objectives of business plan for restaurant

How to Set Restaurant Goals for the Short-Term & Long-Term

By Katherine Pendrill

All restaurants need to innovate to stay competitive. This doesn’t mean taking your family’s 50-year-old spaghetti recipe off the menu, especially if it’s a customer favorite. Rather, it means being open to growing and evolving so that your restaurant can thrive for years to come. And one of the best ways to make sure your business doesn’t stagnate in today’s rapidly-changing world is to set restaurant goals for the short- and- long-term.

However, goal-setting doesn’t come naturally to every restaurateur. You may not be sure of the right next step to take in your business, or how to make your vision for the future a reality. That’s why we’re here to help you out with the process. In this article, we’ll cover:

• Why it’s important to set goals for a restaurant
• The difference between goals and objectives of a restaurant
• Examples of short- and- long-term restaurant goals

Ready, set, goal!

Why is it Important to Set Goals for a Restaurant?

Chances are you’ve set a goal before in your personal life, if not for your restaurant. Setting a goal is simply deciding that you want to accomplish something, like learning how to play the guitar or speak another language. But this is only the first step. You’ll need to take action to reach your goal, which we’ll dig into next.

As a restaurateur, it’s critical to set both short- and- long-term goals for your business. Short-term goals help your restaurant run more efficiently and profitably today , so that you’ll have a long-term future to work toward. In contrast, long-term goals are those big dreams that may take years to realize, but will be worth the effort in the end.

Goals vs Objectives

Let’s revisit the example of learning how to play the guitar. If that’s your goal, you need to set a few objectives to help you achieve it – otherwise, your chances of becoming the next Jimi Hendrix are going to be slim. Objectives are the individual actions you must take to reach the final destination of your goal. 

In this instance, your objectives might include buying a guitar, signing up for in-person or online lessons, and practicing at home. It’s crucial to identify and execute these small steps because each objective you complete allows you to make progress toward your goal. You can see the path to success laid out in front of you and you’ll have an opportunity to celebrate the little wins along the way, which will help you stay motivated.

Without breaking your goal down into objectives, you risk getting overwhelmed or simply not knowing which action to take next, which could stop you in your tracks. Or, you could derail your progress another way. For example, if you don’t consider how often you’ll need to practice guitar at home, you may forget to schedule time to do so and your skills could slip.

5 Examples of Short-Term Restaurant Goals

With this process in mind, now let’s talk about setting goals for a restaurant. The short-term goals and objectives of a restaurant typically focus on making the business run better or generating a quick injection of cash into your bank account. Here are a few examples of short-term restaurant goals, along with several restaurant objectives to support each of these goals.

1. Increase Daily Net Restaurant Sales

The first step to boosting daily sales is to understand how to do it, so one of your objectives might be to research how to increase restaurant sales . You may then decide to focus on specific tactics, like upselling with modifiers and add-ons. Of course, this means you’ll also need to ensure your front-of-house staff are properly trained in upselling techniques. You can likely already see how small objectives play a crucial role in helping you achieve your larger goal.

Another great way to increase daily sales is to run in-house promotions. So, perhaps you set an objective to have a team brainstorming session where you’ll come up with creative and enticing ideas for specials. Or, you could pull up one of your point-of-sale (POS) reports to identify which days of the week your sales could use the biggest boost. For example, if you run a brewery and your POS sales data shows that Tuesdays are slow, you could try hosting a Tuesday trivia night to increase sales on that specific day of the week.

2. Improve Margins on Best-Selling Menu Items

There’s nothing wrong with setting restaurant goals based on easy or quick wins. Leveraging your best-selling menu items is a smart move, and you can target a plethora of objectives to reach your goal of improving their margins. For instance, you could raise prices on those items or swap expensive ingredients for less costly substitutes.

Don’t forget that one of your initial objectives should be to identify your best-selling menu items. If you don’t already know which items are fan favorites, the easiest way to find out is by running a POS sales report.

3. Maximize Your Table Turnover Rate

Your table turnover rate is an important metric, because the more tables you can serve in a given time period, the more sales you can make. If you know your restaurant could use some improvement in this area, there are a few actions you can take today that will make a measurable impact.

