Blue has 17 exclusive news and entertainment channels, including Discovery Channel and TLC, and local stations from ABC, Fox, and NBC in supported markets. On the downside, there is no option to stream your local CBS channel. 

Sling TV also offers several add-on packages that you can purchase for an additional cost to unlock even more channels. Bundles like Sports Extra, Entertainment Extra, News Extra, and Kids Extra cost an extra $6 to $11 a month, each including anywhere from six to 14 additional channels. The Sports Extra add-on, for example, includes ESPNU, MLB Network, NBA TV, and more for $11 a month.

Many of these extra channels are included with base offerings from more expensive competitors like YouTube TV , Hulu + Live TV , and Fubo , but some viewers may prefer how Sling TV lets you save money by offering these networks as optional add-ons.

Check out our Sling TV channels guide for a full breakdown of networks and features included with each plan and add-on.

Does Sling TV offer a free plan?

Sling TV does offer a free streaming option called "Freestream" that anyone can watch without an account. Though this plan does not include any traditional cable or local networks, it does feature access to over 400 ad-supported live internet TV channels. 

Some of these stations are offshoots of major networks that broadcast select content from their libraries. For instance, you can watch channels like AMC Thrillers and VH1 I Love Reality.

These free internet channels aren't a substitute for true cable or satellite TV offerings, but they're a nice option for cord-cutters who aren't ready to commit to a paid subscription.

How do I stream Sling TV?

The Sling TV app is supported on several media players and mobile products, including all of the best streaming devices from Apple, Roku, Fire TV, and Chromecast, as well as iOS and Android phones, Xbox Series X|S, web browsers, and more. The app is also available directly through many of the best TVs from brands like Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense, Vizio, and TCL. 

Check out a full list of every supported device on the Sling website .

After testing Sling on a web browser, smart TV, and Roku Ultra, we found the service to be intuitive and easy to use, an important characteristic for subscribers making the switch from cable. In our experience, streaming is stable and without interruption, but your results may differ based on your network connection quality. 

Sling's interface lets you access a traditional channel guide where you can sort channels by their name or genre, and you can see which networks you've most recently watched. Once you choose a program and start watching live TV, you can press down on your remote to toggle an overlay on the bottom of the screen, which lets you see details about the program or jump into other content. 

You can also press up on your remote to easily return to the full-screen guide from any live channel. The program you were watching keeps playing on a small pop-up screen in the lower right corner until you select another channel.

Outside the guide, Sling has a menu on the left side of the screen that lets you access a homepage with content recommendations, your DVR recordings, on-demand content, and settings. This is all simple to navigate, and there are no glaring omissions. 

Sling is an excellent live TV streaming option for viewers who don't want to spend much money but still want more than the bare minimum. It lacks some perks that come with Hulu's pricier live TV service, like unlimited DVR and a complimentary Disney Plus subscription, but it includes some key networks that cheaper services, like Philo , are missing.

One of Sling's most attractive features is how it lets you choose between two affordable base plans to keep costs low. If you don't care about watching sports on ESPN networks, opting for Sling Blue at only $40 a month saves you a great deal of money compared to signing up for a service like Fubo, which costs double the price and forces you to pay for channels you might not want. Sling Blue even includes local channels in big cities, which is something that Philo's less expensive service lacks.  

However, if you're looking for a live TV streaming solution to suit a big household with varied viewing needs, Sling may not be for you. Though you can customize a comprehensive plan with options for many different tastes by subscribing to Sling Orange + Blue and tacking on packages like the Sports Extra plan and DVR Plus, the cost adds up quickly. To get a fully inclusive Sling TV package with a channel selection and set of features that rivals Hulu + Live TV or YouTube TV's base offerings, you'll end up paying about the same or, in some cases, even more than those services charge.

Sling is ultimately best for people who just want an Orange or Blue plan to get the essentials of cable TV but don't want to pay extra for all the other channels that come with more expensive services.

Starting at $40 a month, Sling TV is a competitive option for subscribers who want an affordable live TV streaming service that provides popular news, sports, entertainment, and family programming. 

