How to Open a Restaurant
We packaged 5 of our best selling resources into the only tool you’ll ever need to open your new restaurant or food business.
Keep reading to learn how we can guide you through your next steps in the daunting process of opening a food business. You got this! And with our How to Open a Restaurant Toolkit, we got you.
Get instant access to the 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.
Get the ToolkitWhat Our Clients Are Saying About Our Work
“Alison and Kimberly are true masters of both the art and science of developing successful hospitality businesses that reflect the creators highest vision and make a compelling business case.
Their How to Open a Restaurant Toolkit gave me expert guidance, clear structure, and above all else, took me out of a place of overwhelm by giving me a step-by-step path between where I was standing (with a great idea) to where I wanted to go (opening day).
My business partner and I felt like we had instant teammates when we bought this toolkit, and there is no way we would have gotten to where we are today (signing a lease this week!) without a resource like this being available to us.”Â
Adam Volpe |Â Co-Owner of Wine Key Storage in West Palm Beach
"I was nervous the toolkit would be everything I already knew but was just too lazy to put together in a nice package. I was worried about paying for something that I could have done myself and might not offer any new information. Boy, was I wrong! This is a life saving tool.Â
100% I would encourage someone who’s thinking about buying this tool to do it!
Especially because you really can easily customize the templates to adapt to whatever project you are working on. There were at least 4-5 items on the Pre-Opening Critical Path that were buried deep in the back of my mind and needed to be resurfaced.
The way that the document is formatted is a dream. It only takes a brief tutorial for staff members to feel comfortable enough to begin using it daily. I have customized The Path dramatically for many openings now to great success, leading teams to stay on track with their tasks and deadlines."
Amy DeVee Reynolds |Â Principal at DeVee LLC in San Francisco
“Salt & Roe’s How to Open a Restaurant Toolkit gave me a compass for making big decisions. These tools provide an essential guide to anyone who hasn't led a restaurant opening from start to finish before, and even for those of us who have!
This work encourages you to dig deeper rather than quit. It forces you to clearly state the who/what/when/where/why of your business and teaches you HOW to get there. It helped broaden my purview on what it really entails to undergo the process of being an operator, and the unglamorous yet very necessary work of leading an opening.”Â
Adam Witherspoon |Â Founder of Greasy Spoon Syndicate in Minneapolis
KNOWING HOW TO OPEN A RESTAURANT OR LAUNCH AÂ FOOD BUSINESS IS HARD.
But you don't have to do it alone.
We offer a self-guided, highly customizable, fully downloadable
How to Open a Restaurant Toolkit
for entrepreneurs looking for professional support to help them develop and launch new hospitality concepts.
And, we don’t want to bury the lead here, it’s less than $1k.
(Yes, you read that right. We coach clients for well over $16k a pop to guide them through our opening process, and now you have access to the very same tools for less than $1,000.)
Our DIY coaching program is like having mentors at your fingertips who have seen it all when it comes to opening restaurants and are here to support you to:
Zoom out and understand the soup to nuts process of opening a profitable, values-based restaurant that's cherished by your community, so you know exactly where you're at and what you need to do to reach the next phase.
Get your vision for your hospitality concept out of your head and onto the page in the form of a comprehensive, professional business plan.
Translate that business plan into a concise, visually stunning pitch deck that will be your #1 resource for recruiting investors, securing bank loans, hiring a team, and identifying the many 3rd party partners you'll need to collaborate with to bring your vision to life.
Create a customized, step-by-step critical path (basically a big, sequenced to-do list) that outlines with easy-to-follow specificity how to get from where you are today to opening day, so there are no gray areas or blind spots to worry about.
Articulate the who, what, why, when, where & how of your vision for the guest experience so you and your team are set up for success in executing consistently from day one.
Ours is truly the only tool you'll ever need to confidently learn How to Open a Restaurant. This self-guided program gives you all the templates, checklists, and resources to launch a profitable, purpose-driven food business of any sort.
FUN FACT: the individual cost of each of the tools in our toolkit adds up to $1,280 to buy them a la carte on our website. If you buy the full toolkit, you’re actually saving about $300 on a business expense you can absolutely write off or reimburse yourself for once you get funded!
Get the ToolkitAS FORMER OWNERS, OPERATORS, AND EXECUTIVES
WE'VE COLLECTIVELY OPENED MORE THAN 35 HOSPITALITY CONCEPTS
AND COACHED DOZENS MORE CLIENTS TOÂ DO THE SAME
(SOME MOM & POPS, SOME JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNERS...SOME BOTH).Â
We know our way around an F&B business plan
and geek out on drafting pitch decks.
Want to open a restaurant but don’t know where to start?
Our How to Open a Restaurant Business Coaching Toolkit is designed to guide hospitality entrepreneurs step by step from initial concept to grand opening.
Alison literally wrote the book on restaurant openings. We've distilled everything we teach in our private coaching sessions into this comprehensive, self-paced toolkit. Ideal for anyone seeking to launch a restaurant, coffee shop, catering company, or other food and beverage concept.
This isn’t just theory, it’s practical, proven strategy. Our restaurant startup coaching tools have helped past clients successfully launch bars, wine rooms, bed & breakfasts, and even unique hybrid concepts.
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Whether you’re just exploring your idea or actively preparing to launch, this food business coaching toolkit provides a clear, focused roadmap for turning your vision into a profitable, purpose-driven business.
This is a self-paced program you can download instantly, no waiting. It includes actionable coaching tools that help you clarify your restaurant’s concept, design your guest experience, secure funding, and create a detailed restaurant opening checklist and critical path for launch.
