When starting a new business, it helps to have a roadmap regardless of your industry. But in a sector like food and hospitality, where failure rates are notoriously high, it’s essential.
Writing a restaurant business plan may feel daunting, but it doesn’t need to be! We’ll walk through the steps to create a restaurant business plan and share a template with examples so you can create your own with ease.
Contents
- Why do you need a restaurant business plan?
- How to write a restaurant business plan
- Restaurant business plan template
Why you need a restaurant business plan
Before we get into how to create a restaurant business plan, let’s talk about why you need one. A restaurant business plan:
- Sets expectations and creates a common set of goals for you and your business partner(s).
- Acts as your North Star to keep you on track as you open and run your restaurant.
- Can be shared with investors or lenders to secure loans or angel investments.
A business plan can help put you on solid financial footing from the start and keep you focused on the steps you must take to succeed.
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What to include in your restaurant business plan
Here, we’ll walk through the sections your restaurant business plan should include and how to get started.
Your restaurant name and logo
Start by including your restaurant name and logo right on the front page of your business plan.
A legally registered name and well-designed logo show that you’re serious about your aspirations and have already started doing foundational work on your business.
Executive summary
The executive summary is a high-level description of your restaurant. This should set the scene for what you want to do with your business. In a few sentences, share:
- Your restaurant concept: What kind of restaurant do you want to create? Talk about cuisine, vibe, and any particular areas of focus (e.g., “Our restaurant will be a high-end Italian spot with a rotating menu of homemade pastas featuring fresh, locally sourced ingredients.” Or, “Our sports bar will cater to the local post-grad crowd, providing a place for them to grab pitchers of beer and watch their college sports teams on one of our 12 screens”).
- Your customers: What type of clientele do you hope to attract? Will you be a beloved local haunt or a spot for tourists? Are you family-friendly or a place for high-end date nights? Are you courting sports aficionados or hoping to corner the girl dinner market? (This is where knowing your target market comes in handy!)
- Your proposed location: You may not have an actual space secured yet, but share what neighborhood, town, or geography you’re targeting.
📚 Free guide >> How to Write a Business Description that Gets Customers
Organization and management
The organization and management section of your restaurant business plan should introduce the team that will bring to life the vision you outlined above.
Of course, you, as the founder, will be listed in here! You should also include any co-founders or people you’ve already brought in for leadership roles, like your general manager, director of operations, or food and beverage director.
If you have the beginnings of an org chart, you can include that here (i.e., the director of operations oversees the GM, food and beverage director, and wine director).
This is also the place to introduce outside experts helping get your business off the ground. Think: attorney, CPA, architect, interior designer, PR/marketing firm, etc.
Include short bios of all the key players and highlight their relevant experience.
Restaurant operations plan
Your restaurant business plan should also include a sneak peek at how things will run once you’re open. This includes a sample menu and an overview of service and staffing plans.
The sample menu should be based on actual cost analysis and include pricing. Detailing your pricing gives prospective investors a sense of the type of restaurant you will open—for example, fine dining pricing will vary significantly from a QSR concept.
Additionally, it shows you’ve done your research. You understand the costs of inputs, know the market, and have priced yourself to be competitive while also watching your margins.
Your service and staffing plan should be high-level, but this is where you can call out any noteworthy details affecting your operating costs or significantly impacting your business model.
For example, if you plan to open a fine dining restaurant with a full FOH team—captains, servers, food runners, bartenders, host staff, coat check, and more—your payroll costs will be significantly higher than the coffee shop that can run with one or two baristas.
Similarly, if you have a particular service piece that will impact operations, mention that here, too. If your differentiator is to be a restaurant with an extensive wine list, including rare and high-end finds, your beverage budget will be higher than the sports bar that operates with Budweiser on tap.
Again, highlighting noteworthy elements of your staffing and operations plans up front demonstrates that you’re intentionally designing your staffing and service plans and that you understand how your operational choices will impact your financials.
Market analysis
Speaking of financials, the next portion of your restaurant business plan should explore the market around you. You’ve made plans for your own business; what research and assumptions about the broader market did you base them on?
In the market analysis section, you want to explore your:
- Industry
- Customers
- Competitive advantage
- Regulatory landscape
Industry
What are other restaurants up to? Answering that question can help refine your plan and develop suitable offerings and prices to attract your desired customer.
To find your competitors, look at restaurants that are:
- Operating in the same geography
- Doing something similar to what you hope to do
- Catering to a similar clientele
If you’re opening a pizza shop, you want to look at other pizza shops in the area—both local operations and outposts of popular franchises. But you should also consider the burger joint with a similar price point that caters to young families, just like you hope to. Plus, scope out the Italian food restaurant that’s a little more upscale but serves incredible brick-oven pizza. You can learn more about how to do a competitive analysis here.
