Restaurateur

To survive, human beings need just three things: food, shelter, and water. If you want to own a prolific business, therefore, it seems reasonable that one of the smartest — although by no means easiest — things you can do is open a restaurant, which offers all three!

If you’re a Restaurateur (a French-ish word for Restaurant Owner) that’s exactly what you’ve done: You’ve opened, and now own, a restaurant. Or maybe even several of them.

While you might have a culinary background — some Restaurateurs are professionally trained Chefs, although many aren’t — you’re a businessperson more than anything else, which means you, the Restaurateur, are responsible for funding and managing the restaurant’s operations, of which food is only one piece.

Because studies have shown that more than half of new restaurants fail within their first year, you’ve got an enormous yet extremely delicious task ahead of you.

Whether you own a casual diner or a five-star bistro, that task typically encompasses human resources (that is, hiring, firing, training, and supervising staff, including Chefs, Servers, Hosts, Bartenders, Dishwashers), marketing (that is, promoting the restaurant via paid advertisements, public relations efforts, customer loyalty programs), finance (that is, setting prices, creating budgets, balancing the books, making bank deposits, signing checks, managing costs), food (that is, menu creation, inventory control, food safety and storage), and service (that is, dealing with customers, managing the dining room).

Basically, you’re the CEO of your restaurant, which means your job is to make sure the food is good, the service is superb and — most important of all — the profit margin is high!