Opening a restaurant: the operating checklist, from concept to the first 90 days

There's the restaurant you dream of and the restaurant the numbers can carry: you open well when the two coincide. This is an operating checklist — concept, location, licences, team, suppliers, menu, soft opening and the first 90 days — for people who are serious about it. One honest note before we start: this article is not legal or tax advice. Permits and requirements differ from town to town and change over time: for that part you need an accountant and your local authorities, not an article on the internet.

1. Concept: one sentence, three numbers

Before you view a single site, the concept has to fit in one sentence: who eats at your place, on what occasion, at what price. "Neighbourhood bistro, weekday work lunches and family dinners at the weekend, 25 € a head" is a concept. "Quality food for everyone" is not: it doesn't say who you're giving up, and a restaurant that gives up nobody chooses nothing — not a menu, not prices, not a room.

Then three numbers on one sheet of paper:

• Realistic covers per service — not maximum capacity, but the seats you'll actually fill in the first months, which is always fewer than you hope.
• Expected average check, consistent with the street and the offer: a neighbourhood that spends 15 € at lunch won't spend 35 because your risotto is good.
• Fixed monthly costs — rent, payroll, utilities, equipment instalments.

Out of those three numbers comes the calculation that decides everything: how many covers a week you need to break even. If breaking even requires a full room every single night, the project isn't ready — better to find out on paper than in month six.

2. Location: rent your revenue can carry

The right site isn't "the nicest one you can afford": it's the one whose rent fits inside your projected revenue. A widespread rule of thumb in the trade is to keep rent around or under 10% of expected annual revenue — it's not a law, it's a safety margin: the heavier the rent, the less room is left for staff and ingredients, which are what quality is made of.

Beyond the rent, check:

• Real footfall. Watch the street on different days and at different hours — Tuesday lunchtime, not just Saturday night. A "busy street" that's only busy on Saturdays is a quiet street with a city-centre rent.
• The kitchen. Size, state of the installations, extraction: rebuilding a kitchen costs more than it looks, and months of works are months of rent with no income.
• Storage and access for deliveries: unloading pallets at 7 a.m. on a pedestrian street is a problem that returns every single week.
• Who pays for the fit-out. A low rent on a site that needs gutting is often a high rent in disguise.

3. Licences: the bundle, without DIY

Every town has its own exact list of requirements, forms and offices: don't try to reconstruct it from an article — get it from someone who knows it, typically your accountant and the local chamber of commerce, council or licensing office. It's the fastest route, and the one that avoids surprises once the builders are in.

What you can do right now is budget time and money for the categories that come up almost everywhere:

• Food-safety training for everyone who handles food, plus the kitchen's own hygiene self-checks.
• Premises requirements — hygiene, ventilation and extraction, toilets, accessibility: this is the part that can mean building works, so verify it before signing the lease, not after.
• Signage and outdoor space — the sign over the door and any terrace almost always carry their own paperwork and fees.

One thing, however, is certain across the whole EU: Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 obliges you to declare the 14 allergens for every dish you serve. Prepare it now, not the night before opening: the free allergen matrix tool is the right place to start.

4. Team: hire for the services, not for the titles

Size the team for the real services of your first quarter, not for the packed room you imagine at cruising speed: adding a server when you need one is easy, removing a salary is painful. Three habits worth more than ten interviews:

• Paid trial shifts. One real service tells you more about a person than any CV.
• One person who "owns" the floor. Even in a team of four, someone must be the reference for bookings, complaints and the rhythm of service.
• Simple written procedures — opening, closing, handling a complaint — before day one, not after the first disaster. One page each is enough.

5. Suppliers: two quotes and a plan B

For every category — fresh produce, meat and fish, drinks, non-food — get at least two quotes and compare them at equal quality and yield, not just list price: the tomato that costs 20% less and yields 30% less is a price increase, not a discount. Put delivery days, delivery windows and payment terms in writing: in the first months, cash is the most fragile thing you have.

And for critical ingredients — the ones the menu stops without — you need a backup supplier contacted before you open. Plan B is something you prepare while you don't need it.

6. The menu: short, costed, ready to change

The opening menu must be short: a handful of dishes the kitchen executes well under pressure beats thirty dishes "so there's something for everyone". Every extra item is storeroom lines, waste and complexity at exactly the moment your team is most fragile.

Cost every dish with real gram weights — it takes two minutes with the free food-cost calculator — so prices come from your costs, not from copying the restaurant next door.

And make the menu digital from birth: online with a QR code on the table, updated instantly, with allergens and translations sorted from day one — the digital menu guide shows how to set it up in an evening. In the first months the menu will change often, and that's healthy: better not to pay for a reprint at every correction.

7. Soft opening: make your mistakes in small

Before the real opening, run two or three invitation-only evenings — friends, family, the shopkeepers on your street — with a reduced menu and a deliberately half-full room. The goal isn't revenue: it's measurement. How long from order to plate? Which dishes come out slow? Where does the pass jam? Does the dishwasher keep up?

After each evening, a half-hour debrief while it's fresh, and a list of fixes. Every flaw found in a soft opening is a flaw paying guests will never see.

8. The first 90 days: three numbers every week

Once you're open, real accounting arrives at month end, but three numbers deserve a look every week, in a notebook or a spreadsheet:

• Actual vs theoretical food cost. If the gap grows, somewhere there's waste, off-recipe portions or stock walking out the door.
• Covers per service. Watch the four-week trend, not one Saturday.
• Average check — revenue divided by covers, not by receipts: one bill can cover a table of four. Once the machine runs, there are honest levers to grow it.

What about delivery? In the first 90 days the dining room comes first: that's where habits and neighbourhood reputation are built. Once service is stable, take a calm look at what changes in a menu that travels — dishes, packaging and margins play by their own rules.

In short

Opening well means: a one-sentence concept and three numbers, rent your revenue can carry, the licensing bundle handled with your accountant and the local offices, a team sized for real services, suppliers with a plan B, a short costed menu, a soft opening that finds the flaws instead of your guests, and three numbers a week for the first 90 days.

The menu is the part you can prepare today, free: create yours with Menudetto — QR code, compliant allergen info and translations ready for the first service, and every change of the early months goes live instantly.