Training servers to take orders by seat will eliminate confusion at the table and speed up service, resulting in faster table turnover. Reducing visits to the table, and instead getting more done in one visit (like making introductions and taking drink orders) will also increase efficiency. And, seating parties only when all guests have arrived at the restaurant will enable you to turn tables over more quickly.

4. Hire a New Employee

There are many reasons why you might need to make a hire in the short term; you could be filling a position that was vacated unexpectedly, or you may want to staff up ahead of a busy time of year, like summer or the holidays.

A few restaurant objectives to help you accomplish this goal could include writing a job description, identifying the best job boards to post it on, creating the post then sharing it on social media, and asking your team to share the post within their networks.

5. Grow Your Email List

Email marketing is one of the most important goals and objectives of a restaurant – the marketing you do today drives the sales you’ll make tomorrow. However, your customers have a lot of dining options. If you can get their attention by showing up in their inboxes, you’ll be at the head of the pack. 

Even if marketing isn’t your strong suit, there are a few simple ways to grow your email list in the short term. For example, post about it on social media and let your audience know that when they sign up, they’ll receive a coupon for 20% off their next meal. Or, ask your front-of-house staff to mention it to guests. You can even create a contest and enter everyone who joins your email list during a certain time period into a draw for a $100 gift card.

5 Examples of Long-Term Restaurant Goals

It’s time to look to the future. Let’s walk through five long-term restaurant goal examples and supporting objectives to get you excited about realizing your long-term vision.

1. Increase Monthly Net Restaurant Sales

How’s this for efficiency? Many of the short-term goals we identified earlier can actually help you achieve long-term goals such as boosting your daily sales, improving your margins on best-selling menu items, maximizing your table turnover rate, and growing your email list. All of these actions add up to greater monthly sales.

Another way to generate more monthly sales is by establishing a customer loyalty program. Rewards programs are known to drive revenue, but you likely won’t be able to set one up overnight, which makes it an ideal objective for this long-term goal. You can start by researching software vendors that can do a lot of the legwork for you to get the program up and running.

2. Add New Revenue Streams

Having multiple revenue streams like gift card sales, online ordering, takeout and delivery, or branded merchandise is an excellent idea for businesses across industries. To decide which new stream to pursue for your restaurant, start with research to gain an understanding of key factors like demand, competition, and overhead costs.

Say you’ve decided that adding takeout and delivery is the ideal new revenue stream for your restaurant. You’ll need to create a takeout and delivery menu, buy takeout packaging, and hire drivers or sign up for a third-party app. Or, you choose to sell branded merchandise as a new revenue stream. To achieve this goal, you’ll need to figure out what kind of merch you want to sell (mugs, hats, sweatshirts, etc.) and team up with a graphic designer to help you create it. Then, you’ll need to figure out production, shipping, and pricing.

3. Lower Your Staff Turnover Rate

If hiring employees is your short-term focus, keeping those team members should be your long-term goal. Decreasing your restaurant turnover rate is important for several reasons – most notably to keep costs down, maintain a positive work environment, and continue delivering high-quality customer service. 

So, what restaurant objectives can support you in achieving this goal? First, review your hiring strategy to make sure you’re hiring for the right fit from the very start. Promoting employees internally and fine-tuning your onboarding process for external hires are also great ways to reduce turnover. To measure success, consider setting restaurant benchmarks and restaurant KPIs . For example, you can set a standard for your employee turnover rate and then evaluate improvements against it overtime.

4. Open a New Location

Perhaps opening another location has always been on your bucket list. While you can’t snap your fingers and make it appear, but you can set objectives that will help you reach your goal someday.

First, make sure it’s financially feasible for you to expand your business or figure out when it will be, whether that’s in one year or five years. Then, consider where it makes sense to open another restaurant. Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to find the right space to rent and engage with local permitting authorities if needed. There are many more steps, but tackling them one at a time is the best way to stay focused on the task at hand and keep one foot moving in front of the other. 

