Americans spend more than $600 billion a year eating out. Busy consumers don't have the time or inclination to cook - they want tasty, nutritious meals without dishes to wash. Singles, working parents and seniors are demanding greater convenience and are turning to restaurants to fill that need. With so much dining and taking out, there's plenty of room for more food businesses, but for a successful startup you need more than just good recipes. You also need to know about planning, capitalization, inventory control, and payroll management. Entrepreneur has compiled everything you need including how to evaluate the competition, how to research potential customers, the basics of setting up a kitchen, how to find a great location, how to leap over regulatory hurdles in the industry, and how to select the best people to staff your particular style of business.
Make Your Dreams of Owning a Profitable Eatery Come True Americans spend nearly $600 billion a year eating out. As consumers are dining out or taking prepared food home with increased frequency, food-service operations are skyrocketing. There's plenty of room for more food businesses, but for a successful startup you need more than just good recipes. You also need to know about planning, capitalization, inventory control, and payroll management. Here's everything you need to consider when starting your own restaurant, pizzeria, coffeehouse, delicatessen, bakery, or catering business. Interviews with successful eatery owners show how others have made their food business dreams come true. Among the many topics covered are: Set-up and equipment Inventory Staffing Legal structure Location Permits Sanitation Marketing Financial management Fully updated with the newest trends in menu items, décor, and themes, plus recent market statistics and forecasts, this guide is your roadmap to success.
This comprehensive volume examines the history of American food culture and cuisine today, from staple ingredients to dietary concerns. Everyday, without realizing it, Americans plan their days around food—what to make for dinner, where to meet for brunch, what to bring to a party. As a nation of immigrants, the U.S. has food and foodways that few countries in the world have. This addition to the Global Kitchen series examines all aspects of food culture in the United States, from the early Colonial period and Native American influences on the new immigrants' food to the modern era. The volume opens with a Chronology that looks at United States history and significant food events. Coverage then dives deep into the history of food in the U.S., and is followed by a chapter on influential ingredients in American cooking. Chapters break down American cuisine into appetizers and side dishes, main dishes, and desserts, looking at typical meals and flavors that characterize it. Additional chapters examine food eaten during holidays and on special occasions, street food and snacks, and restauarants. A final chapter looks at issues and dietary concerns. Recipes round out each chapter.
OPEN THE STORE OF YOUR DREAMS: START YOUR OWN RETAIL BUSINESS Retail is one of the fastest-growing—and fastest-changing—segments of the economy. Apps, pop-up shops, and online shopping have made it easier to reach, interact with, sell to, and gain loyal customers. Making this the perfect time for eager entrepreneurs, like you, to stop dreaming and start selling. Whether you’re interested in opening a storefront, online shop, or portable kiosk, this detailed guide will help you decide if retail is right for you. Supported by practicing entrepreneurs and experts, you will understand what it takes to open a business, common mistakes to avoid, and how to keep your retail enterprise running successfully. Learn how to: Choose the right retail niche Spot and capitalize on consumer trends Select merchandise that flies off the shelves Set prices that maximize profits Promote your business, products, and gain loyal customers using Pinterest, Facebook, and other social media and online marketing tools Hire a staff that will help you succeed Plus, gain priceless tips, tricks, and insight from successful retailers who share hard-won advice and cautionary notes. Everything you need to open and run your store is in your hands—get started today!
Start Your Own Food Truck Business and Satisfy Your Hunger for Success At over a billion dollars, the mobile food industry is enjoying more publicity and notoriety than ever before. Catering to a new generation of foodies looking for quick and unique specialties, the mobile food business is booming with new opportunities for eager entrepreneurs like you. From gourmet food to all-American basics and hot dog wagons to bustaurants, our experts give you the delicious details behind starting and running a successful mobile food business. This guide covers: Six of the hottest mobile food options: food carts, concession trailers, kiosks, standard and gourmet trucks, mobile catering, and bustaurants Identifying the perfect foodie niche and customer base Creating menu items that save time, money, and space in the kitchen Finding a profitable location, time and time again Attracting new and loyal customers with social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter Managing daily operations, costs, and setting prices Licenses, codes, regulations, parking, and other considerations Plus, gain recipes, shopping lists, favorite equipment buys and more from practicing food truck entrepreneurs. From choosing a vehicle to franchising and everything in between, learn what you need to know to get your business moving toward success!
