[Frdsdx26]

sure you can open a small restaurant...

There are success-stories, like Gorditos in Cabarete. Mind you, there are a lot more nosuccessstories...

Ask yourself the following questions...
- Do I have some unique cuisine to offer? Or will I offer the same crap every restaurant offers. Unique +1, same crap -5
- Am I willing to work my ass off myself, or will I hire cheap labor to work for me? Ass +1, labor -5
- Do I have experience running a restaurant, or you think you can cook? Experience +1, think -5
- Do I have plenty of money, or will I be a pauper if I fail? Plenty +1, pauper -5

If you get +1 or more as total score, you might have a chance... lol

BelgianK

[Xlkl9SFd]

OP asked for one word: Optimist

[esconsise]

My one word for the OP: Ignorance.

[prmwsinfo]

Here ya go kiddo,

..."Excuse me, I am a French man..." Vive La France!

[fhutiussk]

IF YOU DO THIS AND DO NOT LISTEN TO RHE BEST BIT OF FEEDBACK THIS FORUM JUST HAPYHOURED YOU THEN GO FORWARD WARRIOR AND JOIN THE DUMB. DEAF,AND BLIND ....(no offence to any of these conditions except when starting a restaurant bar bus here

[b3JOkwXL]

El loco.
donP

Wait!
On a second thought, I have to eat my words.
In Santiago there was this small restaurant, I forget the name... I think, "El Café".
Whenever I was in Santiago I went there, excellent food, good service, even moderate prices considering the quality.
Not many tables, maybe 5 or 6.... only open during lunch time and in the evenings.
I think, the owner shut it down for reasons other than economic problems.

I am sure, Don Hillbilly knows more about the place.

IMO, a gourmet place in a city has more of a chance than a bar/restaurant in a tourist town.

donP

[Tic Tac Took]

First can i ask what kind of Restaurant are you trying to open? Don't say Italian because they are enough Italian Restaurants i can suggest a Greek joint the gyro's, souvlakis with some Ouzo this place needs some difference especially in food we either mostly eat Italian or American they are no Mediterranean or Japanese, Thai, South Korean type of places i bet you will make a killing if you choose the rite location.

[Yartonbler]

What is your experience running a rest/bar? Are you one of those "It's gotta be easy, anybody could do it" kind of guys?

20 years in the biz

[Yartonbler]

First can i ask what kind of Restaurant are you trying to open? Don't say Italian because they are enough Italian Restaurants i can suggest a Greek joint the gyro's, souvlakis with some Ouzo this place needs some difference especially in food we either mostly eat Italian or American they are no Mediterranean or Japanese, Thai, South Korean type of places i bet you will make a killing if you choose the rite location.

I's spend several weeks seeing what's what, and what's needed, where. I'll go ahead when I feel comfortable, as I'm in no hurry.
Some great advice here, some scary... ;P

[Diwokfkq]

Not the entire thread, but just this post by PICHARDO

As long as you avoid 100% the touristic poles, the goal of catering just to the expats/foreigners in the DR, the coastal areas and pretty much only select from Santiago or Santo Domingo to place you new biz? Go for it!

Just as any place on earth, location is your first enemy or friend depending on your biz model.

Do you bring a new taste that's missing to the city and people?

Are you aware that what you think is a novel idea to the DR is in reality something already tried and failed here?

If there's not rice involved, it will not last long! Must incorporate some of the local staples and avoid the too exotic.

You can open the biz and see it make a big splash the first few months or year, only to regress until only your family and friends are the patrons... Out of pity...

The key to success in the DR is to be well positioned economically for the long haul. Don't even dream of paying the operating costs from the biz itself in the short to mid term, unless you are opening the first Starbucks in the country...

Your greatest nemesis will be the electrical service. If you don't have a strong bypass for this, forget it!

If you hit gold and the biz is a hit with the locals, be prepared for fierce copycat competition setting up even next door.

It's ok to rip off ideas that work from other places, since they did exactly the same too!

