How to Write a Business Plan for a Restaurant You Won’t Regret

Writing a business plan is the foundation of any successful restaurant—whether you're starting fresh or reinventing an existing concept.

How do you know if you need a business plan? If you are:

• Planning to open a new restaurant or food business
• Experiencing a lack of meaning in your day-to-day work
• Feeling a lack of alignment between your vision for your business and how it’s currently operating
• Ready to live and lead in a more sustainable way than your current business is set-up for

You need a business plan, and this article is for you.

In this blog, we’ll cover:

• Why writing a business plan for a food business is so important, even if you already own one
• Who should invest time into writing one
• How to write a restaurant business plan that actually helps you create more success
• An introduction to Salt & Roe’s restaurant business plan template so you have a true roadmap for running your restaurant in a way that feels both fulfilling and sustainable (i.e. 86’s the burnout)

WHY WE NEED A NEW NORMAL IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

Acute pandemic circumstances paired with the re-evaluation that Covid invited about what really matters (and what really doesn't) has left so many hospitality leaders like you feeling a lack of meaning in their work.

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, you might be feeling a call to action to create a more sustainable model for restaurants by opening a new business.

If you already own a restaurant, you might feel like your business doesn’t really fit you anymore, or maybe that inner calling for doing something more impactful in your day-to-day work is getting too loud to ignore.

In either case, writing a business plan for a food business can be an incredibly powerful tool for getting clear on your vision, its viability, and exactly how you intend to bring it to life.

At Salt & Roe, we think returning to “business as usual” could be the most disastrous outcome of all on the other side of these incredibly challenging pandemic years because the business model and cultural norms we went into Covid with were begging to be disrupted.

If you feel that same call to disrupt industry norms and present a new vision for what a restaurant can look like, we have a restaurant business plan template to help you do exactly that.

CHEF DANIEL HUMM’S REINVENTION

I recently interviewed Chef Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park in New York City and was deeply inspired by his story of reinventing one of the most decorated fine-dining restaurants in the world.

With a reputation for serving caviar, duck, and lobster on every tasting menu, Chef Humm disrupted cultural expectations to transform EMP into a completely plant-based concept.

Alongside crippling fear and uncertainty, lockdown gave Daniel the opportunity to investigate the restaurant's food sourcing practices, reconnect with creativity, and do deeply meaningful work preparing 8,000 meals per day for food insecure New Yorkers.

When given the opportunity to reopen by Eleven Madison Park's landlord, Daniel knew he couldn't bring the same restaurant back.

He couldn’t unsee the brokenness of our food system, and he anticipated that reviving the old model of EMP would generate the feelings of emptiness that had flooded him in the wake of being awarded the #1 spot on the coveted World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.

Feeding NYC’s 99% instead of its 1% had reminded him what it feels like to do truly purposeful work. He shared that while winning awards and stars is a powerful motivator, those decorations generate depression and burnout if they aren’t tied to a grounding purpose.

This massive transition from traditional, luxurious fine-dining to a paradigm-shifting, plant-based dining experience has opened up a whole new set of peaks to climb, but doing hard work and meeting big challenges when they’re all tied to something that deeply matters to you is radically different than enduring the grind for the sake of the grind. It’s energizing instead of depleting.

Whether you’re reinventing an existing business or opening a new one, it is essential to work to build it on a solid foundation that answers the question, “Why does this restaurant matter?”

At Salt & Roe, answering that question is part of our process for naming a clear and compelling purpose that’s baked into your business plan, and we’ve developed a simple to use plug-and-play business plan template for $295 that guides you step-by-step in doing so.

Our goal isn’t just to support you in opening a profitable business. Our goal is to support you in opening a profitable business that you’ll still be in love with, energized by, and proud of a decade from now.

WHY IS KNOWING HOW TO WRITE A RESTAURANT BUSINESS PLAN FOR A RESTAURANT SO IMPORTANT?

First and foremost, business plans are guiding lights for leaders.

At Salt & Roe, we believe the primary purpose of drafting a business plan for a food business is for you to gain clarity on the underlying purpose, credibility, and operational scope of your venture.

If you’re creating a new restaurant (or you already own or lead one, and it needs a reset!), this foundational work is an essential step for getting your ideas out of your head and onto the page in an organized manner that effectively communicates your vision and makes a strong business case for why it should be realized.

In other words, drafting a business plan is the equivalent of a restaurateur doing their homework.

PRO TIP: Five less obvious questions that might be on your mind and can be answered by a great business plan are:

1. What is your role within the business? What does your job need to look like to ensure that you feel excited and energized by your work today, tomorrow, and 10 years from now?
2. What values is your business committed to? How will these commitments shape your actions and decisions?
3. Why should your business exist? What is the impact you hope it to make on your own life, your team, your guests, and your broader community?
4. Does your business generate the financial outcomes required to offer jobs and investor returns that are compelling, equitable, and sustainable?
5. In what ways might your business bring prosperity beyond profitability?

Launching a thoughtful, economically viable hospitality business is hard. It should be! It’s a huge commitment and an immense responsibility.

But here’s the good news…you don’t have to do it alone.

WHO SHOULD WRITE A BUSINESS PLAN FOR A RESTAURANT?

We can’t create what we can’t see. The act of writing a business plan is ultimately an act of detailed visioning.

A business plan documents the experiential, conceptual, financial, operational, and structural objectives for your business (most often a new one, but not always) and the strategies for achieving them.

