Everything is hard & takes a long time - restaurant opening

I've noticed over the years how often a restaurant will promise such-and-such opening date, only to have to push it back, sometimes repeatedly, and sometimes never opening at all. Right now there's a coffeehouse in our neighborhood that I've been excitedly awaiting, but the June opening became July, then August, maybe.

I know from my husband's experiences in starting a (non-food) small business that everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much as you'd expect, so obviously that's part of it. But what exactly are the sticking points in opening a restaurant? I have seen this happen even with accomplished restaurateurs, who one would assume understand the process and cost involved. So what is it? Is this a particularly Chicago problem (given our wonderful beauracracy) or is it just something that happens with restaurants?

Suzy Creamcheese wrote:I've noticed over the years how often a restaurant will promise such-and-such opening date, only to have to push it back, sometimes repeatedly, and sometimes never opening at all. Right now there's a coffeehouse in our neighborhood that I've been excitedly awaiting, but the June opening became July, then August, maybe.

I know from my husband's experiences in starting a (non-food) small business that everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much as you'd expect, so obviously that's part of it. But what exactly are the sticking points in opening a restaurant? I have seen this happen even with accomplished restaurateurs, who one would assume understand the process and cost involved. So what is it? Is this a particularly Chicago problem (given our wonderful beauracracy) or is it just something that happens with restaurants?

1) Obtaining all of the necessary permits - and often those vary by the inspectors you deal with.
2) getting contractors coordinated. Remember that certain things MUST be done in order.
3) Obtaining the necessary financing - especially nowadays with fewer banks lending to smaller businesses

If I took another 20-30 minutes, I am sure that I could come up with 20-30 other reasons.

jlawrence01 wrote:

Suzy Creamcheese wrote:I've noticed over the years how often a restaurant will promise such-and-such opening date, only to have to push it back, sometimes repeatedly, and sometimes never opening at all. Right now there's a coffeehouse in our neighborhood that I've been excitedly awaiting, but the June opening became July, then August, maybe.

I know from my husband's experiences in starting a (non-food) small business that everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much as you'd expect, so obviously that's part of it. But what exactly are the sticking points in opening a restaurant? I have seen this happen even with accomplished restaurateurs, who one would assume understand the process and cost involved. So what is it? Is this a particularly Chicago problem (given our wonderful beauracracy) or is it just something that happens with restaurants?

1) Obtaining all of the necessary permits - and often those vary by the inspectors you deal with.
2) getting contractors coordinated. Remember that certain things MUST be done in order.
3) Obtaining the necessary financing - especially nowadays with fewer banks lending to smaller businesses

If I took another 20-30 minutes, I am sure that I could come up with 20-30 other reasons.

Point 2 that jlawrence01 brings up is huge. If you've ever remodeled your kitchen you know what a PITA it is. Imagine doing it in a kitchen that has to pass inspection and feed a big crowd every night. Coordinating something like that is very difficult. Tuesday night the electrician and gas guy tells you he's not ready and then you have guys showing up with equipment when the gas and electric are not done and then they just dump the stoves and say "not my problem, I was told to deliver it on Wednesday, it's Wednesday." I've done construction projects (not kitchens, engineering stuff) and for all the effort you put into building a timeline you might as well have been in the bar.

Suzy Creamcheese wrote:I've noticed over the years how often a restaurant will promise such-and-such opening date, only to have to push it back, sometimes repeatedly, and sometimes never opening at all. Right now there's a coffeehouse in our neighborhood that I've been excitedly awaiting, but the June opening became July, then August, maybe.

I was heading out the door this afternoon to the Rock Co. 4-H Fair. I did NOT give you a complete answer.

My first project of my career was a "one day", 16 hour project in a hospital kitchen. In 14 hours, we had to complete dinner service. After dinner, we had to disconnect and demolish a patient tray assembly line, haul it out, and install a $40,000 circular assembly line and have it ready at 7 am the next morning for breakfast service.

The first snafu was that NO ONE actually measured the entrances to the kitchen to see it we could actually get the equipment into the hospital. We ended up having to have the riggers spin he item on the side to get it in with about 1/4" to spare.

Believe it or not, everything worked the first day for the most part as we had the ENTIRE maintenance department (plumbers, electricians, etc.) present.

However, there were some glitches. For example, several of the drains were not working. I called the maintenance department and only teh carpenters were around. They decided to use compressed air to blow it out. What a mess as teh gunk sprayed everywhere. On Monday, the plumbers were in, opened the cabinet, and turned the valve and the drain was open. They had a great laugh at teh carpenters.

===========================

That went as smooth as it could.

My next major product was to open a kitchen in a newly built hospital. Let me list the problems.

1) The guy who designed the kitchen was a long term food service manager BUT never designed a kitchen. The equipment that he purchased MIGHT have been adequate to prepare 500 meals a day, not 3000. You had to review every menu to determine exactly how to produce the food with the limited equipment
2) Since the facility was a state hospital, the project was done on a lowest bidder basis. The genius electricians had placed all of the limited kitchen equipment on the same electrical breakers as the floor above ... which was the operating room. So for two weeks, our equipment was interfering with the operating rooms above. How scary!
3) The new hospital was built on the old Civil War era dump. The entire place was rat and mouse infested. The scary part was that the hospital administrators refused to use poison.

There were probably 50 other opening issues in that location. I worked out a number of problems in six months. However, I left the position as I saw NO commitment to fix the problems.

I have had ceiliings that are too low to stand under once the fire supression hood is in place, floors that need to be regraded so as to drain properly, a doorway on the second floor w/no stairs behind it, a 3 compartment sink that wouldn't fit in the space alloted, a 12x20 walk in that came w/all male connections (try putting that togehter) w/a ramp going in instead of out, eliminating about 20% of avail space, been forced to take down walls that passed inspection on blueprint but not once built, a pissed off inspector here and there and it goes on and on... In answer to your question, that's why.