How to Start a Successful Restaurant

If you’ve wanted to start a restaurant for years, it might be time to sit down and draw up a plan to open your own business. To help you create a recipe for success, we’ve put together a how-to-get-started guide to make sure you have all the ingredients you need to open your restaurant with confidence.

While starting a restaurant is exciting, it’s also time-consuming and one of the toughest businesses to successfully launch — and the industry is only getting more competitive. Restaurant and foodservice sales are projected to hit a record $1.55 trillion in 2026, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2026 State of the Restaurant Industry report, but that growth is coming from menu price increases more than new customers walking through the door — only 42% of operators said they were actually profitable last year.

We’re not telling you this to temper your passion. We’re merely pointing out that if you want a successful restaurant, you’ll need to invest some serious time and money.

Why do many restaurants fail?

You’ve probably heard that 90% of restaurants fail in their first year. That number is a myth — it’s been debunked repeatedly and appears to trace back to an old TV ad, not real data. The actual picture is far less grim: government data on new business survival and industry closure tracking both show first-year restaurant failure rates have run well under 10% in most years since 2018, aside from a temporary spike during the pandemic, according to an analysis of U.S. restaurant closures by Datassential. Restaurants that make it past year one still face a tougher road long-term — roughly half close within five years — which is exactly why the planning stage matters so much.

Before you ever make dinner for a customer, you’ll spend a lot of time figuring out every detail of your restaurant. From kitchen appliances and menus to floor plans and staff selection, the planning stage will make or break your restaurant.

To help you plan, fund, and manage your new restaurant, we’ve asked a few owners to share their trade secrets. Kim Strengari owns three successful restaurants in the Philadelphia region, including Stella Blu, and Lambrine Macejewski spent 15 years as the co-founder of Cocina 214, a contemporary Mexican restaurant that was a Winter Park, Florida staple until it closed its doors in May 2026 when its building sold — she’s now scouting a new location in the area. Omer Orian, co-founder of Off the Waffle, has three locations — two in Eugene, Oregon and one in Portland. Below are their tips for success.

Tips for starting a successful restaurant

1. Have the right intentions

If you want to make it as a restaurant owner, you have to love what you do, Kim Strengari says. While she knew a restaurant was the right path for her, she had to work nights cleaning office buildings to make ends meet when she first opened her restaurant.

“I wanted the restaurant more than anything else in life, so the sacrifices were endless and I never minded making them,” she says.

To be successful, you’ll invest a lot of time and money — so make sure that starting a restaurant is your passion, not just a business venture you hope will make money. “It’s harder than you can imagine,” says Omer Orian, “but people do it all the time. It’s not at all dreamy.”

In these early days, it’s also a good idea to figure out what you want your restaurant to look like. What will be your restaurant’s aesthetic? What furniture will you need to purchase to fit the theme? How will you lay your restaurant out? Trent Furniture, a British furniture company, has a great article on the topic to help you get started.

Orian says, “A lot of it has to do with figuring out what kind of environment you want to work in, what will make you feel the way you want to feel. It also doesn’t hurt to have people in your life who have an eye for design.” Orian sat down with his co-founders and built a 3-D model to plan the layout of their first location. And ultimately, they did most of the work to build out the space themselves.

2. Have a solid business plan in place

You can’t scratch a business plan out on a cocktail napkin. You need a detailed business plan that charts the course for your success. That said, we suggest beginning with a one-page plan that keeps the business planning process simple. Think of your business plan as a living document that you return to regularly to help you plan for growth and measure your progress.

Orian says that he really got serious about his business plan when it was time to grow and expand to a new location. It helped them figure out what was feasible and how to move forward.

Your business plan should include market research, a comprehensive look at your competitors, information on your target audience, an outline of your marketing plan, and a solid financial and budgeting projection. To get you started, check out these templates specifically for restaurant planning.

As you think about what you want your restaurant to look like, don’t forget to keep an eye on industry trends. As with any startup, timing is key.