Must-Haves in a Restaurant Business Plan include:

• Executive Summary
• Target Market Analysis
• Food, Beverage & Hospitality Overview
• Sample Menus
• Opening Timeline
• Team Overview & Organizational Charts
• PR & Marketing Strategy
• Financial Projections
• Investment Terms

In its finished form, a business plan is a robust and powerful tool for sharing both the creative idea and the business case behind it with internal and external partners. Our restaurant business plan template will walk you through it step-by-step.

If you are a current or aspiring entrepreneur and you check any of these boxes:

• You want to open an intentional, profitable restaurant and you don't know where to start
• You already own or lead a hospitality business and you aren't feeling connected to it and aren't sure how to evolve it in the direction of a new vision
• You want to grow your restaurant group with a new concept that offers both financial and human sustainability

…writing a business plan could be the critically clarifying next step you need to take towards opening a successful new concept or resetting an existing one.

3 STEPS TO WRITE A RESTAURANT BUSINESS PLAN

Step 1: Choose the Best Business Plan Template for Restaurants

If you’re thinking to yourself, “I would love to dig into writing a business plan for my restaurant, but…

• I have no clue what’s supposed to be in it!”
• I’m a terrible writer!”
• I was never a good student and this feels like a big homework assignment!”
• There aren’t any templates online specifically for restaurants!”
• I’m worried that what I create won’t be complete or look professional!”

We hear you loud and clear, and we’ve got your back.

Salt & Roe’s Restaurant Business Plan Template was created specifically for entrepreneurs looking to create a financially sustainable business that also feeds their soul and serves their team and community.

And, we’ve done a lot of the heavy-lifting for you. Our template reflects our experience supporting over 50 restaurant openings across the country.

Our editable Google Document template includes:

• All 12 sections you need to create a complete, thorough, and polished business plan, including Target Market Analysis, Competitive Research, Opening Timeline, Team, Marketing & Public Relations, and an overview of required Financial Projections...just to name a few
• Pre-populated copy that borrows from our professional writing experience and sets you up to thoughtfully edit and add content that produces a personalized business plan without having to start from scratch
• Detailed instructions and tips for writing a brilliant business plan
• A comprehensive PDF guide that explains exactly how to customize this template for your business and offers suggestions for other supportive pre-opening resources like a Pitch Deck Template and Pre-Opening Critical Path, based on our decades of experience opening successful hospitality businesses
• A completed sample business plan from one of our clients so you can see exactly what the finished product should look like

Photo captured by Julia Ngo of Eloquent Co.

Step 2: Invite Collaboration & Critical Feedback

Remember, the goal of this work is to demonstrate (first and foremost to yourself) that your beautiful, compelling vision is also a sound business model.

That said, just because it’s your dream doesn’t mean the numbers work.

Unless you have a legal and accounting background, you’ll likely need to invite some strategic partners to the table to support you with:

• Determining the best business structure for your concept
• Structuring investor terms if you choose to raise outside investment to fund your project 
• Developing essential financial documents like: a pro forma financial statement for the first 5 years of operations, a capital requirements budget, and a breakeven analysis

Get your attorney and accountant involved as early as possible. A one-hour conversation today can save you a lot of heartache down the road if you’re able to address a whole host of questions that aren’t in your area of expertise upfront.

Collecting input from counsel serves to pressure test your business idea before you actually start spending time and money to open a restaurant that hasn’t been vetted, and so does soliciting feedback from trusted colleagues and industry vets.

When your business plan feels complete, share it with people who are experts in areas that you’re not. Accept critical feedback from friends and mentors who have been in your shoes, and when receiving their wisdom, remember that it can be hard to see the picture when you’re inside the frame.

Step 3: Invest in Support: 5 Ways We Can Help

At Salt & Roe, we know that successful, thoughtful restaurants make the world a more connected place. We’ve made it our mission to support leaders like you in bringing their dreams to life because doing so will enrich the lives of everyone your food business touches.

We also know that when an entrepreneur is in the early days of refining a vision and preparing to get funding for a restaurant, they don’t have extra dollars to spend on getting the help they need.

That’s why we’ve taken our years of experience from opening 50+ successful restaurants, and channeled it into step-by-step, plug-and-play tools that give you clear structure to follow and feel like having a Director of Operations, a hospitality consultant, a leadership coach, a copywriter, and a graphic designer in your pocket.

Here’s 5 ways we can help for less than $1,000:

1. $0 Investment: Download The Ultimate Guide to Restaurant Funding. This guide delivers expert advice from 21 industry leaders you won't find anywhere else on how to embrace fundraising.
2. $95 Investment: Our Pitch Deck Template has everything you need to create a beautiful, polished, professional pitch deck that presents all of the information funders expect to see.
3. $295 Investment: Check out our Business Plan Bundle. Writing a business plan demands that you get crystal clear about what you’re creating, why you’re creating it, how you’re going to execute your vision, and whether it’s financially viable. We see business planning as the unavoidable first step you must do before drafting a pitch deck that can close!
4. $150 Investment: If you utilize our Business Plan Template and want a member of Salt & Roe’s industry experienced coaching team to review your draft from top to bottom and provide online, written feedback that includes in-line text edits, formatting suggestions, and comments with advice on structuring your plan, take a look at our Copyediting Support for your Business Plan.
5. $995 Investment: Our How to Open a Restaurant Toolkit gives you instant access to all 5 essential tools you need to develop and open an irresistible hospitality concept that generates prosperity and purpose for you, your team, your guests, and your community from day one. It includes our Pitch Deck Toolset, Business Plan Bundle, our How to Open a Restaurant eBook, Pre-Opening Critical Path, and Guide to Hospitality and Service Template.

Remember, the first step is the hardest part. Our world needs your vision, and our industry needs you to invest time and energy into getting really, really clear about that vision before attempting to bring it into the world.

You’ve got this.

Behind you,