It's considerably cheaper than most competing live TV streaming services, and it offers more sports and news channels than Philo, Sling's top budget competitor. Though Philo is even cheaper at just $25 a month, Sling has plans that include stations like ESPN, NFL Network, CNN, ABC, NBC, and Fox, which are all missing from Philo.  

Ultimately, Sling TV cements itself as a unique midrange option that rests between Philo's true budget pricing and the more common $65-$75 starting prices of other live TV services. Options like Hulu + Live TV remain a better fit for people willing to pay more for additional channels and extra perks like unlimited DVR, but in an age of rising prices, Sling TV's lower costs provide a nice streaming solution for first-time cord cutters switching over from cable or satellite TV.

You can purchase logo and accolade licensing to this story here . Disclosure: Written and researched by the Insider Reviews team. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our partners. We may receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising team. We welcome your feedback. Email us at [email protected] .

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The Crackdown on Student Protesters

Columbia university is at the center of a growing showdown over the war in gaza and the limits of free speech..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

[TRAIN SCREECHING]

Well, you can hear the helicopter circling. This is Asthaa Chaturvedi. I’m a producer with “The Daily.” Just walked out of the 116 Street Station. It’s the main station for Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus. And it’s day seven of the Gaza solidarity encampment, where a hundred students were arrested last Thursday.

So on one side of Broadway, you see camera crews. You see NYPD officers all lined up. There’s barricades, steel barricades, caution tape. This is normally a completely open campus. And I’m able to — all members of the public, you’re able to walk through.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

Looks like international media is here.

Have your IDs out. Have your IDs out.

Students lining up to swipe in to get access to the University. ID required for entry.

Swipe your ID, please.

Hi, how are you, officer? We’re journalists with “The New York Times.”

You’re not going to get in, all right? I’m sorry.

Hi. Can I help please?

Yeah, it’s total lockdown here at Columbia.

Please have your IDs out ready to swipe.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today, the story of how Columbia University has become the epicenter of a growing showdown between student protesters, college administrators, and Congress over the war in Gaza and the limits of free speech. I spoke with my colleague, Nick Fandos.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

It’s Thursday, April 25.

Nick, if we rewind the clock a few months, we end up at a moment where students at several of the country’s best known universities are protesting Israel’s response to the October 7 attacks, its approach to a war in Gaza. At times, those protests are happening peacefully, at times with rhetoric that is inflammatory. And the result is that the leaders of those universities land before Congress. But the president of Columbia University, which is the subject we’re going to be talking about today, is not one of the leaders who shows up for that testimony.

That’s right. So the House Education Committee has been watching all these protests on campus. And the Republican Chairwoman decides, I’m going to open an investigation, look at how these administrations are handling it, because it doesn’t look good from where I sit. And the House last winter invites the leaders of several of these elite schools, Harvard, Penn, MIT, and Columbia, to come and testify in Washington on Capitol Hill before Congress.

Now, the President of Columbia has what turns out to be a very well-timed, pre-planned trip to go overseas and speak at an international climate conference. So Minouche Shafik isn’t going to be there. So instead, the presidents of Harvard, and Penn, and MIT show up. And it turned out to be a disaster for these universities.

They were asked very pointed questions about the kind of speech taking place on their campuses, and they gave really convoluted academic answers back that just baffled the committee. But there was one question that really embodied the kind of disconnect between the Committee — And it wasn’t just Republicans, Republicans and Democrats on the Committee — and these college presidents. And that’s when they were asked a hypothetical.

Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?

If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment.

And two of the presidents, Claudine Gay of Harvard and Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, they’re unwilling to say in this really kind of intense back and forth that this speech would constitute a violation of their rules.

It can be, depending on the context.

What’s the context?

Targeted at an individual. Is it pervasive?

It’s targeted at Jewish students, Jewish individuals. Do you understand your testimony is dehumanizing them?

And it sets off a firestorm.

It does not depend on the context. The answer is yes. And this is why you should resign. These are unacceptable answers across the board.

