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Watch more How to Get into the Restaurant Business videos: How do you open a restaurant? First thing you got to do is be really clear about what your passion is because you are going to need that passion to fuel all of the hard work and all of the details and all of the time it is going to take to open a restaurant. What do you want to prove? What do you want your restaurant to be? What do you want it to say? Really understand that before you start. Do you want your restaurant to be something that is a labor of love everyday or do you want it to be a business that supports you and your family and makes you retire early? All of these things are very, very important and you have to start with want, what you care about and what you have energy and desire to produce for the world and for the communities that you are in. Next, It is time to do a lot of homework. You need to research your restaurant. You need to look at the concept that you have and whose already done it, whats been done well and what can be done better. You need to read what has been written about the food that you want to produce. You need to understand the demographics of the type of people who live in the area and who are the people who are going to want to eat in your restaurant. You need to do research about the market. What are your competitors? Whose already doing it in your area? Who will be taking guests from you and who will you be taking guests from? You need to make sure that you answer the questions that are going to be asked about your restaurant. You need to make sure you are ready to answer those questions. It's going to take a lot of research and experience to understand how you are going to open your restaurant. Once you have your passion and your idea and it is clear in your mind and you've done a bunch of research and you've learned about the locations and the demographics and the food and the beverage and the people involved, it is time to start collaborating and building relationships. You've probably started already as you have started your research but really enrich those relationships. They may be with industry colleagues, they may be with industry resources, it may be an association or it may be a business person who specializes, a vendor who specializes in serving restaurants in your area. You need to build relationships in the business community around your restaurant. You need to get to know who people are, whose important, whose the big mouthpiece for the community. You want to start building relationships with the colleagues that you are going to need. Perhaps you are a great chef and you need to find somebody who can run the business for you or someone who can run the dining room for you. Perhaps you are the business mind and you need a chef and a dining room person and maybe a wine director. After you have done that, it's time to start finding the resources. You are going to need some serious time. You are going to need money to add fuel to your passion and your vision and your idea and give all that research that you have done, life, as you bring it into fruition as a new restaurant.
