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Are you planning to open a restaurant? If so, then choosing the one you want from the many common restaurant concepts is an important first step in planning. The type of restaurant you choose will influence every decision you make in the restaurant planning process, from the location, the types of dishes offered, the store decor to the management style.
In this article, we discuss some of the popular restaurant concepts of today and help you choose the one that's right for you.
A fine dining restaurant offers full table service and a focused menu with high quality food and an upscale dining experience. It usually includes several courses (salad, appetizer, main course, dessert) and most of its entrees are priced at $25 or more. Most of the popular concepts are seafood and steak houses.
The décor of these restaurants is mostly stylish, giving an upscale feel, and is about elegance, uniqueness and taste, so it costs more upfront to decorate the store compared to other types of restaurant concepts. And in terms of price, because the average spending level is higher, customers have higher expectations for food quality, atmosphere and overall experience, and then you need to spend more on opening costs. While they can be very lucrative, not any one type of food can be applied to fine dining. For example, if more common dishes such as burgers and sandwiches are difficult to sell at higher prices and customers are not willing to pay for them in the fine dining pricing range, then you should put harder to obtain foods such as seafood and steaks on your menu.
Fine dining restaurants can be operated as a single location or as a franchise.
Casual restaurant concepts have common characteristics; they usually have their own table service and customers don't have to serve their own food. Providing a more relaxed, low-key atmosphere, as opposed to fine dining. The décor is unique, with an interior design that is somewhere between the "upscale" of a fine dining restaurant and the "fancy" of a fast food restaurant, and is based on the type of food it offers. Secondly, the pricing of the menu is appropriate, with entrees priced between $12 and $25, making it an affordable restaurant model for the average consumer.
Although casual restaurants are now under threat from fast food style restaurants, this type of restaurant is still one of the most popular restaurants. Because it offers a full dining experience - complete with table service and a relaxed atmosphere - it attracts many customers who want to sit down and enjoy a meal. However, there is a wide range of pricing in this category, with some restaurants offering prices comparable to fine dining and others adopting a lower-priced strategy, so there is a wide range of reviews and food quality expectations.
A restaurant that offers little to no table service, they aim to make and serve large quantities of food quickly. This type of restaurant is also known as "fast food", but the term has been given a bad reputation, and we use the words quick service restaurant to name it, emphasizing the main benefit of the restaurant: fast service. Its decor is more casual and modern.
These restaurants are usually equipped with self-service pick-up machines, making them a good choice for office workers or busy customers who need a full meal but are pressed for time. The food at this restaurant is generally not priced too high, below $8, making it a more affordable option than a casual restaurant.
Ghost Restaurant-also known as a virtual restaurant, pure takeout restaurant, pure online restaurant or dark kitchen-is a food service business that serves customers only through phone orders and online orders. Most of its business is conducted on cell phones, tablets or computers.
This type of restaurant does not have a traditional storefront, no decorations, or even a sign, and certainly not a large dining room. Instead, it can be set up with just a simple kitchen and a delivery person, without much cost. It is often the first choice of those who have little start-up capital to open a restaurant, but this model is also scorned by most customers.
Family-style restaurants are similar to the casual dining model, but with one significant difference, in that these restaurants are more likely to have waiters serving food on large plates, and then customers serving their own food and passing it around to others at the table.
These types of restaurants usually have a more relaxed atmosphere than fine dining and casual restaurants, and can cater to families with children or groups of friends, as well as being a good place for families, friends, and colleagues to get together for a meal.
It is a restaurant that offers limited seating and table service, encouraging customers to dine in-store and then serving them food that is prepared quickly after ordering. Fast-casual restaurants are the most widely known type of restaurant because of their low prices, speed and convenience. Some of the most popular fast food restaurant chains are KFC, McDonald's and Burger King.
Due to the quest for speed, ingredients for fast food restaurants are usually pre-heated or pre-made. Then through counter service or through a drive-thru window, customers pick up their own food and find a seat.
A food truck, cart or stand is a unique modern restaurant concept that usually carries a single food type or two or three products such as tacos, pancakes, hot dogs, ice cream, etc. and offers a limited menu for it.
Similar to the fast food restaurant business model, it also emphasizes the speed of food preparation. In addition, it will offer less seating, or even no seating.