Members of Congress start calling for their resignations. Alumni are really, really ticked off. Trustees of the University start to wonder, I don’t know that these leaders really have got this under control. And eventually, both of them lose their jobs in a really high profile way.

Right. And as you’ve hinted at, for somewhat peculiar scheduling reasons, Columbia’s President escapes this disaster of a hearing in what has to be regarded as the best timing in the history of the American Academy.

Yeah, exactly. And Columbia is watching all this play out. And I think their first response was relief that she was not in that chair, but also a recognition that, sooner or later, their turn was going to come back around and they were going to have to sit before Congress.

Why were they so certain that they would probably end up before Congress and that this wasn’t a case of completely dodging a bullet?

Well, they remain under investigation by the committee. But also, as the winter wears on, all the same intense protests just continue unabated. So in many ways, Columbia’s like these other campuses. But in some ways, it’s even more intense. This is a university that has both one of the largest Jewish student populations of any of its peers. But it also has a large Arab and Muslim student population, a big Middle Eastern studies program. It has a dual degree program in Tel Aviv.

And it’s a university on top of all that that has a real history of activism dating back to the 1960s. So when students are recruited or choose to come to Columbia, they’re actively opting into a campus that prides itself on being an activist community. It’s in the middle of New York City. It’s a global place. They consider the city and the world, really, like a classroom to Columbia.

In other words, if any campus was going to be a hotbed of protest and debate over this conflict, it was going to be Columbia University.

Exactly. And when this spring rolls around, the stars finally align. And the same congressional committee issues another invitation to Minouche Shafik, Columbia’s President, to come and testify. And this time, she has no excuse to say no.

But presumably, she is well aware of exactly what testifying before this committee entails and is highly prepared.

Columbia knew this moment was coming. They spent months preparing for this hearing. They brought in outside consultants, crisis communicators, experts on anti-Semitism. The weekend before the hearing, she actually travels down to Washington to hole up in a war room, where she starts preparing her testimony with mock questioners and testy exchanges to prep her for this. And she’s very clear on what she wants to try to do.

Where her counterparts had gone before the committee a few months before and looked aloof, she wanted to project humility and competence, to say, I know that there’s an issue on my campus right now with some of these protests veering off into anti-Semitic incidents. But I’m getting that under control. I’m taking steps in good faith to make sure that we restore order to this campus, while allowing people to express themselves freely as well.

So then the day of her actual testimony arrives. And just walk us through how it goes.

The Committee on Education and Workforce will come to order. I note that —

So Wednesday morning rolls around. And President Shafik sits at the witness stand with two of her trustees and the head of Columbia’s new anti-Semitism task force.

Columbia stands guilty of gross negligence at best and at worst has become a platform for those supporting terrorism and violence against the Jewish people.

And right off the bat, they’re put through a pretty humbling litany of some of the worst hits of what’s been happening on campus.

For example, just four days after the harrowing October 7 attack, a former Columbia undergraduate beat an Israeli student with a stick.

The Republican Chairwoman of the Committee, Virginia Foxx, starts reminding her that there was a student who was actually hit with a stick on campus. There was another gathering more recently glorifying Hamas and other terrorist organizations, and the kind of chants that have become an everyday chorus on campus, which many Jewish students see as threatening. But when the questioning starts, President Shafik is ready. One of the first ones she gets is the one that tripped up her colleagues.

Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Columbia’s code of conduct, Mr. Greenwald?

And she answers unequivocally.

Dr. Shafik?

Yes, it does.

And, Professor —

That would be a violation of Columbia’s rules. They would be punished.

As President of Columbia, what is it like when you hear chants like, by any means necessary or Intifada Revolution?

I find those chants incredibly distressing. And I wish profoundly that people would not use them on our campus.

And in some of the most interesting exchanges of the hearing, President Shafik actually opens Columbia’s disciplinary books.

We have already suspended 15 students from Columbia. We have six on disciplinary probation. These are more disciplinary actions that have been taken probably in the last decade at Columbia. And —

She talks about the number of students that have been suspended, but also the number of faculty that she’s had removed from the classroom that are being investigated for comments that either violate some of Columbia’s rules or make students uncomfortable. One case in particular really underscores this.

