The French are known for being fine gourmets but also true lovers of cafés on terraces. Also, café restaurants have been all the rage for many years. Do you want to take the plunge and open your own café restaurant? Discover the different stages of opening a café restaurant, from market research to furnishing, including finding the ideal location, we tell you everything!
- Before embarking on the opening of a café restaurantt
- Finding «the place to be»
- Arranging your café restaurant
- Promoting your new café restaurant
1 - Before embarking on the opening of a café restaurant
Are you ready to start the entrepreneurial adventure of opening a café restaurant? Before being able to choose the ideal location and its furnishings, a few administrative steps await you to think about the smallest details of your project.
Define the concept of the café restaurant
First of all, the first step is to choose whether you want to start independently or if you prefer to join a franchise? If the franchise can provide security thanks to the franchisor's experience, the freedom of independence can also attract.
You can choose to import a café or restaurant concept that you discovered abroad and that does not yet exist in France, as a few years ago with the cat cafes imported from Japan. The ideal is to find a particularity (in your concept, your decoration, on your menu, etc.) that will allow you to stand out from your competitors: fresh and organic products only, small menu or wide choice of dishes, specific cuisine, etc.
Conduct a market analysis
Study your competitors on a national and local scale to see what works or not, their locations in the region or their specificities. Also find out about the expectations of your future customers, go and meet them, test your competitors' products, etc. This will allow you to determine the positioning you want to opt for for your café restaurant.
Thinking about the legal status
Now that you have a clearer idea of the concept of the café restaurant that you want to open, move on to the more administrative part. Your legal status will depend on the number of people participating in the project:
- if you are several partners, go for an SARL (Limited Liability Company);
- if you are the only one running the boat, an EI (sole proprietorship) or EURL (Single-person Limited Liability Company) will better meet your expectations.
Contact the Chambre du Commerce et de l’Industrie in your region to find out more about the different legal statuses available to you.
Prepare your financing plan and your business plan
To be able to open your café restaurant, you will most certainly need to draw up a financing plan. The latter will allow you to put down on paper the financial contributions necessary for the project as well as the aid to which you are entitled. This document is mandatory to draw up your business plan; an essential tool to demonstrate the solidity of your entrepreneurial project to your partners.
Your business plan includes your market study, carried out a few months in advance, a presentation of your project in detail as well as your financial documents (income statement, financing plan, forecast balance sheet, etc.).
Preparations for the opening of a café-restaurant
2 - Find « the place to be »
Once you are done (or almost!) with the administrative part, you can turn to concrete actions by starting to look for the perfect location! The one that will allow you to build a loyal regular clientele for your café restaurant.
Find the ideal location for your café restaurant
The catchment area of your business will be decisive for the rest of your entrepreneurial adventure! Your preliminary market study has already provided you with a potential search area to find your premises.
If you focus on premises in an urban area, such as in the city center, you are sure to be visible on the market since these are busy places. On the other hand, rents and competition can be high. Conversely, setting up in premises further away from the center or in a more rural area will bring you a clientele that may be smaller but often loyal if your offer matches them. The rent will most certainly be lower and you will expose yourself less to direct competition. This choice is up to you depending on your desires and your situation.
Anticipate the work to be completed
A step not to be overlooked when looking for a professional premises is the assessment of the work to be done. This can be simple decoration work so that the premises are to your taste but also heavier work that must be included in the financing plan of your café restaurant.
Find the perfect location for your future café/restaurant
3 - Furnishing your café restaurant
Have you found the rare gem? The commercial premises that totally suit you? It's time to move on to the "fun" part of your project: furnishing and decorating !
To furnish your café restaurant, you will need professional equipment, preferably in solid wood, known for its robustness and durability. To furnish your café restaurant, you will need :
- tables or table tops, table legs and chairs, high tables and bar stools, … ;
- reception counter, cash register, … ;
- display stands, bars, …
Discover our guide to choosing the essential furniture for your café restaurant ! The solid wood furniture offered by Tradis will bring a natural touch to your decoration and will immediately give a warm side to your café restaurant.
Restaurant layout by Tradis
4 - Promote your new café restaurant
Now that everything is ready to welcome your first customers, you need to make yourself known! And this involves communication. Several solutions are available to you :
- have flyers printed that you will place in local shops in the surrounding area ;
- create a website and profiles on social networks that you will regularly update with beautiful photos to make people want to come and discover your café restaurant ;
- communicate via local media (municipal newspaper, local radio, etc.) ;
- set up a loyalty program to reward your customers, such as a free drink after 10 visits, for example.
As you will have understood, a certain number of steps await you to open your café restaurant, but at the end of the day, an exciting professional project awaits you! Consider Tradis solid wood furniture, specialized in professional furniture for local shops, to highlight your know-how and embellish your café restaurant.