The number of new venues opening in Australia continues to rise. To assist owners with their due diligence, we’ve developed an Essential Guide on opening a new cafe, restaurant or bar. This starts with finding the perfect location.
Finding the perfect location
Finding the perfect location for a new cafe, restaurant, or bar can be fraught with unexpected surprises and hurdles. We’ve created a list of considerations to help with the decision-making process. These include the surrounding population base, availability of parking, venue visibility, and venue size. Read more here.
Once you’ve found the perfect location, obtaining approvals from the local Council and other regulatory bodies are essential.
Opening a new Cafe, Restaurant or Bar – Council approval
Our guide to New cafes, restaurants, and bars – Council approval sets out the various documents you may need to obtain prior to opening your business.
It considers the importance of floor space ratio to seating capacity, workflow areas, and table size.
Once you have all of your approvals, licences, and permits, venue setup can commence.
New venue setup
Our Venue setup checklist includes the following:
- Knowing your customer base and the benefits of social media
- The venue’s point of difference
- Menu efficiency
- Venue capacity and table size
- Budgeting
- Front and back of house equipment requirements
- Storage capacity and equipment.
As specialists in the setup process, our team can develop a list of products and equipment to suit your budget and vision.
Finally, we recommend looking at research on the challenges and opportunities facing the hospitality sector.
Challenges
According to the 2017 Australian Hospitality Industry Survey, the top 3 challenges facing those in the hospitality sector were:
- Hiring and retaining good staff.
- Increasing operating costs.
- Attracting and retaining customers.
Furthermore, Hospitality Insights 2017 found that balancing the revenue mix between food, beverage, and gaming would be crucial to healthy margins.
There were, however, some very positive indicators of growth in the hospitality sector.
Growth in the hospitality sector
The 2017 Hospitality Survey found that 73% of respondents believed competition had increased in the previous year. The reasons included:
- A growing foodie culture (33%)
- More people want to own a hospitality business (30.3%)
- Population growth in the area (19.4%)
- Higher consumer demand (7.5%).
Interestingly, 67% of respondents expected their businesses to grow in the next year. To achieve this growth, the top 3 investments for the coming year were:
- People (72%)
- Marketing (65%)
- Furniture and fit outs (56%).
We believe these findings highlight the importance of undertaking thorough due diligence prior to starting a new hospitality business. We hope this Guide for Opening a New Cafe, Restaurant or Bar assists you in this journey.
Service starts here
Members of our team have been working in the hospitality industry for more than 20 years. We specialise in assisting owners with their new venue setup.
Please feel free to call us on (02) 9052 9111