And that’s of a Middle Eastern studies professor named Joseph Massad. He wrote an essay not long after Hamas invaded Israel and killed 1,200 people, according to the Israeli government, where he described that attack with adjectives like awesome. Now, he said they’ve been misinterpreted, but a lot of people have taken offense to those comments.

Ms. Stefanik, you’re recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Chairwoman. I want to follow up on my colleague, Rep Walberg’s question regarding Professor Joseph Massad. So let me be clear, President —

And so Representative Elise Stefanik, the same Republican who had tripped up Claudine Gay of Harvard and others in the last hearing, really starts digging in to President Shafik about these things at Columbia.

He is still Chair on the website. So has he been terminated as Chair?

Congresswoman, I —

And Shafik’s answers are maybe a little surprising.

— before getting back to you. I can confirm —

I know you confirmed that he was under investigation.

Yes, I can confirm that. But I —

Did you confirm he was still the Chair?

He says that Columbia is taking his case seriously. In fact, he’s under investigation right now.

Well, let me ask you this.

I need to check.

Will you make the commitment to remove him as Chair?

And when Stefanik presses her to commit to removing him from a campus leadership position —

I think that would be — I think — I would — yes. Let me come back with yes. But I think I — I just want to confirm his current status before I write —

We’ll take that as a yes, that you will confirm that he will no longer be chair.

Shafik seems to pause and think and then agree to it on the spot, almost like she is making administrative decisions with or in front of Congress.

Now, we did some reporting after the fact. And it turns out the Professor didn’t even realize he was under investigation. So he’s learning about this from the hearing too. So what this all adds up to, I think, is a performance so in line with what the lawmakers themselves wanted to hear, that at certain points, these Republicans didn’t quite know what to do with it. They were like the dog that caught the car.

Columbia beats Harvard and UPenn.

One of them, a Republican from Florida, I think at one point even marvelled, well, you beat Harvard and Penn.

Y’all all have done something that they weren’t able to do. You’ve been able to condemn anti-Semitism without using the phrase, it depends on the context. But the —

So Columbia’s president has passed this test before this committee.

Yeah, this big moment that tripped up her predecessors and cost them their jobs, it seems like she has cleared that hurdle and dispatched with the Congressional committee that could have been one of the biggest threats to her presidency.

Without objection, there being no further business, the committee stands adjourned. [BANGS GAVEL]

But back on campus, some of the students and faculty who had been watching the hearing came away with a very different set of conclusions. They saw a president who was so eager to please Republicans in Congress that she was willing to sell out some of the University’s students and faculty and trample on cherished ideas like academic freedom and freedom of expression that have been a bedrock of American higher education for a really long time.

And there was no clearer embodiment of that than what had happened that morning just as President Shafik was going to testify before Congress. A group of students before dawn set up tents in the middle of Columbia’s campus and declared themselves a pro-Palestinian encampment in open defiance of the very rules that Dr. Shafik had put in place to try and get these protests under control.

So these students in real-time are beginning to test some of the things that Columbia’s president has just said before Congress.

Exactly. And so instead of going to celebrate her successful appearance before Congress, Shafik walks out of the hearing room and gets in a black SUV to go right back to that war room, where she’s immediately confronted with a major dilemma. It basically boils down to this, she had just gone before Congress and told them, I’m going to get tough on these protests. And here they were. So either she gets tough and risks inflaming tension on campus or she holds back and does nothing and her words before Congress immediately look hollow.

And what does she decide?

So for the next 24 hours, she tries to negotiate off ramps. She consults with her Deans and the New York Police Department. And it all builds towards an incredibly consequential decision. And that is, for the first time in decades, to call the New York City Police Department onto campus in riot gear and break this thing up, suspend the students involved, and then arrest them.

To essentially eliminate this encampment.

Eliminate the encampment and send a message, this is not going to be tolerated. But in trying to quell the unrest, Shafik actually feeds it. She ends up leaving student protesters and the faculty who support them feeling betrayed and pushes a campus that was already on edge into a full blown crisis.

