taking a chance, and have lots of questions!

[Oregon smoker]

[JimH]

No need to be insulting.
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The Demolition Man - Demolition Man BBQ

[daddywoofdawg]

Buy low and sell high.Same with business if you start when everyone say's it's a bad time then when it's a good time your business will be the front runner.The business everyone wants to buy.
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Good BBQ is all smoke and beers!
The Dawghouse Custom vertical Gasser
Custom Made offset smoker
Char grill smoker
Weber kettle

[jfish63]

I started a BBQ vending business on the Friday of Memorial day weekend. The first week was just plain horrible. But if you are serving a good product word spreads fast. I have spent no money on advertising other than a sign and business has grown better than projected. I owe alot to the posts on this forum and a couple of others that kept me from making some costly mistakes. That is not to say I didn't make any.

If you are passionate about your product and it is a good one people notice even in a tough economy. Engage in conversation with your customers, you are selling an experience not just a sand or a rack of ribs and again people notice.

Things are going good for my business but I am not getting rich. I am 4 months in so the pay check is not great. It will take time. Do lots of homework, read tons of posts, and if it feels right to you go for it.

My fingers are tired that is more typing than I have done in months. Time for a beer.

[JAllen]

[qfanatic01]

I have posted a fair amount on the economy and this business over the past couple of years and I think BBQ is the right cuisine for times. First, it is economical. I have had a few comments on our lack of value, but I compare what I get at let's say at Buffalo Wild Wings for my money and I think we give you more and better quality. I have five kids and it's not cheap to feed them. I am happy to say we have been able to go out every couple months this last year, which is more than we went out total the three years prior. It cost me a couple hundred bucks to take my family out to a sit down dinner. At our place we have a party pack for 107.00 that provides as much food, cooked fresh everyday. My kids are big eaters, especially when I'm paying. Add a few of your favorite beverages and your up to 150.00, but still less than the going rate at a medium priced place. At my place we have a half dozen sandwich specials every day with chips and a beverage for 6.95. That compares with any fast food place.

BBQ is a destination cuisine. Post yourself properly and provide a quality product and folks will come to compare. No other cuisine has this type of following.

Sadly our economy will not get better anytime soon. No politician can fix the lack of manufacturing in this country. Technology is an awesome thing but it replaces people (jobs) and until we find a place for those people, this country is screwed. I believe our society should help provide the basic needs of food, shelter, basic health care and security for all with incentives for them to help themselves. I also believe that's all we owe politicians.

Food and restaurants are the last luxuries and folks will spend what little money they have or don't have on dining for the good feeling a full belly gives. Success doesn't come easy to most. It takes planning, hard work, sacrifice and a bit of luck. The luck part will only come if you do the work. As they say in the lottery ads "you can't win if you don't play"

This is now a world economy, like it or not and everyone on this forum is untitled to an opinion, wear ever they live as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, who cares. I for one have enjoyed JAllen's talented story telling.
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The lessons are in the customer's criticism. They aren't always right. The rewards are their satisfaction.

[Oregon smoker]

[Harry Nutczak]

[Oregon smoker]

[JAllen]

[ceedubya]

[Oregon smoker]

[qfanatic01]

First off, I said BBQ is the right choice for the times!!! As bad as this economy is, people are still going out. Not once or twice a week but once or twice a month or like us we save up and go out every couple months and make it special. Restaurants serving good food at a good value will continue to prosper even in bad times. I am constantly working to improve all aspects of my restaurant in hopes to consistently provide just that. I wish we were perfect, but there are too many variables for that. I work hard everyday to work through those obstacles and maybe someday I will have a formula. I'll franchise it if I do.

Back nearly 20 years ago now in the neighborhood where my old restaurant was many people ate out somewhere every meal and we were on the rotation. November of 1999 all that changed and my check average soon dropped about 30%. We were a couple of years from being debt free and suddenly found our fortunes slipping away as the business started chipping away at our equity.

I am a success story presently. This industry is fickle and I proceed carefully. The above mentioned restaurant was a Zagat rated gourmet Italian restaurant that I owned for nearly 10 years before becoming very ill for a time. I had to walk away and when I was ready to come back I did my home work and chose BBQ. I am a CIA graduate, have been in the industry for over 34 years and have worked at some top rated restaurants with some very talented Chefs. Food is my life.

I didn't leave a great job to live my dreams. This restaurant was an all-in moment as we were on the brink of loosing everything. I looked for jobs daily for several years and had sold everything we had to sell.

For about the last five years we would only go out for a nice meal once a year. This last year we have been able to enjoy a nice meal out every couple months. I cook nice family meals for my family and employees all the time as I am at work nearly 24/7. We don't just eat BBQ. For holidays I make huge spreads and share it with extended family, employees and friends. Food is my gift to those around me.

Treating my family to a nice night out every couple months is currently within my means. My kids are mostly adults and all work with me. I feel that after working 80 to 100 hours a week I have earned it. I can make better food then I can purchase at just about any restaurant in Minnesota or most anywhere in the world if I want. I'm not full of myself or sh*t. It's a fact and I have a hard time spending $40 bucks or more for a meal I can make for $10 or $15 (especially if it's not good, I've tasted some expensive crap), but it's nice to let someone else do all the work now and then. Also it's nice to experience other people's versions. It is more about quality time with my family than it is about comparing dishes anyway. It's always better when the food is good though.

If food is your passion and opening a restaurant is your dream, do it. Just be warned it is very hard work and if you don't have the highest standards and at the best value your chances for success are grim. This doesn't mean your food has to be expensive, just very good in most peoples opinion. You'll never please everyone, ever!!!

