5 Unexpected Challenges Of Running A Restaurant – 2024 Guide

For your restaurant to succeed, you have to understand the unexpected challenges that come with running it.

Running a restaurant can be very exciting and very rewarding. Your business will be a frequent destination for culinary lovers and a permanent one if you’re providing an excellent service.

But satisfying people’s taste isn’t the only challenge that comes with running a restaurant.

To better understand some of the unexpected challenges that might arise, we’ve decided to write a short article and explain some of them.

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So, without wasting too much of your precious time, let’s start.

Page Contents

1. Keeping Up With Trends

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Market familiarity is a very important thing that no business can survive without.

This doesn’t only apply to your business, but to any business out there. If you open a book on how to run a business, you’ll definitely find this written somewhere in the beginning.

It’s that important and it should be important to you as well. But how would you familiarize yourself with it?

Well, a lot of people simply open a restaurant without any prior research into some of the menu trends. While these trends won’t apply to every restaurant out there, it’s still something to consider before opening your business.

To answer the question on how to do it, you have to conduct periodic research into some of the trends that popular restaurants are on top of.

This allows you to stay ahead of the rest of your competitors by following a blueprint set out by the big players. Also, this can potentially bring you large sums of revenue.

2. Capital

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Owning capital is an unexpected challenge that all restaurant owners face. Again, this applies to every type of business out there but the lack of capital can completely break your business. No one survives without capital; this will only negatively impact your longevity.

As much as 57% of all businesses close within the first year. The probable cause for this is not enough revenue coming in, which essentially means the restaurant lacks the capital to survive.

So, before you open your restaurant, you should have enough money to run for at least a year.

3. Potential Disasters

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Every business owner should be varying potential disasters that can decimate their business.

As a restaurant owner, you should especially worry about potential plumbing disasters. Plumbing disasters aren’t uncommon at all; they’re actually quite common.

This is because a restaurant is frequently using water for cleaning, flushing, and lots of other things. As you might imagine, food can clog your pipes quite badly, which results in a disaster.

But it should be one of your main focuses to prevent such disasters from ever materializing. But how would you do that? Well, there are lots of ways, actually.

One way to do so is to follow the advice of the experts over at simpsonplumbingservices.com. They have created a very thorough guide on how to prevent plumbing disasters in a restaurant, so we suggest you take a look at it.

4. Staff

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An unexpected challenge that any restaurant owner should always expect is related to staffing.

Staffing refers to having the right employees to serve and prepare food for your customers. It’s of vital importance that you have the best possible people for the job, as it goes with any industry.

However, in this industry, it’s not only about hiring professionals; it’s also about having a good team all-year-round. Working in a restaurant is rarely a long-term job for a person. So, you should expect frequent staff changes.

However, one thing that very few bosses expect is the sudden surge of business during certain times of the year. For example, you should expect more customers in the summer than in any other month.

Also, you should spend a lot of your money into training the right people for the job; regardless if they leave after a year. This is something that might cost you some money but will give you so much in return.

Also, if you treat your employees right, you might even end up with a long-term employee on your hands that will love doing his job.

5. Management

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From employment to management, you should expect challenges to arise everywhere.

One management challenge is very similar to the previous one we talked about. Namely, having the right management can propel your business into greatness.

Hiring the right people, if you’re in a position to do so that is, will ensure that everything runs smoothly. Management, just like hiring staff, takes a lot of time to find the right people but will ultimately pay off.

For your restaurant to run profitably, hiring the best management is of utmost importance. These people will help shed light on numerous factors that can be eliminated to help save lots of resources.

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Some of the items we’re talking about can be overlooked as you’re too busy with normal day to day operating. So, to help shed light on the matter, here are some of the most common issues a restaurant manager can solve your business:

  • Keeping track of menu orders and determining what should and shouldn’t be on the menu based on ordering behaviors.
  • Determining the profit behind each meal on your menu and whether it needs to be higher/lower.
  • Determining the most profitable items on your menu list, and whether changes need to be made to them.
  • Determining how much money you’re spending on your employees compared to the profits of day to day operating.
  • Do you have a sales goal? If not, then you need to change that and stick to them.
  • Determining the profits every week, and finding solutions on how to increase it.
  • Determining a budget for your staff, and ensuring that you stick to it.

These are some of the things that most bosses overlook every day their business is open. Managers are trained to bring stability, longevity, and profit to your business. It’s an important role within any industry and something that every big restaurant has.

Avoiding potential disasters is crucial for a budding restaurant. A simple solution to potentially letting down customers is showing what menu items aren’t currently available. Mandoe Media has the ultimate guide for digital menu signs that show you how digital solutions can be utilized.