[SLOW TEMPO MUSIC]

After the break, what all of this has looked like to a student on Columbia’s campus. We’ll be right back.

[PHONE RINGS]

Is this Isabella?

Yes, this is she.

Hi, Isabella. It’s Michael Barbaro from “The Daily.”

Hi. Nice to meet you.

Earlier this week, we called Isabella Ramírez, the Editor in Chief of Columbia’s undergraduate newspaper, “The Columbia Daily Spectator,” which has been closely tracking both the protests and the University’s response to them since October 7.

So, I mean, in your mind, how do we get to this point? I wonder if you can just briefly describe the key moments that bring us to where we are right now.

Sure. Since October 7, there has certainly been constant escalation in terms of tension on campus. And there have been a variety of moves that I believe have distanced the student body, the faculty, from the University and its administration, specifically the suspension of Columbia’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. And that became a huge moment in what was characterized as suppression of pro-Palestinian activism on campus, effectively rendering those groups, quote, unquote, unauthorized.

What was the college’s explanation for that?

They had cited in that suspension a policy which states that a demonstration must be approved within a certain window, and that there must be an advance notice, and that there’s a process for getting an authorized demonstration. But the primary point was this policy that they were referring to, which we later reported, was changed before the suspension.

So it felt a little ad hoc to people?

Yes, it certainly came as a surprise, especially at “Spectator.” We’re nerds of the University in the sense that we are familiar with faculty and University governance. But even to us, we had no idea where this policy was coming from. And this suspension was really the first time that it entered most students’ sphere.

Columbia’s campus is so known for its activism. And so in my time of being a reporter, of being an editor, I’ve overseen several protests. And I’ve never seen Columbia penalize a group for, quote, unquote, not authorizing a protest. So that was certainly, in our minds, unprecedented.

And I believe part of the justification there was, well, this is a different time. And I think that is a reasonable thing to say. But I think a lot of students, they felt it was particularly one-sided, that it was targeting a specific type of speech or a specific type of viewpoint. Although, the University, of course, in its explicit policies, did not outline, and was actually very explicit about not targeting specific viewpoints —

So just to be super clear, it felt to students — and it sounds like, journalistically, it felt to you — that the University was coming down in a uniquely one-sided way against students who were supporting Palestinian rights and may have expressed some frustrations with Israel in that moment.

Yes. Certainly —

Isabella says that this was just the beginning of a really tense period between student protesters and the University. After those two student groups were suspended, campus protests continued. Students made a variety of demands. They asked that the University divest from businesses that profit from Israel’s military operations in Gaza. But instead of making any progress, the protests are met with further crackdown by the University.

And so as Isabella and her colleagues at the college newspaper see it, there’s this overall chilling effect that occurs. Some students become fearful that if they participate in any demonstrations, they’re going to face disciplinary action. So fast forward now to April, when these student protesters learned that President Shafik is headed to Washington for her congressional testimony. It’s at this moment that they set out to build their encampment.

I think there was obviously a lot of intention in timing those two things. I think it’s inherently a critique on a political pressure and this congressional pressure that we saw build up against, of course, Claudine Gay at Harvard and Magill at UPenn. So I think a lot of students and faculty have been frustrated at this idea that there are not only powers at the University that are dictating what’s happening, but there are perhaps external powers that are also guiding the way here in terms of what the University feels like it must do or has to do.

And I think that timing was super crucial. Having the encampment happen on the Wednesday morning of the hearing was an incredible, in some senses, interesting strategy to direct eyes to different places.

All eyes were going to be on Shafik in DC. But now a lot of eyes are on New York. The encampment is set up in the middle of the night slash morning, prior to the hearing. And so what effectively happens is they caught Shafik when she wasn’t on campus, when a lot of senior administration had their resources dedicated to supporting Shafik in DC.

And you have all of those people not necessarily out of commission, but with their focus elsewhere. So the encampment is met with very little resistance at the beginning. There were public safety officers floating around and watching. But at the very beginning hours, I think there was a sense of, we did it.

[CHANTING]: Disclose! Divest! We will not stop! We will not rest. Disclose! Divest! We will not stop!

