Understanding Restaurants: The Owner’s Perspective

This is the final installment of a four-part introduction.  If you missed the previous posts on the overview, the guest’s perspective, and the manager’s perspective, click the links in this sentence.

People ask me on occasion if I aspire to open my own restaurant one day. It always reminds me of the old Mitch Hedburg joke.

“When you’re in Hollywood and you’re a comedian, everybody wants you to do other things. All right, you’re a stand-up comedian; can you write us a script? That’s not fair. That’s like if I worked hard to become a cook, and I’m a really good cook, they’d say, “OK, you’re a cook. Can you farm?”

In reality, owning a restaurant does not appeal to me. I would be the most neurotic and micro managing owner ever. It takes a special breed of person to be willing to take the risk to open a restaurant. The likelihood of failure is tremendous even for a great concept. However, if you really have the guts and resources, then go for it.