Pay special attention to your marketing plan

You can only rely on word of mouth to bring in so many customers, so you’ll need a marketing plan in place to keep new people streaming through your doors.

Here are a few ideas:

• Participate in community events and give out food samples
• Offer discounts to new customers
• Join the local business association
• Utilize social media channels

Get your licenses and permits in order early

This is the part of planning that trips up more first-timers than any other, mostly because requirements vary so much by city and state. At minimum, expect to need a business license, a food service (health department) permit, and food handler certifications for you and your staff — plus a liquor license if you’ll be serving alcohol, which can take months to process in some states. The U.S. Small Business Administration’s licensing guide is a good starting point for figuring out what applies to you at the federal, state, and local level.

To make the variation concrete: in New York City, a standard Food Service Establishment Permit from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene costs $280 a year, requires a supervising manager to pass a food protection course, and lets you open 22 days after you apply — even before your first inspection. Your city or county will have its own version of this process, its own fees, and its own timeline, so build the research into your planning stage rather than your opening-week to-do list.

3. Location, location, location

With a restaurant, location is everything. You need a spot that draws crowds, is easily accessible, and has the potential for growth. Of course, you need a location that fits within your budget too.

It makes sense to take your time as you’re looking for the right space. You might also want to do some research to find out if there are any startup incubator spaces for restaurants that you can join to keep initial costs low and that might come with mentorship opportunities. Whether you decide to rent space or build from scratch, selecting a location is one of the biggest decisions you’ll make as an owner. But you don’t have to do a huge build out at first.

When Orian was ready to launch Off the Waffle, he says he only had $3,000 to get the business started. “It sounds impossible,” he says, “but we found a bunch of hacks to make it work. We found a house that was actually in a commercial zone, so we were able to live and work in the same place.”

Orian’s three locations are all dedicated restaurant spaces, but it’s a good reminder to start small. “Once you’re $300,000 into a buildout for your location, it’s not like a house that you can just sell. There’s not a lot of retained value,” he says. “You’re sort of stuck with it.” So it makes sense to think it all through and test a smaller scale version before taking a huge and expensive leap.

4. Test your menu

Approach building your menu like an experiment. Consider having a dinner party featuring your proposed menu where you ask people for their honest feedback.

But don’t just invite your closest friends and family members. You might love the taste of a certain dish, but if customers won’t pay for it or aren’t keen on its taste, you won’t make money. When you ask for feedback, consider using a method that allows anonymous comments so that you get people’s honest reactions. Do your market research. Visit other restaurants to get a sense of appropriate pricing.

Orian says that when Off the Waffle first launched, there were only two items on the menu: a liège waffle and a glass of milk. He tested a lot of different ideas, including folding ingredients into the waffle dough and stuffing waffles like a pita pocket. Those approaches didn’t really delight their customers. So they moved on to interesting waffle toppings, and people loved it.

5. Hire essential help

How many people do you need on staff to get started? Some restaurant pros advocate for bringing on a manager prior to opening day, but think through your biggest needs. Do you need a dishwasher? How many cooks? What about servers? Take your time as you hire staff. Consider doing a soft opening so you can see how smoothly things run with just a few essential positions.

When Orian launched his first restaurant, the only employees were family. They scaled up slowly, but grew to around 50 employees working across their three locations. “When we started, we were newbies, so if we hired too quickly, we would have had trouble paying people a salary that would have brought in people with enough skills to make up for our inexperience. Over time, we learned how to do all the roles.” But now, he says if he opened a fourth location, it would be a natural progression to hire a manager right off the bat. He’s in a better position to be able to train them well.

Invest in training your employees

To better manage your staff, make sure you have employee training materials ready. Create job descriptions, codes of conduct, and an employee handbook. Create a training guide so employees are well prepared for their respective positions. Document recipes for your cooks so every meal is made to perfection. In other words, give your employees all of the necessary tools to succeed, Macejewski says.