It would be quite surprising to anybody and an administrator to now suddenly see dozens of tents on this lawn in a way that I think very purposely puts an imagery of, we’re here to stay. As the morning evolved and congressional hearings continued —

Minouche Shafik, open your eyes! Use of force, genocide!

Then we started seeing University delegates that were coming to the encampment saying, you may face disciplinary action for continuing to be here. I think that started around almost — like 9:00 or 10:00 AM, they started handing out these code of conduct violation notices.

Hell no! Hell no! Hell no!

Then there started to be more public safety action and presence. So they started barricading the entrances. The day progressed, there was more threat of discipline. The students became informed that if they continue to stay, they will face potential academic sanctions, potential suspension.

The more they try to silence us, the louder we will be! The more they —

I think a lot of people were like, OK, you’re threatening us with suspension. But so what?

This is about these systems that Minouche Shafik, that the Board of Trustees, that Columbia University is complicit in.

What are you going to do to try to get us out of here? And that was, obviously, promptly answered.

This is the New York State Police Department.

We will not stop!

You are attempting participate in an unauthorized encampment. You will be arrested and charged with trespassing.

My phone blew up, obviously, from the reporters, from the editors, of saying, oh my god, the NYPD is on our campus. And as soon as I saw that, I came out. And I saw a huge crowd of students and affiliates on campus watching the lawns. And as I circled around that crowd, I saw the last end of the New York Police Department pulling away protesters and clearing out the last of the encampment.

[CHANTING]: We love you! We will get justice for you! We see you! We love you! We will get justice for you! We see you! We love you! We will get justice for you! We see you! We love you! We will get justice for you!

It was something truly unimaginable, over 100 students slash other individuals are arrested from our campus, forcefully removed. And although they were suspended, there was a feeling of traumatic event that has just happened to these students, but also this sense of like, OK, the worst of the worst that could have happened to us just happened.

And for those students who maybe couldn’t go back to — into campus, now all of their peers, who were supporters or are in solidarity, are — in some sense, it’s further emboldened. They’re now not just sitting on the lawns for a pro-Palestinian cause, but also for the students, who have endured quite a lot.

So the crackdown, sought by the president and enforced by the NYPD, ends up, you’re saying, becoming a galvanizing force for a broader group of Columbia students than were originally drawn to the idea of ever showing up on the center of campus and protesting?

Yeah, I can certainly speak to the fact that I’ve seen my own peers, friends, or even acquaintances, who weren’t necessarily previously very involved in activism and organizing efforts, suddenly finding themselves involved.

Can I — I just have a question for you, which is all journalism, student journalism or not student journalism, is a first draft of history. And I wonder if we think of this as a historic moment for Columbia, how you imagine it’s going to be remembered.

Yeah, there is no doubt in my mind that this will be a historic moment for Colombia.

I think that this will be remembered as a moment in which the fractures were laid bare. Really, we got to see some of the disunity of the community in ways that I have never really seen it before. And what we’ll be looking to is, where do we go from here? How does Colombia repair? How do we heal from all of this? so That is the big question in terms of what will happen.

Nick, Isabella Ramírez just walked us through what this has all looked like from the perspective of a Columbia student. And from what she could tell, the crackdown ordered by President Shafik did not quell much of anything. It seemed, instead, to really intensify everything on campus. I’m curious what this has looked like for Shafik.

It’s not just the students who are upset. You have faculty, including professors, who are not necessarily sympathetic to the protesters’ view of the war, who are really outraged about what Shafik has done here. They feel that she’s crossed a boundary that hasn’t been crossed on Columbia’s campus in a really long time.

And so you start to hear things by the end of last week like censure, no confidence votes, questions from her own professors about whether or not she can stay in power. So this creates a whole new front for her. And on top of it all, as this is going on, the encampment itself starts to reform tent-by-tent —

— almost in the same place that it was. And Shafik decides that the most important thing she could do is to try and take the temperature down, which means letting the encampment stand. Or in other words, leaning in the other direction. This time, we’re going to let the protesters have their say for a little while longer.

