Our Lack of Preparation

We think we've done a lot to prepare to open a food service business.  We've operated our home kitchen as we would a restaurant, in an effort to reduce costs in our home and future business.  We've watched food shows like Iron Chef and Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares to learn more about food, customer taste sensibilities, proper operations, and our personal insecurities (Kitchen Nightmares is often a show about how personal insecurities must be overcome to build a successful restaurant business).  We built a house to learn more about construction and the impact of design.  We've hosted dinners to test ideas and to prepare us to handle large crowds.  We participated in informal cooking competitions to see if we can produce, and win, under pressure.  We invested in a restaurant in hopes to gain deeper insight into food service operations.  Price-points, margins, gross revenues, projections, we had it all down.  We've always looked for an opportunity to improve our ability to handle a food service business.  We've seen these opportunities everywhere -- in a baseball game, at the opera, while setting concrete.  All we've seen are metaphors of food and its production.  

And yet, we're not fully prepared to open a food service business.

We didn't research basic restaurant equipment and services, like cash registers, refrigerators, and payroll and credit card systems.  Not being prepared has resulted in some moderately costly mistakes and we hope we've chosen the right payroll and credit card systems.  It's important to know the cost of equipment and services.  That way, you don't purchase a used cash register with a missing key for $100 while its updated version costs $85 new at Costco.  Doh! 

We should've spent more time window shopping for restaurant equipment and services.  We spent too much time thinking about work-flow processes and vision, but not enough about what makes them possible.