Be willing to fill in where needed

As the owner, you can’t have an ego, Strengari says. If your idea of owning a restaurant is walking around in a pretty dress and makeup and asking customers what they think of the food, you’ll be in for a surprise. You have to be willing to do every job. From chopping vegetables to seating customers, you’ll have to fill in from time to time.

Watch your labor costs

A lot of restaurateurs have the urge to hire, hire, hire. While you will probably need to hire some staff to make your restaurant a success, don’t go overboard. Paying employees can be daunting, especially in the first few months when you’re not making a lot of money. It’s not always easy to figure out the right amount of staff to hire, Macejewski says.

“It’s tough to plan for if you are seasonal or have sporadic business, but you don’t want people on the clock if you don’t have the business,” she says. “You can’t afford it.”

6. Secure funding and manage your cash flow

Generate startup capital: As with every business, make sure you know how much money you need to get your restaurant off the ground. Total startup costs vary enormously by concept and location — a limited-service concept can open for roughly $100,000-$400,000, while a full-service restaurant with a substantial buildout often runs $500,000 to $2 million or more, according to Toast’s restaurant startup cost breakdown. The biggest line items are typically kitchen equipment and furniture ($20,000-$400,000), pre-opening inventory and training ($20,000-$120,000), and licensing, insurance, and utility deposits ($2,500-$200,000) — so it pays to build your budget around real categories rather than one lump number. Our startup costs calculator can help you map out your own numbers.

You’ll need three pools of money. The first pool is for one-time costs like equipment. The second pool is to cover restaurant expenses for at least six months, and the third pool is to cover your personal bills for at least six months. You’ll want at least six months of cushion because you’ll probably find that your expenses outpace your revenue for at least that long.

Plan to lose money for the first six months: Restaurants aren’t profitable overnight. It takes time to market your new place, attract a crowd, and get people to come back for more. Some say you shouldn’t plan on making money for at least the first six months.

Plan for bumps in the road: It’s easy to go over budget when you’re first starting out, so make sure that you have some additional money to cover the unexpected. If you’re not sure how to do this, consider a business line of credit.

When you do hit a bump, evaluate the numbers and your processes, Lambrine Macejewski says. For example, when she first opened Cocina 214, she realized her food costs were too high. She called her vendors and switched from a five-day delivery schedule to a two-day schedule. She saved the money she needed by investigating the problem and looking for a solution — the kind of hands-on cost control she’d rely on for the next 15 years of running the restaurant.

Watch your food cost: You’re in the business of making food, but if your food costs are out of line you’ll end up losing money. This is a bigger deal than it used to be — average restaurant food costs are now running more than 35% above pre-pandemic levels, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2026 State of the Restaurant Industry report, which cites Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price data. Make sure you keep track of your inventory, prepare food well, avoid waste, and keep prices competitive.

7. Keep marketing

You can’t depend on repeat customers, so you’ll need to keep your marketing efforts up to make sure your revenue stream doesn’t thin out. Establish a strong social media presence, try an ad in your local paper, participate in the local fair, or host a small non-profit get together at your restaurant to keep marketing your business.

Share your restaurant startup advice with us!

For the right owner, there’s nothing better than running a restaurant. You get to create an atmosphere and cuisine that people will love, but it comes with a lot of hard work.

Reach out to us on social media and share what you’ve learned through starting a restaurant, or let us know what else you think it takes. We’d love to hear from you!

Sources and further reading

• National Restaurant Association: 2026 State of the Restaurant Industry — industry sales, profitability, and food cost trends
• Datassential: U.S. Restaurant Failure Rate Data — first-year and five-year restaurant closure trends, 2018-2025
• U.S. Small Business Administration: Apply for Licenses and Permits — federal and state licensing overview
• NYC Food Service Establishment Permit — example of a real city health department permit process and fee
• Toast: How Much Does It Cost to Open a Restaurant? — startup cost breakdown by category
• Orlando Weekly: Cocina 214 is closing after 15 years of serving Winter Park — source for Cocina 214’s 2026 closure
• LivePlan Sample Restaurant Business Plans