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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Restaurant, 2nd Edition [Paperback]

Howard Cannon (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Product Description

The recipe for a successful restaurant—now revised …

In this revised edition, aspiring restaurateurs will find everything they need to know to open a successful restaurant, including choosing a concept and location, creating a business plan, finding the cash, and much more. New content includes information on tips, tip-outs, and reporting for the entire staff, choosing the best POS system, setting up a bar and managing the wine list, and making the bottom line look good long-term.

-Restaurants are a high-risk venture, but starting a bar or restaurant is still one of the most popular new business ventures (Cornell Univ/Mich State)

-Overall industry sales are projected to hit $476 billion for 2005, a 4.9% increase

-The industry employs a workforce of 12.2 million in more than 900,000 restaurants nationwide (National Restaurant Assn.)

About the Author

Howard Cannon is the founder of ROI, an international consulting firm specializing in start-ups and turnarounds. He is a top expert on restaurant operational performance and is the publisher of Restaurant Profitability Magazine, a trade publication read by hundreds of thousands of restaurant owners and operators. Pamela Rice Hahn is the author of several books, including The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Acing the SAT Essay.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Alpha; 2 edition (December 6, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1592574165
  • ISBN-13: 978-1592574162
  • Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.7 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #129,175 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Howard Cannon
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
core menu concept, peak revenue period, theoretical food cost, food manual, many restaurant owners, concept design team, staffing chart, food cost percentage, teach your staff, restaurant concept, hospitality team, customer frequency, standard pour, suggestive selling, closing checklist, existing restaurant, par level, check average, menu mix, restaurant operator, restaurant companies
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Tip Jar, Recipes Revealed, Wet Floor, The Least You Need, United States, Tin Jar, New York, Taco Bell, Tin Inr, Super Bowl, Big Mac, Get It Right, Pizza Hut, Nation's Restaurant News, Social Security, Upfront Effort
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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A cornucopia of information, March 7, 2006
This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Restaurant, 2nd Edition (Paperback)
This is an incredibly detailed and comprehensive book. The first part delves into the broad knowledge base you'll need to acquire in order to do a good job in your chosen profession. Running a restaurant involves everything from accounting to cooking, dishwashing to equipment repair, and while you'll rely heavily on the advice and aid of professionals, you also need to know as much as possible on your own.

No matter how early in the process you are, you'll find something for you here. Cannon describes business plans for restaurants, site choice, finding investors, hiring staff, managing risks, purchasing your equipment and materials, marketing, and so on. There's even a series of checklists in the appendices describing the things you should have done by certain periods before your restaurant opens.

Whether you want to open a fast-food franchise or a fine dining establishment, this book has plenty of advice for you. It covers all the various restaurant-type options and the issues dealing with each. A large portion of the book deals with the operation of your restaurant, from the kitchen, to the dining room, to hospitality, quality, service, cleanliness, and even the serving of alcohols--whether you're talking fine wines or a bar.

One of the book's strengths is its approach toward finding, keeping and coaching staff. Cannon strongly believes that the restaurant business is all about people--both your customers and staff--and that the best way to do a good job in these areas is to care about people.

Finally the book deals with growing your business, optimizing your profits, and, if things go well enough, deciding when and whether to expand or open a new restaurant.

The appendices include all sorts of calendars, checklists, forms, guidelines, and lists of additional reference materials.

If I planned to open a restaurant I would read this book at least three times and make copious notes. I found myself nodding along frequently, impressed by the common-sense suggestions and Cannon's application of them to the specifics of the restaurant world. The writing style is engaging and interesting, including fascinating stories and entertaining tidbits to keep some very thick reading from becoming boring. Cannon has run many restaurants himself and consulted for many more, and his copious experience certainly shines through.
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Too Idiotic, March 26, 2007
By D. Magid (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Restaurant, 2nd Edition (Paperback)
This book was a little too basic for really offering much help in the restaurant business. I was hoping to read about a few examples or case studies but the book seems geared more for devising cutesy by-lines and adages for select basic points. Instead of comparison figures for food costs or start-up costs, the book describes clean-up hints that seem common sense. The author also devoted a large section to franchises and opening up second restaurants that seemed geared for McDonalds franchisees versus independent restauranteurs.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An Intelligent Guide for Restaurateurs and Their Customers, May 3, 2008
This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Restaurant, 2nd Edition (Paperback)
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Restaurant, 2nd Edition (The Complete Idiot's Guide)

Starting with the back cover -- and where else would a book buyer start? -- I find The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Restaurant, Second Edition, both entertaining and useful. "You know it's a restaurateur-eat-restaurateur world out there." The author, Howard Cannon, is the president of an international restaurant consulting firm specializing in startups and turnarounds. I am convinced that he knows his subject and wants to help people make it big in the restaurant business.

Mr. Cannon serves us a big plate piled with
--Smart marketing and public relations tips
--The basics of purchasing and accounting
--Customer strategies to increase return business
--Simple ways to expand a customer base
--Restaurant checklists, forms, and guidelines
--Secrets for building and keeping a strong staff
--The lowdown on creating a policy and procedures manual

This Idiot's Guide follows the basic format of any Idiot's Guide, and yet I find it more helpful than some others. How often do you eat out? Chances are that you have developed an interest in how the restaurants do things. A book such as this one is useful to help any public eater determine how things are supposed to be done. Since there is a need to get the most for every dollar, this book is good enough to tuck in a bag and read while sitting in an airport. As Chapter 2 says, "Everybody Eats." While this book may appear to be suited to a limited audience, it has material of interest to everyone who eats in a restaurant.

My individual interest in the subject of restaurant organization and administration is that my business partner and I review restaurants. We work to approach this business in an ethical and objective fashion. In Appendix C there is a Secret Shopper form. That form alone has made the book worth our purchase of it.

Since Champ d'Oiseau, the first restaurant on record , was opened in Paris, France, in 1765, by a chef named Boulanger, there has been a growth in the number and types of restaurants throughout the world. The atmospheres vary. The author assures the would-be restaurateur, "If you are great, you will succeed." Yet we know that people fail in this business at a dizzying rate.

Anybody interested in opening a restaurant within the next year should rush to buy this book and follow the time lines in Appendix B.

Because of all the wonderful suggestions about cleanliness, organization, and employee training, I would buy a copy of this manual and give it to all my habitual eateries if I had the money! Maybe next Christmas . . .

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