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From Gabrielle Hamilton, bestselling author of Blood, Bones & Butter, comes her eagerly anticipated cookbook debut filled with signature recipes from her celebrated New York City restaurant Prune. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE SEASON BY Time • O: The Oprah Magazine • Bon Appétit • Eater A self-trained cook turned James Beard Award–winning chef, Gabrielle Hamilton opened Prune on New York’s Lower East Side fifteen years ago to great acclaim and lines down the block, both of which continue today. A deeply personal and gracious restaurant, in both menu and philosophy, Prune uses the elements of home cooking and elevates them in unexpected ways. The result is delicious food that satisfies on many levels. Highly original in concept, execution, look, and feel, the Prune cookbook is an inspired replica of the restaurant’s kitchen binders. It is written to Gabrielle’s cooks in her distinctive voice, with as much instruction, encouragement, information, and scolding as you would find if you actually came to work at Prune as a line cook. The recipes have been tried, tasted, and tested dozens if not hundreds of times. Intended for the home cook as well as the kitchen professional, the instructions offer a range of signals for cooks—a head’s up on when you have gone too far, things to watch out for that could trip you up, suggestions on how to traverse certain uncomfortable parts of the journey to ultimately help get you to the final destination, an amazing dish. Complete with more than with more than 250 recipes and 250 color photographs, home cooks will find Prune’s most requested recipes—Grilled Head-on Shrimp with Anchovy Butter, Bread Heels and Pan Drippings Salad, Tongue and Octopus with Salsa Verde and Mimosa’d Egg, Roasted Capon on Garlic Crouton, Prune’s famous Bloody Mary (and all 10 variations). Plus, among other items, a chapter entitled “Garbage”—smart ways to repurpose foods that might have hit the garbage or stockpot in other restaurant kitchens but are turned into appetizing bites and notions at Prune. Featured here are the recipes, approach, philosophy, evolution, and nuances that make them distinctively Prune’s. Unconventional and honest, in both tone and content, this book is a welcome expression of the cookbook as we know it. Praise for Prune “Fresh, fascinating . . . entirely pleasurable . . . Since 1999, when the chef Gabrielle Hamilton put Triscuits and canned sardines on the first menu of her East Village bistro, Prune, she has nonchalantly broken countless rules of the food world. The rule that a successful restaurant must breed an empire. The rule that chefs who happen to be women should unconditionally support one another. The rule that great chefs don’t make great writers (with her memoir, Blood, Bones & Butter). And now, the rule that restaurant food has to be simplified and prettied up for home cooks in order to produce a useful, irresistible cookbook. . . . [Prune] is the closest thing to the bulging loose-leaf binder, stuck in a corner of almost every restaurant kitchen, ever to be printed and bound between cloth covers. (These happen to be a beautiful deep, dark magenta.)”—The New York Times “One of the most brilliantly minimalist cookbooks in recent memory . . . at once conveys the thrill of restaurant cooking and the wisdom of the author, while making for a charged reading experience.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
THE RESTAURANT AN AUTHORITATIVE, UP-TO-DATE, AND ONE-STOP GUIDE TO THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS In the newly revised The Restaurant: From Concept to Operation, Ninth Edition, accomplished hospitality and restaurant professional John R. Walker delivers a comprehensive exploration of opening a restaurant, from the initial idea to the grand opening. The book offers readers robust, applications-based coverage of all aspects of developing, opening, and running a restaurant. Readers will discover up-to-date material on staffing, legal and regulatory issues, cost control, financing, marketing and promotion, equipment and design, menus, sanitation, and concepts. Every chapter has been revised, updated and enhanced with several industry examples, sidebars, charts, tables, photos, and menus. The ninth edition of The Restaurant: From Concept to Operation provides readers with all the information they need to make sound decisions that will allow for the building of a thriving restaurant business. The book also offers: A thorough introduction to the restaurant business, from the history of eating out to the modern challenges of restaurant operation A comprehensive exploration of restaurants and their owners, including quick-casual, sandwich, family, fine-dining, and other establishments Practical discussions of menus, kitchens, and purchasing, including prices and pricing strategies, menu accuracy, health inspections, and food purchasing systems In-depth examinations of restaurant operations, including bar and beverage service, budgeting and control, and food production and sanitation An indispensable resource for undergraduate and graduate restaurant and food management services and business administration students, The Restaurant: From Concept to Operation, Ninth Edition is also perfect for aspiring and practicing restaurant owners and restaurant investors seeking a one-stop guide to the restaurant business.
