How To
Find A Good Restaurant Site
Individual restaurants
have different site criteria. A fast food
restaurant, (such as KFC, McDonald’s or Burger
King), a family coffee shop (such as Denny’s, IHOP,
or Baker’s Square) and coffee house (such as
Starbuck’s or Peet’s) have similar site criteria.
They are all looking for high visibility, easy
access, high vehicular counts and/or heavy foot
traffic. Other types of restaurants such as a dinner
houses or other upgraded operations are looking for
a strong stable demographic base of customers which
may include a combination of a strong neighborhood
population, a dense business district, a heavy
concentration of office buildings and/or a
neighborhood or regional shopping center.
Many
independent restaurant operators are competing
against major chain operators for the best sites.
Chain operators can normally beat out independents
in acquiring these sites, as they can afford to pay
higher rents because they generate higher sales
volumes as a result of their large advertising and
marketing budgets and their high physical presence
in the marketplace.
Here are some of the ways
independent operators can obtain good restaurant
sites:
a) Look for
a situation where an inexperienced operator has a
good site and is not doing well and will most likely
being going out of business in the near future.
b) Look at
particular locations where local communities do not
want chain operators and want only local independent
operators in areas.
c) Talk to
restaurant vendors and suppliers who know which
restaurant operators are late pays and are having
financial problems.
d) Check out
restaurant sites where former operators are out of
business and it appears that the equipment is still
in tact.
e) Read the
local newspaper restaurants for sale or business
opportunity section and call various restaurants for
sale. In more cases than not most restaurants for
sale are in trouble financially and good deals can
be made.
f) Call a restaurant
broker specialist and there will more than likely to
be a broker that will be happy to follow-up
anonymously on your behalf on situations where it
appears that the current operator is having trouble
financially or there is a business that is closed,
etc.