5. Give Back to Your Community

Even in your early days as a restaurateur, you may dream about being in a position where you’ve accomplished most of the goals you’ve set, and you’re ready to give back to your community. (Spoiler alert: this will be much more likely if you set both goals and objectives, and work toward them slowly but surely!)

Establishing partnerships with other local organizations like food banks and shelters can be a rewarding way to make an impact, but it’s important to take your time to set these initiatives up properly. It’s never too early to start thinking about how your restaurant can become a pillar of your community. You can begin by considering your values as a person, your restaurant’s values as a brand, and what you have to offer your community to make it a better place.

Setting goals allows your restaurant to progress and build a bright future. You now have 10 restaurant goal examples to draw from as you chart your course to the next phase of your business and your life.

Katherine is the Content Marketing Manager at TouchBistro, where she writes about trending topics in food and restaurants. The opposite of a picky eater, she’ll try (almost) anything at least once. Whether it’s chowing down on camel burgers in Morocco or snacking on octopus dumplings in Japan, she’s always up for new food experiences.

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Restaurant Business Plan: What To Include, Plus 8 Examples

• Business Growth & Management , Templates & Guides

Do you want to ensure the success of your new foodservice endeavor? Write a restaurant business plan.

In this article, the experts at Sling tell you why a business plan is vital for both new and existing businesses and give you tips on what to include.

Table Of Contents

What Is A Restaurant Business Plan?

Why is a restaurant business plan important, questions to ask first, what to include in an effective restaurant business plan, how to format a restaurant business plan, efficient workforce management is essential for success.

At its most basic, a restaurant business plan is a written document that describes your restaurant’s goals and the steps you will take to make those goals a reality.

This business plan also describes the nature of the business itself, financial projections, background information, and organizational strategies  that govern the day-to-day activity of your restaurant.

A restaurant business plan is vital for the success of your endeavor because, without one, it is very difficult — sometimes even impossible — to obtain funding from an investor or a bank.

Without that all-important starting or operational capital, you may not be able to keep your doors open for long, if at all.

Even if funding isn’t a primary concern, a business plan provides you — the business owner or manager — with clear direction on how to translate general strategies into actionable plans  for reaching your goals.

The plan can help solidify everything from the boots-on-the-ground functional strategy  to the mid-level business strategy  all the way up to the driving-force corporate strategy .

Think of this plan as a roadmap that guides your way when things are going smoothly and, more importantly, when they aren’t.

If you want to give your restaurant the best chance for success, start by writing a business plan.

Sitting down to write a restaurant business plan can be a daunting task.

As you’ll see in the What To Include In An Effective Restaurant Business Plan section below, you’ll need a lot of information and detail to ensure that the final document is both complete and effective.

Instead of starting with word one, it is hugely beneficial to answer a number of general questions first.

These questions will help you narrow down the information to include in your plan so the composition process feels less difficult.

The questions are:

• What problem does the business’s product or service solve?
• What niche will the business fill?
• What is the business’s solution to the problem?
• Who are the business’s customers?
• How will the business market and sell its products to them?
• What is the size of the market for this solution?
• What is the business model for the business?
• How will the business make money?
• Who are the competitors?
• How will the business maintain a competitive advantage?
• How does the business plan to manage growth?
• Who will run the business?
• What makes those individuals qualified to do so?
• What are the risks and threats confronting the business?
• What can you do to mitigate those risks and threats?
• What are the business’s capital and resource requirements?
• What are the business’s historical and projected financial statements?

Depending on your business, some of these questions may not apply or you may not have applicable answers.

Nevertheless, it helps to think about, and try to provide details for, the whole list so your finished restaurant business plan is as complete as possible.

Once you’ve answered the questions for your business, you can transfer a large portion of that information to the business plan itself.

We’ll discuss exactly what to include in the next section.

In this section, we’ll show you what to include in an effective restaurant business plan and provide a brief example of each component.

1) Executive Summary

You should always start any business plan with an executive summary. This gives the reader a brief introduction into common elements, such as:

• Mission statement
• Overhead costs
• Labor costs
• Return on investment (ROI)

This portion of your plan should pique the reader’s interest and make them want to read more.

