Taste Isn't Everything

You've dreamed of owning a restaurant since the first time you sautéed on your family stove. Now, with start-up capital in hand, you have to design your restaurant from the inside out-or "from the heart of the house," says Michael D. Owings, founder of restaurant design firm Creative Culinary Design in Costa Mesa, California.

That means starting where your food begins-the kitchen. Imagine it: You have the greatest ambience in the world, but the food takes forever to prepare because of an inefficient kitchen layout. It's critical to lay out the pantry, sauté and cooking stations wisely. "In designing kitchens," says Owings, "lay your cook line out so that there's no cross traffic [and] people aren't running up and down," he says.

Try to find someone who is already in the restaurant business to help you out. He or she can tell you that your broiler is too small to actually create all the food on your menu or that your refrigerated drawers are hard to get to. And according to Owings, success comes from two things: "A good strategic plan along with a design that understands [your] market, location, staffing requirements and management skills-those are critical issues."

Need more design ideas? Check out Entrepreneur's Business Start-Up Guide, How to Start a Restaurant.

Contact Source

• Creative Culinary Design
  www.creativeculinary.com

This article was originally published in the October 2002 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Taste Isn't Everything.