Guides
Essential checklist for opening a new restaurant, cafe or bar.
A comprehensive checklist of everything you need to consider and prepare for opening a new restaurant, cafe or bar. Before you start working on your menu, there’s a long list of permits, registrations and planning to undertake. Tips by chef, restaurateur and community leader, Sebastian Pasinetti from OKO Rooftop and cafe.
Concept and business plan.
A business plan shouldn’t sit in a folder or in a drawer, the goal is to make it clear, concise and actionable. Here is some advice and tips from restaurant owners on how to build a successful plan that includes relevant market research and one page plan.
Industry Tip
Once you open a restaurant or hospitality business without a business plan, there are no medium or long term goals to make yourself accountable. It helps structure your offering, who your target audience is and what your business model is. It doesn’t need to be too in depth, but it definitely needs to be an A4 piece of paper that you can hold yourself accountable to.
Budgeting and costs.
Whether you're a small bar playing records, a food truck or a large restaurant with a complex menu. It helps to have a budget. Once you have a good sense of your startup costs you can be more confident in raising the funding you need to start your journey.
Industry Tip
Three tips for creating a budget when opening a hospitality venue.
Research all your options for alcohol, food and cost of goods (cogs). You want to find the best product, for the best price, that is suitable for your business.
Write down your budget and keep yourself accountable.
Add 30% of your original budget, because things will probably go over budget during the set up of your restaurant or venue.
Funding and grants.
There are numerous state and federal grants and support programs available to help you get started.
New Business Assistance for self employment
Depending on where you are located, each state and territory have different programs and assistance available. Go check out the various state portals below.
VIC, NSW, TAS, SA, WA, NT, QLD
You can also use this grant finder.
The average restaurant owner in Australia spends $650,000 setting up their restaurant as a benchmark. The more detail oriented you are at this stage the better.
Make sure you have a contingency plan, Not everyone has a rich family member like in our favourite show about opening a restaurant, The Bear.
Here is a spreadsheet template for calculating costs.
Picking a location.
Picking a location and getting the right deal on your lease are critically important as you get started. We suggest spending time with locals, asking lots of questions and trying to get as much data as possible. If you can keep your leasing cost below 15% of your projected income that will go a long way to making your venture more sustainable.
Industry tips
Looking for the best location for your new venue is really important. We use three things to figure it out.
Picture the community that you want to focus your restaurant offering on.
Is the restaurant or cafe street facing?
Is it close enough for you to get home easily when finishing late at night?
Licences, insurance, certificates and paperwork.
You can’t build a business on your own. Having a good lawyer and accountant to guide you in the early stages is really helpful. Skip the pitfalls and avoid the surprises. Here is a list of some of the basic paperwork that you need to complete before opening.
Business: Register your business ABN.
Website: Get a nice domain name and don’t spend too much.
Trademark: Get a trademark if you are worried about your IP being copied.
Council certificates: Go to your local council website and start working on your certificates, including, zoning, fire safety, occupation and compliance certificates.
Licences: Make sure you apply for your liquor licence and food licence well in advance.
Music licence: If you want to play music it is important to register and get a music licence.
Insurance: You can’t trade without insurance, make sure you get a policy that covers everything you might need including – public liability insurance, workers compensation insurance, product liability insurance and property insurance.
Building your team.
Finding the right team to support your vision is hard, but the real goal is to create a welcoming and fun culture that grows organically from your first hires and stays healthy for the long term.
Industry tip
Hiring and good culture is really important. For hiring we are always looking for somebody who is really passionate about the industry, comes from a food background or has some kind of connection to community and food specifically to where they are from.
For building a good culture we always like to lean into diversity, inclusion and equity. Look at all angles and aspects of the industry in order to find different people and different voices that can take a seat at the table.
Technology
We believe that your Point of Sale is your operating system, and you need to pick a solution that matches your ambitions. ArtsPay integrates with numerous systems or we can provide everything you need to get started.
Fast reliable payments
Easy to use point of sale
Simple inventory management
Get in touch
Switch your business to ArtsPay, introduce us to a friend or come and work with us. Help us build a new sustainable funding source for the arts.