Fanty & Mingo’s is a 50-seat fine-dining restaurant that will focus on Sweruvian (Swedish/Peruvian) fusion fare.

We will keep overhead and labor costs low thanks to simple but elegant decor , highly skilled food-prep staff, and well-trained servers.

Because of the location and surrounding booming economy, we estimate ROI at 20 percent per annum.

2) Mission Statement

A mission statement is a short description of what your business does for its customers, employees, and owners.

This is in contrast to your business’s vision statement which is a declaration of objectives that guide internal decision-making.

While the two are closely related and can be hard to distinguish, it often helps to think in terms of who, what, why, and where.

The vision statement is the where of your business — where you want your business to be and where you want your customers and community to be as a result.

The mission statement is the who , what , and why of your business — it’s an action plan that makes the vision statement a reality

Here’s an example of a mission statement for our fictional company:

Fanty and Mingo’s takes pride in making the best Sweruvian food, providing fast, friendly, and accurate service. It is our goal to be the employer of choice and offer team members opportunities for growth, advancement, and a rewarding career in a fun and safe working environment.

3) Company Description

In this section of your restaurant business plan, you fully introduce your company to the reader. Every business’s company description will be different and include its own pertinent information.

Useful details to include are:

• Owner’s details
• Brief description of their experience
• Legal standing
• Short-term goals
• Long-term goals
• Brief market study
• An understanding of the trends in your niche
• Why your business will succeed in these market conditions

Again, you don’t have to include all of this information in your company description. Choose the ones that are most relevant to your business and make the most sense to communicate to your readers.

Fanty & Mingo’s will start out as an LLC, owned and operated by founders Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne. Mr. Reynolds will serve as managing partner and Ms. Washburne as general manager.

We will combine atmosphere, friendly and knowledgeable staff, and menu variety to create a unique experience for our diners and to reach our goal of high value in the fusion food niche.

Our gross margin is higher than industry average, but we plan to spend more on payroll to attract the best team.

We estimate moderate growth for the first two years while word-of-mouth about our restaurant spreads through the area.

4) Market Analysis

A market analysis is a combination of three different views of the niche you want to enter:

• The industry  as a whole
• The competition your restaurant will face
• The marketing  you’ll execute to bring in customers

This section should be a brief introduction to these concepts. You can expand on them in other sections of your restaurant business plan.

The restaurant industry in our chosen location is wide open thanks in large part to the revitalization of the city’s center.

A few restaurants have already staked their claim there, but most are bars and non-family-friendly offerings.

Fanty & Mingo’s will focus on both tourist and local restaurant clientele. We want to bring in people that have a desire for delicious food and an exotic atmosphere.

We break down our market into five distinct categories:

• High-end singles
• Businessmen and businesswomen

We will target those markets to grow our restaurant  by up to 17 percent per year.

Every restaurant needs a good menu, and this is the section within your restaurant business plan that you describe the food you’ll serve in as much detail as possible.

You may not have your menu design complete, but you’ll likely have at least a handful of dishes that serve as the foundation of your offerings.

It’s also essential to discuss pricing and how it reflects your overall goals and operating model. This will give potential investors and partners a better understanding of your business’s target price point and profit strategy.

We don’t have room to describe a sample menu in this article, but for more information on menu engineering, menu pricing, and even a menu template, check out these helpful articles from the Sling blog:

• Menu Engineering: What It Is And How It Can Increase Profits
• Restaurant Menu Pricing: 7 Tips To Maximize Profitability
• How To Design Your Menu | Free Restaurant Menu Template

6) Location

In this section, describe your potential location (or locations) so that you and your investors have a clear image of what the restaurant will look like.

Include plenty of information about the location — square footage, floor plan , design , demographics of the area, parking, etc. — to make it feel as real as possible.

We will locate Fanty & Mingo’s in the booming and rapidly expanding downtown sector of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Ideally, we will secure at least 2,000 square feet of space with a large, open-plan dining room and rich color scheme near the newly built baseball stadium to capitalize on the pre- and post-game traffic and to appeal to the young urban professionals that live in the area.