Consumers
This is also the section of your restaurant business plan where you can delve into consumer research.
By knowing your customers, you can design the menu and experience they want. Do your research to understand who your customers are:
- Where do they live?
- What do they do for a living?
- How much do they earn?
- What is their marital and family status?
You can even undertake some consumer research as part of your planning process, though you needn’t include all the details in your business plan. Still, speaking with consumers who represent your ideal customer can give you a sense of the gaps in the market and what they would like to see from your business.
Company advantages
By understanding what others in the market are doing and what your prospective customers want, you can determine your unique advantages. What can your restaurant offer that’s new and needed?
Defining your special place in the market shows investors that you’ve thought about your positioning in the broader world and plan to offer something no one else is doing—a recipe for a successful business.
Regulations
Finally, it’s essential to understand any regulatory hurdles that may impact your plans to open and your ongoing operations. For example, if you plan to serve liquor, do you know how to acquire your liquor license, and is there a backup plan if it takes longer than expected?
Marketing and publicity
Getting the word out about your new restaurant is essential to creating buzz before you open and maintaining a healthy momentum in those critical first months.
In this section, you’ll share how you plan to market and promote your restaurant. What are your pre-opening and post-opening marketing plans? What is your overarching strategy, and what tactics do you plan to employ (i.e., local print advertising, digital ads, social media, etc.)?
MAR Y SOL is new to Dallas and making a splash on social media.
If you are hiring a marketing or PR firm to lead your efforts, include information about them here.
🚨 Need help with your marketing plan? Free guide >> 6 Simple Steps to a Complete Small Business Marketing Plan (+Template!)
Funding request
If you’re sharing your business plan with investors or lenders, this is your moment to make your financial ask.
What exactly do you need from a prospective investor or lender? Be specific—include how much money you seek and what you plan to use it for.
Financial projections
Your financial projections will be an essential part of your restaurant business plan regardless, but they’re especially relevant if you are using the plan to secure funding.
These projections can be complicated, so leave it to your CPA to crunch the numbers. But it’s still wise to know what typically goes in this section. Here, you’ll want to create projections for the next five years, with a particular emphasis (and more granular information) for the first 12 months.
The key projections you can expect to include are:
- Income statements
- Balance sheets
- Cash flow statements
- Capital expenditure budgets
Ensure that your CPA has clearly explained your projections and the assumptions used to create them. And if you are asking for funding, double-check that your funding request lines up with the numbers you present here.
Restaurant business plan template
Ready to start drafting your own plan? Use this template to get started. (Want to make it even easier? We put this into a handy Google Doc template for you to copy and fill out!)
Front page
[Include restaurant name and logo, if you have it designed]
Table of contents
[Include a list of upcoming sections and page numbers for each]
Executive summary
[This information should be high-level and introductory — this is a summary, after all! More detailed information will follow in other sections. Keep these three sections to 3-5 sentences each.]
- Restaurant concept
- Target customers
- Proposed (or actual) location
Organization and management
[This section will include names and brief bios for each of the key players in your restaurant. It should also include details about any outside business partners playing a key role in your planning and launch.]
- Founder(s)
- FOH leadership (if applicable; for example, General Manager, Director of Operations, Head Sommelier, etc.)
- BOH leadership (if applicable; for example, Executive Chef, Chef de Cuisine, Pastry Chef, etc.)
- Outside business support, which may include:
- CPA
- Attorney
- PR/marketing firm
- Architect
- Interior designer
Restaurant operations plan
[This section will provide additional details on how your restaurant will run once opened.]
- Sample menu, with pricing
- Staffing plan (including org chart/structure, if applicable)
- Service plan
Market analysis
[Analyze competitors, target customers, and potential outside factors that might impact your business.]
- Industry (competitors)
- Consumers
- Company advantages (your unique value proposition)
- Regulations
Marketing and publicity
[Share how you plan to market your restaurant pre- and post-opening. If you are working with a marketing or PR firm, include their information here.]
Funding request
[If applicable, detail your requested dollar amount and what you plan to use it for.]
Financial projections
[To be completed by/with your CPA. Include projections for up to five years, with more granular data for the first 12 months. Depending on your business and needs, your CPA may suggest additional projections.]
- Income/profit and loss statements
- Balance sheets
- Cash flow statements
- Capital expenditure budgets
Get started with your restaurant business plan
With this guide, your investors, partners, and team will feast their eyes on a stellar restaurant business plan that sets you up for long-term success. And here are some ideas for your grand opening.
