Customer Reviews

Opening a Restaurant or Other Food Business Starter Kit: How to Prepare a Restaurant Business Plan & Feasibility Study: With Companion CD-ROM

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Often people who start a restaurant are creative people who are excellent at visualizing their ideas and sadly lacking in skills that help them realize the practical details, forgetting that without expertise in the practical details, their ideas will never get past their home kitchens. Opening a Restaurant is a detailed plan on how to organize your restaurant ideas into something that will a) help you sell your ideas to loan officers and other investors, and b) clarify your vision to help you avoid the pitfalls that drag down most new restaurants within their first year of opening.

What this book will do is teach you how to build a business plan--the document that any institutional lender or investor will want to see before deciding to plunk down money on your hip, new concept. The book is totally specific to the restaurant/food service industry, and weeds out what you need to know from other business-plan instruction manuals, listing many questions that it would be helpful for a new business-owner (or the owner of an existing business planning to make modifications or reassess existing strategies/trends). The book also details how to put together feasibility analysis (both for your restaurant as a whole and for specific project), a marketing plan, how to gather facts and make valid estimates from them, and how to make your plan look professional.

There are two drawbacks to this book. Despite the excellent advice that it gives, the structure can be very confusing at times. For example, throughout the book, Fuller tells you to come up with estimates and answers to questions, but doesn't tell you how to make the estimate or find out the answers to the questions until almost the end of the book. The other drawback is that the formatting and editing of the book leave something to be desired--the information you need could be located in any of several different places. If you have time to read the entire book before starting, this is an excellent book, but looking for a specific answer to a quick question may require more time than you'd like to use. On the up side, there's a good guide to online resources.

Overall, a great little book for clarifying your ideas about your restaurant and putting together a restaurant-specific business plan; I just wish it were organized a little better.

I absolutely loved this book. Not only did author Sharon Fullen tell readers exactly what they will need to do to write a business plan, she went out of her way to provide excellent examples, detailed descriptions, amble resources for finding additional and more specific information and much more.

I don't think I've read such a complete book before on writing a business plan. The author describes what key things must go in a business plan, how to write the plan yourself or hire someone to do it, doing market research, and cash analysis. I loved her attention to detail. Any question I came up with was answered within the 284-paged book.

It's a great resource for anyone looking to write a business plan. Fullen emphasizes making sure you know what you want the business to be and to make sure you do the background research to see if it is feasible.

The book also comes complete with a CD-ROM that provides example business plans and other business documents like resumes, letters of intent, balance sheets and more.

While this resource guide by Sharon Fullen may not deal with the most glamorous aspect of opening a new restaurant or other food business, it certainly discusses the most import: the business plan. The entire book and accompanying CD-ROM handles basic business preparation with aplomb. Starting with What is a Business Plan? and ending with an entire chapter devoted to an example of a sample business plan, Fullen leaves no stone unturned. She highlights business plan writing strategies, pinpoints problem areas that are often stumbling blocks to success, intersperses invaluable information on writing a feasibility analysis and deftly assists the reader with ideas on how to implement and understand successful marketing strategies. One section that should not be skipped discusses Getting Your Plan Published, offering tips on standing above the competition when presenting your business plan. The CD-ROM is an extra bonus that affords you the luxury of having printable examples and a portable way to use and share your new-found information. Opening a Restaurant or Other Food Preparation Starter Kit is a must-have resource for any aspiring restaurant owner; a resourceful guide that offers sound advice, concrete examples and hidden nuggets of valuable information that only serve to solidify a sound start to the opening of your new restaurant.

The how-to aspects of the book are too general. E.g., "Which [software] should I choose? The answer is the one you believe you'll feel most comfortable using." And then the author goes on to list a few software packages and quotes their marketing info. The companion CD is a huge disappointment: here was an opportunity to develop and provide some business-planning spreadsheet templates. Instead, the CD includes exactly one file: a sample business plan (in Word format) for a proposed restaurant in Illinois. It's not a template -- just an example. It's pretty easy to find other examples by doing some web searching.

Sharon Fullen, Opening a Restaurant or Other Food Business Starter Kit: How to Prepare a Restaurant Business Plan and Feasibility Study (Atlantic, 2005)

I took much of the summer off from reading new books, instead concentrating on stuff that's been languishing on my backlist, books I started back in the mists of time, had to return to the library, and that subsequently got lost in the book-journal shuffle (or that I have to get through interlibrary loan now, as I switched library systems a couple of years back). Opening a Restaurant... is one of those; I started it way back in August of 2007, had to return it because someone else had a hold on it, and forgot to take it out again until last week. While the dream of actually opening a restaurant has fallen by the wayside (or at least been put on a very very backburner), I figured I'd finish the book anyway and report back. It's the curse of the obsessive reviewer.

One of the great things about nonfiction is that in many cases you don't have to provide a summary; one look at the combined title and subtitle should tell you all you need to know. That's the case here, and Fullen does it short, sweet, and to the point, taking you step by step through the writing of a business plan and feasibility study, with little of the rah-rah-rah confidence-building stuff you find in so many more tiring books like this. The downside to that is that the book stays well within the norms, not mentioning any alternate suggestions for style or the like. That said, if you're looking to write a classic business plan to drum up money to open a restaurant, you'll want to read this unless you already know what you're doing. ***

The book was filled with some really excellent resources thaused to write my business plan and have used since. It was more of an assemblage of needed documents rather than a narrative of how to open a restaurant. It was, however, of value and I still refer to it.

This Restaurant starter kit is a good reference as well as the companion CD that provides a sample business plan. From preliminary information gathering in preparation to writing the business plan such as market research, audience, expected clientele, scope of perceived services, menu planning this resource provides all the pieces necessary to guide you through the start-up process.
The section on software is expertly done in providing the layperson with a grasp of the software available and will save a fortune in missteps if read and followed. The choice in software can undoubtedly determine the quality and speed that you develop your plan.
Sharon Fullen does an exceptional job in guiding the layperson through the process of the feasibility analysis to include concept, location, execution and financing thus rounding out the completed business plan. The idea of a marketing plan is discussed showing the importance of a well-planned and executed marketing effort versus just tossing a few bucks to the wind and hoping for the best. The author has provided an invaluable tool for the upcoming restaurateur as he/she plans, develops and opens their life dream.

Before reading this book I have never thought that opening a small restaurant might be so involved process. But I guess it is better to learn it before you invest your money. I am glad I read this book it opened my eyes and allowed to look behind my dream of being a restaurant owner. I would not say this book discouraged me - not at all. I will be able to make more educated decisions instead of emotional ones.

Recommend it to everyone who thinks of opening a restaurant business.

A good book for basic prinicples. Does very little to talk about selling the final product in terms of "features, benefits, proof" that will solidify the sales portion of your proposal. The book assumes you already have a strong working knowledge of what you're getting into, resturant business wise but are not sure what you need to do for business case development.

Sharon Fullen provides thought-provoking as well as practical steps to prepare for entrepreneurship by making the Readers aware that opening a restaurant is more than an idea but requires planning.

Not only are you moved to do more than come up with a wish list but one must take the time to write their vision, study the market, and come to terms if their business idea will be a profit maker or a profit shaker.

Such helpful information can propel the business in positive directions and bring about a boost in the economy by following the guidelines and suggestions within this book.

The added benefit of having a CD to provide hands-on experience of completing a business plan is another way the author shows her expertise in bringing the tools in the book to actual life for the Readers. The old saying that " experience is the best teacher" or "practice makes perfect" seems to have been a consideration of the author. This in my opinion sets this author apart from others.