The problem with that is that, over the weekend, a series of images start to emerge from on campus and just off of it of some really troubling anti-Semitic episodes. In one case, a guy holds up a poster in the middle of campus and points it towards a group of Jewish students who are counter protesting. And it says, I’m paraphrasing here, Hamas’ next targets.

I saw an image of that. What it seemed to evoke was the message that Hamas should murder those Jewish students. That’s the way the Jewish students interpreted it.

It’s a pretty straightforward and jarring statement. At the same time, just outside of Columbia’s closed gates —

Stop killing children!

— protestors are showing up from across New York City. It’s hard to tell who’s affiliated with Columbia, who’s not.

Go back to Poland! Go back to Poland!

There’s a video that goes viral of one of them shouting at Jewish students, go back to Poland, go back to Europe.

In other words, a clear message, you’re not welcome here.

Right. In fact, go back to the places where the Holocaust was committed.

Exactly. And this is not representative of the vast majority of the protesters in the encampment, who mostly had been peaceful. They would later hold a Seder, actually, with some of the pro-Palestinian Jewish protesters in their ranks. But those videos are reaching members of Congress, the very same Republicans that Shafik had testified in front of just a few days before. And now they’re looking and saying, you have lost control of your campus, you’ve turned back on your word to us, and you need to resign.

They call for her outright resignation over this.

That’s right. Republicans in New York and across the country began to call for her to step down from her position as president of Columbia.

So Shafik’s dilemma here is pretty extraordinary. She has set up this dynamic where pleasing these members of Congress would probably mean calling in the NYPD all over again to sweep out this encampment, which would mean further alienating and inflaming students and faculty, who are still very upset over the first crackdown. And now both ends of this spectrum, lawmakers in Washington, folks on the Columbia campus, are saying she can’t lead the University over this situation before she’s even made any fateful decision about what to do with this second encampment. Not a good situation.

No. She’s besieged on all sides. For a while, the only thing that she can come up with to offer is for classes to go hybrid for the remainder of the semester.

So students who aren’t feeling safe in this protest environment don’t necessarily have to go to class.

Right. And I think if we zoom out for a second, it’s worth bearing in mind that she tried to choose a different path here than her counterparts at Harvard or Penn. And after all of this, she’s kind of ended up in the exact same thicket, with people calling for her job with the White House, the Mayor of New York City, and others. These are Democrats. Maybe not calling on her to resign quite yet, but saying, I don’t know what’s going on your campus. This does not look good.

That reality, that taking a different tack that was supposed to be full of learnings and lessons from the stumbles of her peers, the fact that didn’t really work suggests that there’s something really intractable going on here. And I wonder how you’re thinking about this intractable situation that’s now arrived on these college campuses.

Well, I don’t think it’s just limited to college campuses. We have seen intense feelings about this conflict play out in Hollywood. We’ve seen them in our politics in all kinds of interesting ways.

In our media.

We’ve seen it in the media. But college campuses, at least in their most idealized form, are something special. They’re a place where students get to go for four years to think in big ways about moral questions, and political questions, and ideas that help shape the world they’re going to spend the rest of their lives in.

And so when you have a question that feels as urgent as this war does for a lot of people, I think it reverberates in an incredibly intense way on those campuses. And there’s something like — I don’t know if it’s quite a contradiction of terms, but there’s a collision of different values at stake. So universities thrive on the ability of students to follow their minds and their voices where they go, to maybe even experiment a little bit and find those things.

But there are also communities that rely on people being able to trust each other and being able to carry out their classes and their academic endeavors as a collective so they can learn from one another. So in this case, that’s all getting scrambled. Students who feel strongly about the Palestinian cause feel like the point is disruption, that something so big, and immediate, and urgent is happening that they need to get in the faces of their professors, and their administrators, and their fellow students.

Right. And set up an encampment in the middle of campus, no matter what the rules say.

Right. And from the administration’s perspective, they say, well, yeah, you can say that and you can think that. And that’s an important process. But maybe there’s some bad apples in your ranks. Or though you may have good intentions, you’re saying things that you don’t realize the implications of. And they’re making this environment unsafe for others. Or they’re grinding our classes to a halt and we’re not able to function as a University.