Also this is no place for on the job basic training. You better have a fairly good grasp of the basics and you should just be fine tuning. If you don't do it right from the beginning you usually don't get a second chance.

And if your lucky the right people will notice and you'll get some breaks along the way.
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The lessons are in the customer's criticism. They aren't always right. The rewards are their satisfaction.

[qfanatic01]

Send your kid to cooking school why? Oh I forgot to reply to the small business growth comment as well. Our country needs manufacturing (not houses) to create living wages. The service industry provides a majority of low paying jobs. Unless you have multi generational households like many immigrants (and me currently) you can not get out of poverty as a traditional post war family (2 adults and 2 kids) with the 2 adults working 40 hours a week at service jobs. Good luck if you went to college and have to pay the school loans that couldn't get you the promised job, to boot. There is another sham. You can't educate America out of this catagory. Someone will always have to do the service jobs and those folks will need to be subsidized to help provide a reasonable quality of life for those less fortunate. Or there will eventually be an uprising.
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The lessons are in the customer's criticism. They aren't always right. The rewards are their satisfaction.

[Harry Nutczak]

O-S,
Are you starting to understand now?
Read through Qfanatics last 2 posts, Remember this is a man with a booming business, he was featured on DD&D, he is rated #2 in his state (out of 179 places) in best BBQ, He is swamped with customers forming a line outside his door ready to beat it down and waiting to get into his place.

Imagine the status report we would be getting if it was new, and he did not have decades of previous experience and did not expect the financial issues associated with restaurants

Now imagine sinking everything you may have into a place with zero bank lending because very few will lend to restaurants due to their astronomical failure rates, and not seeing any profit for the first 2 years while working 80+ hour weeks and longer.

Q has been doing this for decades, I have been doing this for decades. I could not imagine someone with almost zero restaurant management experience chancing life savings on this industry in this poor economy.
The financials alone in a solid economy should scare off most any sane person.

For every dollar you get to put in the cash register, you may be able to consider $0.04-$0.07 to be profit, and that is if your food/labor costs are perfect, you had no major repair bills, your employee theft/inventory shrinkage is within the area you expected and planned for.

Since I have opened here, at least 5 other restaurants have opened and closed in my immediate area,
I purchase their lightly used equipment at pennies on the dollar if it is something I can use, or make a profit on by holding onto to it and reselling down the road.

almost no bank will finance restaurants right now, even with an SBA loan guarantee.
I suggest starting small by catering and see how that goes, the time and money needed is way way less so if it does not turn the numbers you expected, not so much is lost that you end up homeless in the experience. Even catering is down now, I saw our typical wedding party size shrink from 300-400 per event, to maybe 100-120 maximum size. People have 40% less funds than they did a decade ago, and luxury things like eating out are typically the first things to go away so they can handle more pressing liabilities.
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Just remember that the toes you may step on during your climb to the top will also be attached to the a$$es you'll be forced to kiss on your way back down!

[JAllen]

[Oregon smoker]

C-dub, you are set to fail. Miserably. Dont ever set out to achieve anything. You must have years of success if you want to make things happen. Rely on loosing everything due to making your dream happen. Sell every piece of bbq related equipment that you have for a penny to HN. He seems to revel in others failures(i have noticed that for a few years).

I am super disappointed in the support from the pros(supposed). Rather than offering actual advice and information to help another person out everything has been rather negative.

http://www.davemanuel.com/investor-dictionary/u6-unemployment-rate/




While not good, but better than the 20% that someone else quoted. And it was a simple google search.


After all is said and done. According to the pros(so you dont threaten their business[my opinion]). You need to spend thousands on buying machinery and tooling. Find a shop, then look for businesses to sell to. You need to manufacture commodities(metals), which is not a bad idea. But that being said it is not your dream. But if your so inclined it certainly would not be a bad idea to invest in machinery to back up your business plan.
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#3 LIAR

[Geronimo]

I think someone should take their meds and call it a night

Maybe we will all come up with some great ideas in the morning that will actually help the OP
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Where rumors end and legend lives forever...

[Harry Nutczak]

Okay,

lets think about this for a few minutes, if being chef/owner of a single location, non-franchise place in the restaurant industry is so profitable and involved almost no risk, please explain why QFanatic, Tony G, and myself are not living the good life on some island beach drinking blended rum drinks, and calling our restauants once a week to see how things are going instead of spending 2/3rds of our lives in the kitchen instead of riding around that tropical island on Unicorns that Phart rainbows.

It is a tough industry even in a booming economy, I am not going to blow smoke up someones backside telling them only the great things and be partially responsible for a possible life ruining situation if things were to happen to go that way.

Many people who have never been in a restaurant management position just do not have a full grasp of everything involved.

EDITED TO ADD:

Did anyone ever hear the tale of a man who called himself "Sugar Media" ?
I believe most of his posts have been taken down due to legal issues that came about from him opening a restaurant.

But if someone can provide a link to his thread, it is a real eye opener as to what can, and most likely will happen with a new restaurant owner who has little to no previous experience in the industry in a management position.
His experience was nothing short of a complete train wreck, it hurt my head to read his posts, especially in the beginning because I could hear the whistle blowing in the distance.

Oh, and O-S, why is it you always turn to personal attacks as opposed to debating the topic at hand? Typically when a side resorts to personal attacks, it signals that intelligent discourse has ended on that side of the debate.
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Just remember that the toes you may step on during your climb to the top will also be attached to the a$$es you'll be forced to kiss on your way back down!

[JAllen]