Open a restaurant, step by step

Who this checklist is for

You want to open a sit-down restaurant, your first one, and you have cooking or hospitality experience but have never run the business side. This checklist walks you from concept to grand opening in the order that keeps you out of trouble with landlords, health inspectors, and your own bank account.

What it takes

Opening a restaurant typically costs $175,000 to $400,000 for a leased space (less if you take over an existing restaurant, more if you build out a shell). Expect roughly 6 to 12 months from signed lease to opening day. The hardest part is not the food, it is surviving the build-out phase, when rent is due every month and revenue is zero.

How the checklist flows

Start on paper: "Write a one-page business plan" and "Choose your concept and menu" force you to define who you feed and at what price point before you spend a dollar, and "Cost and price your menu" turns that concept into margins you can actually live on. Paperwork and money come next, register the business and open the business bank account so every expense is trackable from day one. Only then make the biggest decision on this list, "Find and lease a location", followed by "Get food service licenses and permits" and business insurance for the space you actually signed. The setup phase, "Buy kitchen equipment" and hiring your first staff, eats most of your budget and calendar. Finally you turn toward customers: card payments, a Google Business Profile, and "Plan your grand opening" with a soft-launch week built in.

Mistakes that sink first-timers

• Signing a lease before checking whether the space can even pass a health inspection or support a commercial hood
• Under-budgeting working capital, you need 3 to 6 months of rent and payroll in the bank at opening, not zero
• A 60-item menu; big menus mean waste, slow tickets, and inconsistent food

Real-world examples

• Chipotle, Steve Ells opened one burrito shop across from the University of Denver in July 1993, funded by an $85,000 loan from his father, intending it only to bankroll a fine-dining dream. The single location outperformed its projections and became the seed of a national chain.
• A well-documented reality of the industry: the vast majority of restaurants begin as one owner-operated location where concept, site, and cost control decide survival long before any thought of expansion.
• Get the foundations right first, choose your concept and menu and find and lease the right location are the two decisions that are hardest to reverse later.

From a founder's point of view

Restaurants are famously unforgiving because the margins are thin and the fixed costs, rent, equipment, staff, start bleeding before a single plate goes out. The romance of the food is real, but the businesses that last are usually the ones obsessive about the unglamorous math: prime cost, table turns, and a menu tight enough to execute consistently. Start smaller and simpler than feels ambitious; a single location run well teaches you everything you'd otherwise learn the expensive way.

Your first milestone

A full week of service where food cost plus labor stays under 65% of sales, that is the moment your restaurant is a business, not an expensive hobby.