Café/Restaurant Business Plan
The business plan is arguably the most important part of any start-up venture. It is an exercise in focusing your ideas for the business and taking a comprehensive view of all the factors involved in its success.
The business plan has three major sections:
- A narrative document describing the various aspects of the venture and supporting documents
- A set of financial statements that demonstrate the profitability of the project
- A set of supporting documents (Appendix) such as menus, resumes, leases, floor plans, etc.
The Narrative Document
This part of a café business plan takes focused time and effort and is best done by the principals themselves. I recommend that you give it a try. To help you I have researched and created a concise, easy to follow outline and sample narrative business plan from the most reputable sources then customized it for café/restaurant use. This plan format has been tested in real-life deals and received raves from bankers, private investors and venture capitalists.
Hundreds of aspiring café/restaurant owners have virtually copied this plan (changing names, dates, etc. of course) and used it as their own. I do not recommend this and suggest you use it only as a structural guide. The research and planning you will be forced to do will be invaluable and greatly increase your chances of success. This product has been recently updated and includes bonuses such as cover letter and confidentiality agreement samples.
The Financial Statements
The financials are best done with the help of an expert, as they involve complex legal and accounting principles. This is where I can make life easier and save you money! Financial Modeling Spreadsheets is a set of reports designed to compliment and complete the narrative portion of your café business plan. It demonstrates (among many other thins) how you will obtain startup funds, how they will be spent, and a projection of your sales and revenue for the first year of operation.
This portion of the business plan is every bit as important as the narrative and perhaps even more so. If this part is done thoroughly and honestly, it serves as a valuable and very accurate tool for predicting financial success (or failure) in the critical first year of operation. Many projects have not moved forward (and thereby saving countless hours and thousands of dollars) after a careful analysis using this tool.
For this part of the project, I do not recommend that you do it on your own or even with the help of inexpensive "shrink-wrapped" software. When I opened my first café, I used very expensive accountants and lawyers to build my financials, and if you do not use the package that I am showing now, I suggest should do the same.
The Appendix
These are any documents or information that either weren't appropriate or important enough to be included in the main narrative. Mostly, they are a collection of items such as a copy of your lease, menus, personal resumes or financial statements, marketing studies, competitive analysis, etc. The appendix is perhaps the easiest part of the business plan to create, but very important as well. You never know what a prospective investor or lender will be looking for.
