Restaurateur Needs Recipe for Managing

Question: I am planning to open a small restaurant in a downtown high-rise specializing in Indian and Middle Eastern cuisine and catering to the lunch crowd. What are the prospects for such a venture? Is this a good idea under current market conditions? What things should I look out for?

--P. Ahmed, Los Angeles

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Answer: Overall, the restaurant business is looking good, there’s no denying that. And Los Angeles has seen a lot of restaurant activity as the local economic situation continues to improve.

In certain parts of downtown, there is a great deal of activity at lunchtime. Make sure you get a location that is convenient for office people so they don’t have to drive to your restaurant. If your prices are right and you’re serving good, appealing food, you should be able to get office workers to come to you.

But no matter how good the general prospects for your restaurant are, if you don’t have management experience and don’t know something firsthand about the restaurant business, you’re probably doomed to failure. It’s especially tough to pull in enough dollars to break even when you’re serving the lunch crowd, because you get a maximum of three busy hours a day--and more often it’s two hours--to make money. That’s not easy if you don’t know how to control costs and manage your checkbook.

You need to have a good business plan to pull this off, and you need to have an exit strategy mapped out ahead of time. If you haven’t managed a restaurant before, go work in one and try to learn all you can while you’re there. You will pick up a lot that can help you become successful.

Another resource is to take a course on restaurant management through a university, such as the UCLA Extension program, that offers restaurant overview classes where you can become familiar with issues ranging from labor to menus to business planning. The more information and experience you have going in, the more likely you are to create a successful restaurant and not lose your shirt.

--Gerald Breitbart,

independent restaurant consultant,

Brentwood

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If you have a question about how to start or operate a small business, mail it to Karen E. Klein at the Los Angeles Times, 1333 S. Mayflower Ave., Suite 100, Monrovia, CA 91016, or e-mail it to kklein6349@aol.com. Include your name, address and telephone number. The column is designed to answer questions of general interest. It should not be construed as legal advice.