Three things worth getting right before you take the plunge.
I’ve spent almost my entire working life in hospitality, and over the years I’ve met plenty of people who dream of opening their own pub, bar, restaurant or café… and I completely understand why.
There’s something incredibly appealing about creating a place that’s yours. Somewhere you’ve built from an idea, where people want to spend their time, where you can put your own personality into the business and hopefully make a decent living doing something you enjoy.
But there’s also a lot more to it than finding a great building, coming up with a clever name and deciding what colour to paint the walls.
Whether you’re taking over an existing business or starting something completely new, there are three things I’d encourage anyone to think seriously about before getting too carried away.
And they’re probably not the three things you’d expect.
1. First, understand the lifestyle you’re signing up for
Hospitality is a fantastic industry to work in. It’s rewarding, sociable, creative and, quite often, a lot of fun but it’s also bloody hard work.
One of the first things I’d say to anyone looking to open their own business is that you need to understand what it’s going to mean for your lifestyle. Because the reality is that when most people are enjoying themselves, you’ll probably be working.
Friday evenings, Saturdays, Sundays, bank holidays, Christmas, Easter and the height of summer. These are often the very times when hospitality businesses are at their busiest and, hopefully, most profitable.
While your friends are planning a bank holiday weekend away, you might be planning how to get through three days of exceptionally busy trading.
While everyone else is winding down for Christmas, you’re probably gearing up for one of the most demanding periods of your year.
When other people have finished work and are heading out for the evening, your working day might only just be getting started.
Of course, this looks different depending on the business. A daytime café has a very different trading pattern from a late night bar, and a seasonal leisure business has its own challenges. However, the principle is much the same. Your busiest times will generally be dictated by when your customers are available, not necessarily when you’d like to work and especially in the early days, you’ll probably be doing a lot more of those hours yourself than you originally planned.
I’m not saying any of this to put people off. Quite the opposite.
I’ve made a career out of hospitality because I genuinely love it. There’s very little that compares to the buzz of a busy venue, a team working brilliantly together and a room full of customers having a fantastic time, but you need to go into it with your eyes open.
You must make peace with the lifestyle, and ideally enjoy it, because if you don’t, even a successful business can become an incredibly difficult place to spend your time.
2. What are you actually going to be known for?
This is probably my favourite question to ask anyone who’s thinking about opening a hospitality business.
Why are people going to choose you?
Not why do you think your idea is good, but why is somebody going to walk past another pub, café, restaurant or leisure venue and choose to spend their money with you instead?
Why are they going to come back? What makes you stand out?
I think this is where people can sometimes get caught up in the excitement of creating something new without properly understanding what they’re trying to create.
You don’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel. You don’t need a completely unique concept, the most expensive fit out or something nobody has ever seen before.
But you do need to be clear about what makes your business worth visiting.
Perhaps you’re going to serve genuinely fantastic coffee in a relaxed environment. Perhaps it’s a brilliant neighbourhood restaurant offering good food without all the fuss. Maybe it’s a sports bar with an atmosphere that people simply can’t get watching the match at home.
Whatever it is, you need to understand it, believe in it and build the business around it and there’s far more to that than just the product you’re selling.
It’s the environment you create, the people you employ, the atmosphere, the music, the way customers are welcomed and how the whole experience works from the moment somebody walks through the door until the moment they leave.
What does that customer journey look like? How do people order? How quickly should things happen? What should the team be doing at different points of the visit?
All those little details matter more than you could possibly imagine.
One thing I feel particularly strongly about is the difference between service and hospitality. Service is the process of giving people what they’ve ordered and paid for. Hospitality is how you make them feel while you’re doing it. You can serve a perfectly good meal or pour an excellent pint and still give someone an entirely forgettable experience.
The best businesses understand both and that means hiring the right people, training them properly and then giving them the freedom to deliver hospitality.
You can’t write personality into a checklist. Sometimes the difference between a good visit and a brilliant one is a team member taking a moment to have a conversation, recognising a regular or doing something a little unexpected for a customer.
Those are the things people remember.
Service is the process of giving people what they’ve ordered and paid for. Hospitality is how you make them feel while you’re doing it.
So, before you worry too much about what your logo looks like, ask yourself what you want people to say about your business when they’re recommending it to their friends.
If you can’t answer that, I think you’ve got a bit more work to do.
3. Is there actually a market for what you’re creating?
Now for the less exciting bit, but arguably the one that can make or break the whole idea.
Location and demand.
You might have the best concept in the world, a fantastic team and a genuine passion for what you’re doing, but if there aren’t enough people who want what you’re offering, in the place you’re offering it, you’re going to have a problem.
That’s something worth understanding before you’ve signed a lease and spent a small fortune fitting the place out.
I’d want to know who lives nearby, who works in the area, where people currently spend their money and what the competition looks like.
What’s the footfall like? Does it change throughout the week? Is the area busy all year or heavily dependent on tourism and seasonal trade?
If you’re opening a café, are there enough people looking for breakfast and lunch during the week? If it’s a restaurant, is there a genuine evening market? If you’re creating a leisure venue, are there enough customers willing to travel to you, and how often are they likely to return?
And don’t just look at the area on a sunny Saturday afternoon when everywhere appears busy. Go back on a Tuesday morning. Have a look on a wet Wednesday evening. Spend some time understanding how the area actually works.
Competition is interesting too. Having other successful businesses nearby isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it can demonstrate that there’s already a market. The question is whether there’s room for what you’re offering, and whether you’re providing a good enough reason for customers to choose you.
I’d also want to start looking at the numbers at this point.
Not just how much it costs to open, but how much the business realistically needs to take each week to survive. Rent, rates, wages, utilities, stock, maintenance and all the other costs that have a habit of adding up rather quickly. What is your breakeven?
It’s very easy to build a business plan around what you hope the sales will be. It’s much more useful to understand what happens if they’re not.
Because a fantastic concept in the wrong location, or with the wrong cost structure, can very quickly become an expensive lesson.
And finally, don’t lose sight of why you’re doing it
There’s obviously far more to opening a hospitality business than these three things. Funding, licensing, compliance, recruitment, financial planning and a hundred other details all need proper attention.
But for me, lifestyle, identity and demand are the foundations I’d want to understand before anything else.
I’ve seen enough of this industry to know that a good idea doesn’t automatically make a good business. Equally, I’ve seen fairly straightforward ideas become brilliant businesses because the people behind them understood their customers, knew their numbers and genuinely cared about what they were creating.
It’s part of what led me to start The Nitty Gritty. I enjoy working through the practical realities of hospitality businesses, asking the sometimes awkward questions and helping turn good ideas into something that can actually work.
Because the goal shouldn’t just be to open a business… It should be to create one that customers love, that you’re proud of, and that gives you a sustainable living without taking over every part of your life.
And if you can get those things right, hospitality really can be one of the most rewarding industries to be part of.