When you enroll, you'll receive this virtual coaching product directly in your inbox.
You’ll get immediate access to 5 essential restaurant launch tools, designed to streamline your process and help you start making real progress fast.
Opening a restaurant can take years, but with this structured, coaching-based approach, you'll be well on your way to opening the doors to the food business of your dreams in 6 months.
At Salt & Roe, we believe opening a restaurant shouldn’t feel like guesswork.
Our hospitality business coaching toolkit fills a critical gap. Offering the strategic structure, guidance, and tools that first-time restaurateurs and hospitality pros need to succeed.
From customizable templates to sample investor decks and critical paths, this self-guided program acts as your virtual restaurant coach, giving you the confidence and tools to launch with clarity and purpose.
By the end of the program, you will complete a comprehensive Business Plan,
translate it into a visually-compelling Pitch Deck to share with potential investors and strategic partners, create a fully customized, step-by-step launch timeline and task list in your Pre-Opening Critical Path, and draft a bespoke Guide to Hospitality & Service for your unique concept.
WHAT'S INCLUDED IN OUR HOW TO OPEN A RESTAURANT TOOLKIT?
Your ticket to get out of overwhelm, write your damn business plan, and get to work packaging, pitching, and launching your hospitality business already!
Resources include:
How to Open a Restaurant eBook
This eBook looks under the hood of the often elusive process of opening a restaurant and shows you the ins and outs from start to finish so you know exactly where you’re headed.
Business Plan
This template, created specifically for hospitality businesses, gives you a complete process for articulating your concept and making a clear case for its viability so that you can pitch it with confidence. It also includes a completed sample business plan generously shared by one of our top clients, so you have a clear vision for what a completed business plan can look like.
Pitch Deck
This plug-andplay template will help you create a sexy, visually compelling pitch deck so you can skip hiring a fancy designer (save the $$$), and come to the table with investors, banks, and potential partners with pride. It also includes a completed sample pitch deck generously shared by one of our cherished clients, so you have a clear vision for what a completed pitch deck can look like.
Pre-Opening Critical Path
This spreadsheet takes all the mystery out of sequencing your opening timeline and guides you toward the steps you need to take to launch a successful business, so you can stop stressing out about what you might be missing, forgetting, or simply don’t know because you haven’t done this before. (Don’t worry—we’ve done it dozens of times, and we’re excited to show you how!)
Guide to Hospitality & Service
This template gives you a way to externalize your vision for the guest experience and how you expect your team to deliver it, alongside tons of our own pre-written suggestions based on countless successful openings for you to borrow from—so you feel 100% ready to execute at the highest level and get golden guest reviews on day one.
Combined, these resources are the equivalent of having a
Director of Operations, a hospitality consultant, a leadership coach, a copywriter, and a graphic designer in your pocket,
pulling back the curtain on the process that some of the most successful and awarded restaurants in the world use to develop new businesses.
HOW MUCH FOR ALL THAT?
$995
Get the Toolkit
TAKE THE NEXT STEP TO OPEN YOUR DREAM BUSINESS.
THEN PACKAGE IT, PITCH IT, AND LAUNCH IT WITH
CONFIDENCE USING OUR PROVEN HOW TO OPEN A RESTAURANT TOOLKIT.
We intimately understand and appreciate that these early entrepreneurial phases when you’re refining your idea and preparing to raise money are the ones where you need the most support and…
you have the least amount of cash to invest in it.
Opening a food business can often feel like a chicken & egg dilemma, but our How to Open a Restaurant Toolkit nips that problem in the bud.
In this one investment (that you can and should write off as a business expense!), you’ll save money you would have otherwise spent buying a bunch of fluff courses that aren’t tailored to our profession and just don’t tell you what you need to know.
And you’ll save the time (months or even years) you would’ve spent spinning out in overwhelm, trying to figure out the next step forward, once you see the path we’ve paved for you.
We truly do believe ours is the only tool you'll ever need to take you from lost to launch when it comes to opening your next hospitality concept.
Get the Toolkit
You might not realize how much going it alone is costing you. We hear from restaurateurs all the time who’ve told us they wasted months or even years, dragging their feet on writing a business plan or getting the money together to take next steps toward opening their own spot.Â
Lots of hospitality people feel super confident in your performance on the line or on the floor, but when it comes to making a business case for why your restaurant ideas need to be realized…not so confident.Â
You get stuck in back of napkin math and menu ideas you’re happy to share with your colleagues over a post-shift beer, but have too much self-doubt to get the thoughts that are swirling around inside your head onto paper.Â
You can’t conceive of raising the hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of dollars it might take to get a restaurant open today; you feel like an imposter at owning a business, let alone writing a business plan.
Some of you were never any good at school and the idea of drafting a 20 page document outlining the details for your new venture sounds like a test you can’t pass that keeps you spinning your wheels, or worse, convinces you to give up on the idea before ever even trying.
And when that happens, you're not only closing the doors to the restaurant and the work and the calling you’ve been pining after, you’re closing the doors to what’s possible for your future.Â
Then you feel stuck, alone, and defeated.
I wonder if any of this sounds familiar to you?Â
If it does, we know how to help you...
Get the ToolkitGot more questions?
Keep on reading for answers to the ones we hear the most.
This sounds like exactly what I need, and I’m also craving more accountability and personalized support than this self-guided toolkit can give. Do you offer that?
Can I buy just one of these resources?
How can I get a taste of this work before committing to investing in the toolkit?
We've been called wise big sisters and restaurant whisperers.Â
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