Service 01 · New Restaurant Setup
Starting a restaurant or food business
The Problem With Optimism
Most people who want to open a restaurant are optimistic. That's not a problem. The problem is what the optimism hides.
They've heard food has high margins. They've seen busy restaurants and imagined the money coming in. They've calculated rent and staff cost on a napkin and it looks good.
What they haven't calculated is the six months before a single rupee of real profit arrives. Or the reality that net profit in a restaurant is 7 to 8 percent. Not 30. Not 40. Seven to eight.
If your home needs ₹50,000 a month to run — your restaurant needs to sell ₹7 lakhs every single month just to cover your personal expenses. Month one. Month two. Month three. Before word of mouth builds. Before reviews come in. Before people even know you exist.
Two Types of People Open Restaurants
- 1. The OptimistHas never been in the food business. Believes margins are high because someone told them so. Thinks customers will magically come because the food tastes good.
- 2. The ChefGenuinely brilliant in the kitchen. But running a restaurant is not cooking. It is marketing, systems, staff management, vendor negotiations, lease agreements, and cash flow — with cooking happening somewhere in the middle.
The First Question I Ask
“Is your home dependent on this income for the next six months?”
If the answer is yes — we need to talk seriously before anything else. If you're salaried — don't quit your job yet. Hire a manager. Let the restaurant find its feet. Leave the job only when the numbers say it's time. That one decision has saved more restaurants than any marketing strategy.
What I Actually Help You With
Before you spend your first rupee — I sit with you and we go through everything:
- Is this concept viable in this specific target location?
- Are your financial expectations realistic based on footfall data?
- What licenses do you need and in what exact sequence?
- What kitchen equipment is essential vs. what is a waste of money right now?
- How do you hire your first kitchen and service team without getting burned?
- What does month 1, 2, and 3 actually look like financially?
- What specific numbers should you measure every single week?
“The mistakes look different. The cause is almost always the same.”
— Pushpender Kaushik