Building a successful restaurant requires the right location. The food-service industry is a delicate industry that requires careful choice of location, especially if you are establishing your brand in Nigeria. Many people become victims of location. There are several instances where locations have been responsible for killing restaurants. For example, some thriving restaurants have been demolished without compensation by the government because they failed to do their due diligence.
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Not every food-service business needs to be in a retail location, but for those that do depend on retail traffic, here are some factors to consider when deciding on a location:
Anticipated sales volume.
Before choosing a location you have to ask yourself how many people you want to serve daily. What is the capacity of your restaurant? Is it a restaurant that can serve 100, 1,000, or 2,000 people daily? With this in mind, you can determine if the location can give you such numbers.
Accessibility to potential customers.
Consider how easy it will be for customers to get into your business. If you are relying on strong pedestrian traffic, consider whether or not nearby businesses will generate foot traffic for you.
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The rent-paying capacity of your business.
Another factor to take into consideration is the capacity of your business to pay the rent rate of your chosen location.
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You can get this by projecting how much you can earn in your first year of operation, with the knowledge of your possible total revenue, you can discern if you can pay the rent.
These are the local laws and regulations governing the location of your choice. Some regulations are restrictive. For example, there are limitations on the hours vehicles can ply or use a road. The road may be usually barricaded during specific hours of the night.
With careful examination of the traffic levels in your location, you can deduce the estimated sales possibility of each pedestrian passing a given location. Two factors are particularly crucial in this examination: cumulative pedestrian traffic during business hours and the percentage of it that is likely to patronize your foodservice business.
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Customer parking facilities.
A good location should have adequate parking facilities. When there are no available parking facilities within the location, road users might simply drive off.
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Proximity to other businesses.
Establishing your restaurant in a business area comes with both merits and demerits.
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On the merit side, a business area sees the influx of people who might stop by to patronize you. On the demerit side, you might be faced with competition.
Some sites have proved to be unprofitable to restaurant businesses due to several factors. It is important to carry out historical research on your chosen site, to know who were the previous tenants, and why are they no longer there?
Be sure you understand the terms and conditions of your location’s lease. There are possibilities that the area might be excellent, but its leasing terms are unbearable.
Ensure to reach out to the local planning board to see if there are plans that might affect your business. For example, road construction or additional building nearby might negatively affect your business.
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