Choosing a Location for Your Restaurant

If you are a restaurateur and you have a very unique, trendsetting concept do you choose to put your first place in an already well known, very heavily trafficked, centrally located area where you will also have a lot of competition or do you choose to go to the lesser known, lesser trafficked, “coming up” area where you won’t have much competition but may have trouble getting people there?

This is the ultimate question that I am asked by retailers of all kinds, but with increasing frequency by restaurant owners to be. Opening a restaurant is a really tricky thing. Like any business, it requires a huge amount of risk but restaurants, by far, carry much more risk. Start up costs are HUGE and you must differentiate yourself in a significant way. Most people can walk outside their place of residence and choose from several places to eat within a half mile radius. You must have something that people feel inclined to go to your restaurant for a specific reason. So, when you’re choosing a location, you can’t make a mistake because you don’t get a second chance.

So, what do you do? As your go to retail representative, I’m here to tell you that you take the even bigger risk and you go to the next hot area. If you’re concept is truly unique and trendsetting, in the long run you will be more successful there. Those that frequent your place of business will come for the concept, no matter where you are. And, yes, you may get more default traffic being in the already hot area, but you will constantly compete will all the “unique” concepts around you and eventually you will no longer be unique and you certainly won’t be trendsetting. You may not make enough for that second location. But, if you go with the “underdog” and you do it right, you will get the perfect clientele who will come more and more often and will market the location for you. And when, inevitably, the area finally does become “the next big thing”, you will already have a steady stream of business and YOU will be the anchor in the area. You will be the trendsetter and the people will flock.

Don’t be afraid. Believe in your dream. Go big.