The service part is what will make or break your biz. Don't try to cater to just one sector, as this will kill your biz.

For what's worth, don't hire people to full time schedules! A maximum of two days per week is the best ratio to offer. This will allow those people to have more than one source of income and let you explore good combinations for service in the staff. After a long time, if you consider the individual a grade "A" asset, then you offer them more workdays at a time.

Don't provide a fix salary or per hour pay other than a base! Breakdown your costs and profits from each item you plan to sell/offer and create a shared profit % for each employee in your care. That's to say that a beer that you'll sell for (make believe amounts here) RD$ 40 pesos, must include a RD$4 pesos cut for the server, RD$1 peso for the busboy and RD$2 pesos for the kitchen staff. The faster the kitchen turns over food, the faster the service, the more the servers will be able to offer to clients as in appetizers, side dishes, desserts, etc... The faster and more efficient will the busboys carry out their duties.

This will make the staff work for their money and you with a happy smile all the time.

In our DR biz, our employees get a cut of all the biz they are involved in. From head to toe, anybody involved in a given contract, sale, trade, etc... gets a profit share.

Take your time to teach and provide training to your staff! They'll perform what you practiced and got trained to do!

Expect to get what you paid for from your employees. Pay low salaries/bonuses, you'll get low performance/output.

Raise the bar on hires! Don't hire people with lack of schooling or appropriate college/technical training.

Don't provide free meals but discounted food to your employees. If you give it for free, then it will not bee seen as theft when they opt to snack out of their food time from available stuff in your kitchen/stocks.

Use a client promotional program, where patrons get points they can have discounted as free meals/services on later orders. First of all, don't let patrons know the promotion is there. But just letting they see it as an appreciation for their calls from time to time from the biz, when the points are reached.

That's to say you add a certain amount of extra fee on your items, but this extra fee included in the price of the goods is not to be taken as profit on the moment. As the client keeps paying visits and ordering the points accumulate and when the points/value reach the level of their order for that day, the discount is applied to their tab.

The client will notice that the more he visits, the more times that event takes place. He just doesn't know at what point or amount per visit this will traduce to a free meal/service. Nor will he know the amount it needs to be to become a free one.

You can do that to both eat-in and carry-out/delivery orders.

They are not free in reality, but for the clients it sure will feel like that!

One big problem all too common to restaurants in the DR, is that of ingredients/inventory. They fail to institute a supply system that assures consistency of the goods each week/month for the most part.

This is why a lot of times, when somebody eats at a place and gets an outstanding meal, another time it will fall flat.

The service could be the same and well as the way things are done, but when the raw material employed in the dish fail to keep with the quality/freshness/taste, the dish prepared is too distant to the last one.

Green peppers from one region will not taste the same as another. Nor will they share the same texture and crispness when cooked. The colors will vary, etc...

Reason why you can eat a Big Mac in NYC and the same order in LA with very faint differences in the taste/texture, have much to do with the supply policy of the company.

Chickens supplied from a local Gallinero, will not change in taste as much as those you can get from a huge poultry meat supplier. The local gallinero will actually replenish the sold chicken with the same line of the old chicks. The large poultry operator will get them from who knows and what region.

A simple dish like chicken breast stuffed with shrimp, could change drastically just on the taste of the chicken meat!

There's more to a successful biz than a dream and a few thousand dollars to invest in it.

[EHjEjdqe]

What one word would you use to describe an expat such as myself opening up a small rest/bar somewhere in your beautiful country. Give me the good, the bad, and the ugly!

All start:

-Risky

What one word, well I believe that it takes the 2 words you used, : DAZED and CoNFUSED!

[DoctorNelsonOnten]

I's spend several weeks seeing what's what, and what's needed, where. I'll go ahead when I feel comfortable, as I'm in no hurry.
Some great advice here, some scary... ;P

Don't be scared... be informed. Tons of country specific advice here.

And the thing Pich said about somebody opening next to you if you're successful.... 100% on the money.