Walk down any high street in the country and you can be almost certain of finding at least a small selection of restaurants. There may be a Chinese, Indian or Italian restaurants. You may not even notice them unless you’re actually going for a meal. But many of them started as little more than a dream for an aspiring entrepreneur.
If the idea of being surrounded by food, providing excellent service, seeing people enjoy themselves and being at the heart of the community is your idea of heaven, then the restaurant trade could be just for you.
The term restaurant can encompass everything from your local pizzeria to haute cuisine. Essentially, restaurants serve and prepare food for the public. In the last 15 years or so, there has been something of a culinary revolution in the UK. While we may still lag woefully behind the French or Italians, eating out is big business. As our own cooking skills have declined, a new generation has become more and more dependent on someone else doing the cooking.
No doubt you have eaten out yourself and have your own ideas about what makes a good restaurant, whether it is the food or the atmosphere. You may even think that the likes of Delia Smith have dream jobs. But you shouldn’t think that that makes you qualified to set up a restaurant.
Ian McKerracher, chief executive of the National Restaurant Association, says that many people fall into that trap but it is precisely the wrong idea to go into the business. “People tend to go with what they enjoy rather than what there are the right resources for. Too many people say ‘I know what I like’ when it’s rather more a question of marketing and the quality of your product.”
In fact, it is less about being front of house and more about knowing the other face of the industry. That’s what Prego’s Steve Cox did: “Work in one first and get experience, both back and front of house. Wash the pots. I’m a chef by trade and I came through the mill and nobody can pull the wool over my eyes.”