In this book you will learn my trade secrets from being a front-line restaurant, bar, and club owner/operator, as well as my extensive experience as a buyer and seller of many restaurants, bars and clubs. For a 45 year period (1950-1996), my family owned and operated: a) Zim's Restaurants, the largest independent non-franchised restaurant chain in San Francisco, b) nearly 35 restaurants, bars and/or clubs in Northern California including Zim's Restaurants, Z's Bountiful Buffets, Kibby's Drive Ins, and Casa Carlita's Mexican Restaurants and c) miscellaneous other operations, including many cocktail lounges. Today I own Restaurant Realty Company, the largest restaurant, bar and club business brokerage in California. I have personally sold over 800 restaurant, bar and club businesses, and I have completed over 2,500 business valuations since 1996. Throughout this book I will share my experiences and knoweldge from my twenty-plus years of restaurant experience, and more than thirty years of real estate experience. Having worn many hats as a restaurant, bar, and club owner/operator, buyer, seller, landlord, and broker, I want to share my years of experience to make it easier for prospective restaurant, bar or club buyers to learn how to effectively purchase a business. My goal is to help a buyer understand the key things he, or she, needs to know in order to minimize mistakes and to make a successful, well-thought-out purchase. I want this purchase to have a strong chance for success, subject to buyers operating the business properly after they take ownership. I cover the following topics in the book: 1. The Buyer - a. motivations for buying, b. things you need to know before buying, c. qualfications needed to purchase, d. things you need to do before you purchase, e. the advantages and disadvantages of buying an existing business versus starting one from scratch, f. what are you buying, and g. how buyers initially screeen business opportunities; 2. What Do You Need - a. the essential for preparing a business plan, b. how much money do you need to open and operate, c. methods for raising money; 3. Buyers Do's and Don'ts - a. buyer's three-stage checklist, b. important questions and information to ask the seller, c. signs to look for to determine if the seller's business is in trouble; 4. Success Vs. Failure - a. key ingredients for a successful business from a customer's and buyer's perspective, b. why so many businesses fail, c. turning a losing business into a winning business opportunity, d. why do sellers sell?; 5. Valuations and Other Financial Aspects - a. various sample valuations, b. understanding financial statements; 6. Importance of Location - a. major factors in selecting a strong location, b. how an operator determines if an existing site will work for his proposed new operation, c. special types of locations, d. how to find a good restaurant site; 7. Lease and Other Legal Aspects - a. premise lease, b. how a tenant can negotiate a good lease and renew it on favorable terms, c. helpful techniques in negotiating your lease, d. why landlords want to maximize their rent; 8. Steps to the Sale - a. selling process from offer stage to close of escrow stage, b. dealing with the most common problems related to the sale and how to ensure a closed escrow, c. overcoming the most common obstacles in dealing with the landlord, d. the main three parties in the transaction: buyer, seller and landlord, e. how the sales process works, f. explanation of the asset purchase agreement, g. the buyer's due-diligence process, h. things that can go wrong during a sales transaction that a seller needs to know - and a buyer should too, i. advantages and disadvantages of an asset sale versus a stock sale; 9. Is Franchising For You? - the advantages and disadvantages of buying a franchised business versus buying an independent, non-franchised business and 10. Using a Restaurant Broker to Your Advantage.
From the enormously popular Berkeley cheese shop and bakery, a collection of 150 classic recipes along with a history of the store and a cheese primer, all accompanied by 50 photographs. The Cheese Board was there, a hole in the wall with a line out the door, before Chez Panisse was so much as a gleam in my eye. When the restaurant was conceived, I wanted it to be in North Berkeley so the Cheese Board would be nearby, because I knew I would be among friends. -Alice Waters, from the Foreword When a tiny cheese shop opened in Berkeley, California, in 1967, there was little hint of what the store-and the neighborhood-would grow into over the next 30 years. The Cheese Board became a collective a few years later and Chez Panisse opened across the street, giving birth to one of the country's most vibrant food neighborhoods, the epicenter of California's culinary revolution. Equal parts bakery, cheese store, pizzeria, and gathering place, the Cheese Board is a patchwork of the local community, where a passion for good food runs deep. THE CHEESE BOARD presents over 100 recipes for the store's classic breads, pastries, and pizzas, along with a history of the collective and an extensive cheese primer.