Parking will be available along side streets and in the 1,000-vehicle parking garage two blocks away.

7) Marketing

The marketing section of your restaurant business plan is where you should elaborate on the information you introduced in the Market Analysis section.

Go into detail about the plans you have to introduce your restaurant to the public and keep it at the top of their mind.

Fanty & Mingo’s will employ three distinct marketing tactics to increase and maintain customer awareness:

• Word-of-mouth/in-restaurant marketing
• Partnering with other local businesses
• Media exposure

We will direct each tactic at a different segment of our potential clientele in order to maximize coverage.

In the process of marketing to our target audience, we will endeavor to harness the reach of direct mail and broadcast media, the exclusivity of the VIP party, and the elegance of a highly trained sommelier and wait staff.

8) Financials

Even though the Financials section is further down in your restaurant business plan, it is one of the most important components for securing investors and bank funding.

We recommend hiring a trained accountant  to help you prepare this section so that it will be as accurate and informative as possible.

Fanty & Mingo’s needs $250,000 of capital investment over the next year and a half for the following:

• Renovations to leased space
• Dining room furniture
• Kitchen and food-prep equipment
• Liquor license

Projected profit and loss won’t jump drastically in the first year, but, over time, Fanty & Mingo’s will develop its reputation and client base. This will lead to more rapid growth toward the third and fourth years of business.

Most entrepreneurs starting a new business find it valuable to have multiple formats of their business plan.

The information, data, and details remain the same, but the length and how you present them will change to fit a specific set of circumstances.

Below we discuss the four most common business plan formats to cover a multitude of potential situations.

Elevator Pitch

An elevator pitch is a short summary of your restaurant business plan’s executive summary.

Rather than being packed full of details, the elevator pitch is a quick teaser of sorts that you use on a short elevator ride (hence the name) to stimulate interest in potential customers, partners, and investors

As such, an effective elevator pitch is between 30 and 60 seconds and hits the high points of your restaurant business plan.

A pitch deck is a slide show and oral presentation that is designed to stimulate discussion and motivate interested parties to investigate deeper into your stakeholder plan (more on that below).

Most pitch decks are designed to cover the executive summary and include key graphs that illustrate market trends and benchmarks you used (and will use) to make decisions about your business.

Some entrepreneurs even include time and space in their pitch deck to demonstrate new products coming down the pipeline.

This won’t necessarily apply to a restaurant business plan, but, if logistics permit, you could distribute small samples of your current fare or tasting portions of new dishes you’re developing.

Stakeholder Plan (External)

A stakeholder plan is the standard written presentation that business owners use to describe the details of their business model to customers, partners, and potential investors.

The stakeholder plan can be as long as is necessary to communicate the current and future state of your business, but it must be well-written, well-formatted, and targeted at those looking at your business from the outside in.

Think of your stakeholder plan as a tool to convince others that they should get involved in making your business a reality. Write it in such a way that readers will want to partner with you to help your business grow.

Management Plan (Internal)

A management plan is a form of your restaurant business plan that describes the details that the owners and managers need to make the business run smoothly.

While the stakeholder plan is an external document, the management plan is an internal document.

Most of the details in the management plan will be of little or no interest to external stakeholders so you can write it with a higher degree of candor and informality.

After you’ve created your restaurant business plan, it’s time to take steps to make it a reality.

One of the biggest challenges in ensuring that your business runs smoothly and successfully is managing  and optimizing  your team. The Sling  app can help.

Sling not only includes powerful and intuitive artificial-intelligence-based scheduling tools but also many other features to help make your workforce management more efficient, including:

• Time and attendance tracking
• Built-in time clock
• Labor cost  optimization
• Data analysis and reporting
• Messaging and communication
• And much more…

With Sling, you can schedule faster, communicate better, and organize and manage your work from a single, integrated platform. And when you use Sling for all of your scheduling  needs, you’ll have more time to focus on bringing your restaurant business plan to life.

For more free resources to help you manage your business better, organize and schedule your team, and track and calculate labor costs, visit GetSling.com  today.

