The person I choose to interview is a restaurant owner in San Francisco where his business had been around for more than 10 years. Tom (the name had been change due to personal concerns) usually starts his day off by first eating his breakfast at home and reading the daily news paper he buys from Chinatown. In the morning he usually goes online and read reviews left on Yelp and checking emails and messages on his phone. Usually after seeing bad reviews for his restaurant, he would always set up meetings with the servers and kitchen staff to see what is going on and tries to encourage the employees to have a higher standard for themselves. As for the servers, he said he wouldn't say anything because not everyone would like the way you try to serve them but they need to provide good service.
Later in his day, he usually goes around the bay area visiting different restaurant and learning and discussing about how to better run a restaurant business. He would always try to go around business in Chinatown and talk with the chefs and see how the business they are working for are doing. He said he always want to know how business are doing and whether if he could try to hire the good chefs to work for him. He just told me, " If you really want to learn how to run a business, you really need to have a strong team, good communication skills and a good business plan but the most important thing is to learn from other restaurant owners." Not only do I agree with him on the fact we need to learn from others but also constantly being up to date with information is necessary.
After visiting some of the restaurants around the bay area, he would usually stop by ABC to have milk tea and have lunch. Then he would deal with restaurant problems if there is any but if not, he would just continue going around and meeting with people. So usually 70 % of his day is communicating with different people and the other 15 % is reading and writing. The last 15% is when he travels around .
At the end of his day, he usually goes back the the restaurant around 11:30 P.M. and collecting the number of money earn in today's sales.
Running a restaurant is very hard work and requires the owner to be involved. Not only do they have to be involved with their employees and clients but they have to know how much food and ingredients they need. That is not easy because having a surplus will waste a lot of food because it can spoil fast and having a shortage would limit the menu choices. I actually saw a website on creating a restaurant business plan http://restaurants.about.com/od/finances/a/Restaurant_plan.htm.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Many business are not successful and as a result they are not around for very long. If you want to own your own business I think that a restaurant is a very good example to use. What made you choose a restaurant out of all of the different types availiable to you?
DeleteI think restaurant can provide basic needs for everyone, which is food.
DeleteDoes a restaurant owner need to be a chef? Does Tom have a culinary degree to run his restaurant? My husband’s dream job is to be a host of his own restaurant. He loves to cook but does not have any job experience in managing/running a restaurant.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Tom doesn’t need to do much management stuff for his restaurant. Does he hire somebody else to manage the restaurant for him?
I remember he told me that he knew a little bit about everything. He studied about how to make bread in a foreign country but he didn't have a culinary degree. His restaurant is run with his business partner but he is really in charge of thinking about ways to improve customer service and the taste of food for his restaurant.
DeleteOpening a business is not easy. Maintaining one is far more difficult. I like how he goes around, getting people perspective and learning from other mistakes and success. Success comes from efforts and determination.
ReplyDelete