So the only way we’re going to be able to move forward is if you will respect our rules and we’ll respect your point of view. The problem is that’s just not happening. Something is not connecting with those two points of view. And as if that’s not hard enough, you then have Congress and the political system with its own agenda coming in and putting its thumb on a scale of an already very difficult situation.

Right. And at this very moment, what we know is that the forces that you just outlined have created a dilemma, an uncertainty of how to proceed, not just for President Shafik and the students and faculty at Columbia, but for a growing number of colleges and universities across the country. And by that, I mean, this thing that seemed to start at Columbia is literally spreading.

Absolutely. We’re talking on a Wednesday afternoon. And these encampments have now started cropping up at universities from coast-to-coast, at Harvard and Yale, but also at University of California, at the University of Texas, at smaller campuses in between. And at each of these institutions, there’s presidents and deans, just like President Shafik at Columbia, who are facing a really difficult set of choices. Do they call in the police? The University of Texas in Austin this afternoon, we saw protesters physically clashing with police.

Do they hold back, like at Harvard, where there were dramatic videos of students literally running into Harvard yard with tents. They were popping up in real-time. And so Columbia, really, I think, at the end of the day, may have kicked off some of this. But they are now in league with a whole bunch of other universities that are struggling with the same set of questions. And it’s a set of questions that they’ve had since this war broke out.

And now these schools only have a week or two left of classes. But we don’t know when these standoffs are going to end. We don’t know if students are going to leave campus for the summer. We don’t know if they’re going to come back in the fall and start protesting right away, or if this year is going to turn out to have been an aberration that was a response to a really awful, bloody war, or if we’re at the beginning of a bigger shift on college campuses that will long outlast this war in the Middle East.

Well, Nick, thank you very much. Thanks for having me, Michael.

We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you need to know today. The United Nations is calling for an independent investigation into two mass graves found after Israeli forces withdrew from hospitals in Gaza. Officials in Gaza said that some of the bodies found in the graves were Palestinians who had been handcuffed or shot in the head and accused Israel of killing and burying them. In response, Israel said that its soldiers had exhumed bodies in one of the graves as part of an effort to locate Israeli hostages.

And on Wednesday, Hamas released a video of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American dual citizen, whom Hamas has held hostage since October 7. It was the first time that he has been shown alive since his captivity began. His kidnapping was the subject of a “Daily” episode in October that featured his mother, Rachel. In response to Hamas’s video, Rachel issued a video of her own, in which she spoke directly to her son.

And, Hersh, if you can hear this, we heard your voice today for the first time in 201 days. And if you can hear us, I am telling you, we are telling you, we love you. Stay strong. Survive.

Today’s episode was produced by Sydney Harper, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Olivia Natt, Nina Feldman, and Summer Thomad, with help from Michael Simon Johnson. It was edited by Devon Taylor and Lisa Chow, contains research help by Susan Lee, original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

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Hosted by Michael Barbaro

Featuring Nicholas Fandos

Produced by Sydney Harper ,  Asthaa Chaturvedi ,  Olivia Natt ,  Nina Feldman and Summer Thomad

With Michael Simon Johnson

Edited by Devon Taylor and Lisa Chow

Original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell

Engineered by Chris Wood

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Columbia University has become the epicenter of a growing showdown between student protesters, college administrators and Congress over the war in Gaza and the limits of free speech.

Nicholas Fandos, who covers New York politics and government for The Times, walks us through the intense week at the university. And Isabella Ramírez, the editor in chief of Columbia’s undergraduate newspaper, explains what it has all looked like to a student on campus.

On today’s episode

Nicholas Fandos , who covers New York politics and government for The New York Times

Isabella Ramírez , editor in chief of The Columbia Daily Spectator

Background reading

Inside the week that shook Columbia University .

The protests at the university continued after more than 100 arrests.

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We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

Research help by Susan Lee .

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Nicholas Fandos is a Times reporter covering New York politics and government. More about Nicholas Fandos

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