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This content is for informational purposes and is not intended as legal, tax, HR, or any other professional advice. Please contact an attorney or other professional for specific advice.

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Goals & Objectives of Opening a Restaurant

• Small Business
• Types of Businesses to Start
• Opening a Restaurant
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Sample of a SWOT Analysis for a Restaurant

What are some qualities or characteristics that make a good restaurant, objectives of a buffet restaurant.

• How to Start a Buffet Restaurant
• How to Own & Manage a Fast Food Restaurant

If you’re planning to open a new restaurant, your business plan must include specific goals and objectives. This doesn’t just mean detailing the ambiance and look of your restaurant or the type of food you intend to serve, it also means setting goals centered on customer service, sales and staffing. Whether you operate a franchise or you are opening an independent restaurant, there are several major goals and objectives you should establish to achieve the success you desire.

Provide an Outstanding Patron Experience

In the restaurant business, you aren’t just serving food. You are selling a dining experience. So one of your major goals should be to provide a customer experience that encourages repeat business. From the moment a patron enters your restaurant until that patron leaves, that person should feel as if they are valued. But you can’t achieve this goal without having a way to measure the type of experience you are offering.

Set measurable customer experience goals such as greeting patrons as soon as they enter, serving meals within 20 minutes and having each server communicate the specials to every diner.

Establish Customer Loyalty

Another major objective of a restaurant is to create a sense of loyalty in their patrons to make them regular customers. Your restaurant won’t survive if you can’t convert first-time visitors into repeat customers. One of the best ways to create loyalty is by offering some type of reward program.

One example is a reward program that allows patrons to build up points with regular visits and use those points for free meals and drinks. Another idea is to offer gift cards to your regular customers, which can help attract new patrons.

Offer a Diverse Menu

Even if your restaurant specializes in one type of food, you can still make it an objective to offer a diverse menu that will attract patrons. As you plan the menu for your restaurant, consider the fact that potential diners may have a varied palate. For example, if you specialize in Asian fusion, make it a key objective to keep a few simple options on the menu.

This caters to those customers who might enjoy your delicious food but aren’t necessarily adventurous when it comes to food. Plan a menu that gives several key options and a few more basic recipes, as well as a number of sides to draw different types of foodies to your eatery.

The National Restaurant Association has identified some popular trends that can help your menu planning. This includes more international cuisine, vegetable-inspired dishes, locally-sourced food, new cuts of meat that vary from the standard and zero-waste cooking. This refers to a cooking style in which no ingredients are thrown away or wasted, which helps the environment and also reduces your cost-per-menu-item.

Creating a Brand

Branding isn’t just for big names such as Apple and Zappos, it has also become one of the main goals of small businesses, including restaurants. Fortunately, the evolution of social media has leveled the playing field, allowing smaller companies to communicate their brand without needing a huge budget. You can brand your restaurant in several ways, including:

•       Choosing a catchy name
•       Designing a distinct logo
•       Creating a theme or concept
•       Identifying the experience (fun, high-end, casual)
•       Developing a distinct look and ambiance

Branding is all about selling the “why” of your restaurant rather than the “what,” because patrons already know you offer food. The key is to identify what makes your place unique and worth a visit. Then you must find ways to grab your audience’s attention. One means of doing that is to hold an event in which you invite the public to come and sample different items on your menu and offer giveaways.

• Toast: How To Set Short and Long Term Goals For Your Restaurant
• National Restaurant Association

Sampson Quain is an experienced content writer with a wide range of expertise in small business, digital marketing, SEO marketing, SEM marketing, and social media outreach. He has written primarily for the EHow brand of Demand Studios as well as business strategy sites such as Digital Authority.

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How it works.

How to Write a Restaurant Business Plan Executive Summary

An executive summary for a restaurant is a concise document that encapsulates the restaurant's identity, concept, market analysis, operational strategy, financial projections, and funding requirements, designed to entice and inform investors or stakeholders about the viability and potential of the restaurant venture.

Elements of a restaurant executive summary

Here are the essential elements of an executive summary with examples.

