Know Before You Invest! Including Another Side of Business That Owners Don't Want to Talk About

Insiders want to get out, outsiders want to get in. The restaurant business is one of them. Many people may think that it is an easy business, buy and sell, and make a profit easily. But in reality, it is not as easy as you think. Including another perspective of the restaurant business, the dark side that makes business owners have headaches and heartaches.

1. You can sell, sell well, but there is no money left to save. It really exists.
Many restaurants are like this, even though they have a constant stream of customers, can barely keep up, can barely sell, but at the end of the month, after deducting expenses and employee wages, there is almost no profit. This is caused by many reasons, such as not truly understanding food costs, not looking at operating costs, some restaurants do not manage ingredients well enough, do not weigh, measure, or let a lot of ingredients go to waste, not to mention poor kitchen management, which causes food to be served slowly or with errors, resulting in even more wasted food and money.

2. Resign and immediately open a shop. Be careful of running out of reserve funds.
This is the dream of salaried employees who are bored with their old working lives and want to quit their jobs to be their own boss. But what is often found is that shop owners often forget that for a shop to survive for a long time, they have to go through trial and error, do marketing, and build an identity, all of which takes some time. Therefore, it is important to have at least 3-6 months of reserve funds in case the worst case scenario is that you cannot sell. You will still have enough capital to solve the shop's problems. In conclusion, if you do business but lack cash flow or reserve funds, be careful of failure!

3. The subordinate is fine for three days and sick for four days. No advance leave is required.
Being a shop owner doesn't mean you have to do everything yourself. Just managing the shop, controlling the budget, and promoting the shop is already very hectic. Hiring employees to help with the work is still necessary. If you get good employees, it's good. But if you get bad employees, who are absent, leave, don't notify in advance, or are sick so often that they can only work a few days, the work will definitely not progress. Therefore, another skill that shop owners must have is personnel management.

4. Raw material prices increase every day.
But restaurants cannot raise prices immediately. Raising prices will affect sales. If they raise prices again in three or four days, there will be no customers this time because customers themselves do not have that much purchasing power. And customers will definitely not be happy if they just raise prices as they please. What they need to do is to go back to managing ingredients better than before, reduce unnecessary losses, find new suppliers, or find something to replace that is more economical but with the same quality.

5. The better the location, the more expensive the rent. But if you choose a cheap location, you are afraid that the shop will not survive.
This is a difficult decision to make because rent is an expense that must be paid every month. Will you pay more and hope for high sales each month? Or will you pay more and not have to worry about sales too much? Or will you find other ways to sell through other channels, such as delivery apps or online.

6. In some cases, you have to accept being downgraded in delivery apps or given negative reviews.
Because it really can't be helped, such as late delivery due to overflowing orders, sudden out of stock and having to cancel orders, or many other unexpected reasons. Dealing with these issues requires experience and constant research.

7. Have to deal with various types of restaurant taxes.
Just selling each day is tiring enough. At the end of the month, you have to keep track of sales, collect all sorts of bills, and calculate taxes each round. If sales exceed 150,000 baht per month, you have to submit a VAT report. In addition, there are land taxes, signboard taxes, and customs taxes in the case of importing raw materials or equipment from abroad.

8. Facing all sorts of uncontrollable insults
Of course, service work must encounter many types of customers, both customers who are happy with our service and customers who have complaints or are dissatisfied with any aspect. If it is a constructive criticism, the shop will accept it and make improvements. However, in some situations, even if it is not the shop's fault, or there is a situation of cursing with vulgar and violent words that may spread to social media, it is something that the shop must find a way to deal with and even accept! Because we cannot provide service to satisfy every customer. But we must always adhere to quality standards and good service.

9. Because everything is "cost/profit"
Every ingredient, every piece of equipment costs money. You can't just let it rot and go to waste. The cost will definitely be sunk. For example, the cost of water, electricity, and gas, especially electricity and gas, are much more expensive than before. You can't just raise the price of food as you please. You don't know if the rent will increase or not. You also have to deal with the depreciation of kitchen equipment, including the "pan" which deteriorates faster with use. The better it sells, the sooner you have to buy a new one.

Actually, owning a restaurant is not that difficult. There are as many successful people as there are people who quit. If you want to be successful, you have to study and gain knowledge, understand numbers, and gain a solid understanding of finance and marketing. I guarantee you will succeed.