How To Start An Indian Restaurant

If you want to know how to start an Indian restaurant, then there are 5 Top Mistakes that most people make and that is why they either have a business that is doing okay or one that is closed down within a Year. If you are serious about opening an indian restaurant, then you will read these carefully even bofore you start thinking about names and decor.

Did you know that over 80% of businesses fail withing the first year? You don’t want to be another statistic. Starting  an indian restaurant even if competition is low is still risky and should have all these following precautions taken.

Saying this though, having a successful restaurant and one that you are proud of is one of the best feelings in the world. You can  really live a fantastic life if you do succeed at this because there is so much opportunity once you get one successful. Looking at statistics, those that planned more at the beginning and avoided these 5 mistakes were the ones that survived.

 Mistake 1 in starting an Indian Restaurant    Not Doing your research properly.

If you are thinking of starting an indian restaurant, you must do your research about what you are actually doing and if there is a demand for it. An easier way to analyse this  is do something like a SWOT analysis. If you have never heard of a swot analysis, you will understand it when I explain it a little more simply

S – Is for Stregnths about what you are doing, Look for all the reasons why,a swell as look for stregnths in your competitors. It is this that will give you the edge and be able to analyse how you can  make things even better

W – Is for Weakness of your business, it is always good to know the weaknesses of your and your competitros business so you can make sure you minimise yours an take advantage of your competitors

O – Is for Opportunity. What opportunity do you have to? What opportunity does your competitor have

T – Is for threats. What can threaten your business and can you handle it? This could be personal threats or external threats, like roadworks that may effect your business. It is always very important to see what you are iup against.

Mistake 2 In starting an indian restaurant  Not starting with enough Capital.

This mistake is one of the worst you can have as not having enough money in a business can strangle you. If you start a business, make sure you make a business plan that will tell you accurately how much things are going to cost and also your running costs. Also allow some for emergencies and unforseen circumstances

Mistake 3 In Starting an Indian restaurant -  People do not study thier competition

 You may have already looked at this when you do your research. But it is vital to look at your competition. Do they seem like they are doing well, or are they struggling? If they are struggling, is it becuase they are not good or there are not people wanting to eat thier type of food.

Now this can be tricky, cause sometimes people do not know what they want when something new is introduced to them, so you may have to look at competition of other restaurants like italian or mexican and see how they are doing.

When you study your competition, always study the ones that are not doing so well as well as the ones that are. Go there and dine to get a feeling of what makes them good or bad. Also watch how customers are taking to it and thier reactions. Are they regular? Do they seem comfortable eating and ordering the food. This competition analysis will tell you so much you will be surprised.

Mistake 4 In starting an Indian restaurant  – Giving the customers what you want and Not what they want

This mistake is very common and is a big problem regarding restaurants and many businesses. If you are in an area where the people are used to a certain cuisine style, then you may find it difficult to convert them to anther style of cooking. Indian cuisine hasmany different regional differences which can make the food taste completely different to what people are used to.

An exampple of this is that Southern Indian cuisine can have taste of cream and coconut which wouldn’t really be found in the northern parts of india. So people who go to an indian restaurant may be used to a certain tast to indian food and may expect creamy indian food.

This is a very difficult aspect to judge, as people who eat thier type of food think it is the best and think that everyone will love it and that could be the case. It has been found that people who open an indian restaurant that is different to the style that the people are used to may go one of two ways

1) They may be successful, but it takes time as people will try and there is a chnace to convert them. This could take time and is dependant on if the people’s tastebuds like it. In this restaurant gets busy due to novelty and then goes quiet as people then go back to what they are used to.

2) Or the city where you have set up has so many different restaurants, it just becomes another one in the melting pot and you develop your own set of customers. This can happen as long as there is enough population to give you the amount of people that can sustain your restaurant.

Mistake 5 – Open before they are ready
When there are bills going out and you are feeling the strect, it is very tempting to open before you are ready. This does happen to many people and can lead to unsatisfied customers and them never coming back as well as a word of mouth that is not too good. A really good way to make sure this does not happen to you is to plan as much as possible then go through test runs of how the whole restaurant will work.

This will make you prepared and look like you really know what you are doing when the doors will open.

These are just the top 5 mistakes, as you will see there is quite a learning curve to opening your restaurant and the more information you have read and understand the better your chance of success.