Feel free to steal. :)

Opening statement

Begin with a compelling hook that encapsulates your restaurant's identity. For instance:

"Introducing [Restaurant Name], a culinary oasis that marries the charm of rustic Southern comfort with the innovation of haute cuisine."

Business description

Detail the restaurant concept with vivid imagery and specific descriptions:

"Located in the vibrant [Neighborhood], [Restaurant Name] is a 50-seat bistro specializing in contemporary Italian fare, featuring an open kitchen, a chef's tasting table, and a curated wine list highlighting regional vineyards."

Market analysis

Use statistics to ground your analysis:

"Our market research indicates a 20% annual growth in demand for fine dining experiences in [City/Region], with a particular interest in authentic Italian cuisine among the 25-45 age demographic."

Marketing strategy

Outline specific promotional activities:

"We will launch with an exclusive tasting event for local influencers and food critics, followed by a social media campaign targeting foodies within a 30-mile radius, leveraging Instagram and Facebook ads."

Operations plan

Provide an overview of the logistics and management:

"The restaurant will operate Tuesday through Sunday with two dinner seatings. The kitchen will be led by award-winning Chef [Name], whose expertise will ensure efficiency and culinary excellence."

Financial projection

Present clear financials:

"We anticipate a break-even point within the first 12 months, with projected revenues of $1.2 million in the first year based on average seat turnover and pricing models. Startup costs are estimated at $800,000."

Funding requirements

Be precise about your funding needs:

"We are seeking $500,000 in funding to cover the costs of renovations, initial inventory, and operating expenses for the first six months. This investment will be allocated as follows: $300,000 for renovations, $100,000 for kitchen equipment, and $100,000 for operating capital."

Finishing statement

Conclude with a statement that emphasizes your restaurant's potential and readiness:

"With a seasoned team, a compelling location, and a distinctive dining concept, [Restaurant Name] is poised to become a new culinary landmark in [City/Region]. Your investment will catalyze the realization of this gastronomic vision."

Tips for writing an effective executive summary

Be Concise: Use bullet points for clarity, like:

Use Clear and Persuasive Language: Choose strong verbs and confident language, like "will captivate," "are poised to," "will deliver."

Focus on the Highlights: Elevate unique aspects, such as a partnership with local farms or a novel wine-on-tap system.

Quantify Your Points: Support claims with numbers, like "Projected to serve over 10,000 diners in the first year."

Be Confident, But Realistic: Acknowledge potential risks, such as "We have contingency plans in place should the initial customer acquisition cost exceed projections by 10%."

Edit and Revise: Ensure the summary is free of jargon and accessible to those outside the restaurant industry.

By infusing your executive summary with precise data, clear strategies, and enthusiastic language, you will create a compelling narrative that captures the essence of your restaurant and appeals to potential investors or stakeholders.

Creating an engaging business overview for your restaurant

Envision the business overview as the appetizer to your restaurant's full-course business plan—it's meant to whet your readers' appetite.

In this section, you're not just listing facts; you're unfolding the story of your restaurant, beginning with its robust ownership framework, prime location, and the distinctive culinary experience it will offer.

Peppered with an interesting statistic, such as "85% of diners seek out restaurants that provide not just a meal, but an experience," this section underscores the importance of the dining ambiance you aim to create.

Role of an executive summary in a restaurant business plan

The executive summary acts as a hook, grabbing the reader’s attention and motivating them to delve deeper into the details of the business plan.

It outlines the restaurant's objectives, unique selling propositions, and the experience it promises customers, offering a snapshot of how the restaurant will operate and succeed in the competitive food industry.

Despite being the first section of the business plan, the executive summary is usually written last, as it encapsulates the essence of the full document.

Its role is crucial because it may be the only part of the business plan that some stakeholders read, so it must be clear, concise, and powerful enough to entice further reading and, ultimately, investment.

It sets the stage for the narrative of the business plan, and if done well, it can be a determining factor in securing an initial meeting with investors or other key stakeholders.

Further reading

• How to write a restaurant business plan

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For the past 7+ years Ryan has been focused on helping restaurants succeed with digital marketing and front-of-house operations. He is Director Marketing at Eat App.

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