This restaurant model is an emerging model, based on the rapid growth of such restaurants under the epidemic, and the ground floor economy has become a major business model. Not only does it cost less to open a restaurant, but it also costs less in terms of time required.
Self-service restaurants are an important concept in the food service industry. Self-service gives diners more control over their experience and reduces labor costs for restaurant operators because there is little need for waiters and order takers.
A buffet is an extension of the family-style restaurant where customers pay a fixed price for a selection of food. In a buffet, diners serve themselves from a selection of hot and cold dishes placed on a series of serving tables called buffet lines. The food is usually divided into hot or cold portions. Diners line up, choose what they want from a variety of dishes, serve themselves, and return to the buffet as many times as they need.
The buffet concept lends itself to a very wide range of cuisines, including pizza, Chinese food, seafood, grilled meats, and more.
Cafes are characterized by outdoor seating for customers, an atmosphere that is unhurried, and customer loyalty. Initially, cafes only served coffee, while modern-style cafes have spawned many other categories of food, including tea, pastries, small foods for breakfast or lunch, and desserts.
These restaurants require diners to order at the counter, pay on the spot and then wait for their food at their seats, usually without a large staff. Because of its quiet atmosphere, it becomes a preferable place for long hours of work and socializing.
pubs have a long tradition of being the place to go when you need to relax and enjoy a beer or other alcoholic beverage at the end of the work day.
In the beginning, they were nothing more than pubs. However, in modern times, pubs have expanded their menus to be able to offer customers food and full meals, as well as beer, liquor and non-alcoholic beverages.
With a wide variety of food and a festive atmosphere, pubs usually offer full table service, as well as casual decorations with a variety of gaming equipment such as darts and billiards, as well as sports television and perhaps even a dance floor, all of which attract most customers into the store.
To help you choose an appropriate restaurant concept, it is critical to research your market. Research the market you want to enter, including whether the market is productive, whether it is saturated in that location (for example, if three cafes already exist in a town of as few as 2,000 people, it is safe to assume that the market is at saturation), whether the restaurant concept is appropriate for the geographic area, what the per capita consumption level is in that area, etc. Also, you will want to consider demographic factors that will influence your entry into that market. This is very different from activities such as social media marketing, so you should analyze that market carefully and choose the restaurant concept you want carefully.
This is also a necessary step in defining your restaurant concept-establishing a budget for your restaurant.
It costs more to build a fine dining venue from scratch than it does to outfit a food truck. Creating a restaurant budget in the early planning stages will help you determine what types of restaurants are attainable.
If you know how much you need to spend and how much you can save before you choose a restaurant concept, you won't overextend yourself and thus incur debt.
Deciding what kind of cuisine you want to serve will also influence the type of restaurant you choose. If your hobby is hamburgers or sandwiches, you may not choose restaurant concepts that seem formal, such as fine dining, casual dining, or cafes, and instead go straight for those that are informal, such as fast casual or fast food.
Choosing the type of cuisine for your restaurant early on can eliminate confusion between different restaurant concepts and help you decide on the type of restaurant to launch your new business as soon as possible.
The target customer group means which people your restaurant concept is positioned and the cuisine is geared towards, consider this carefully, it can help you a lot in defining your restaurant concept.
For example, if your restaurant concept is positioned for college students, then fun, quirky decor and familiar food are more appropriate than upscale luxury surroundings and food that is not known to them. And you better price your food at a level that suits their spending, otherwise college students may not enter even with attractive storefront decor.
Market research helps you choose your customer base, but you can decide on a target group of customers before you even research your store location.
Determining your restaurant's location is a prerequisite for your opening, but if your restaurant concept doesn't match your location, it will likely lead to a restaurant failure.
If you find a great location in the heart of a college campus, do you open a fine dining restaurant, or do you choose a concept that is more suited to the area?
Matching your restaurant concept to the location can make your business a success.
After all the above steps are done, it's time to design your storefront and your store style should be in line with the concept. If your restaurant concept is fine dining, then the storefront you design should be upscale and luxurious, while the unique style and fancy decoration of the storefront, which obviously does not fit the concept of fine dining. For example, casual restaurants lend themselves to unique, casual decor and an understated style, while restaurant concepts like fast food restaurants and food trucks can have fancy decor to attract customers.
Summing up
To choose the restaurant concept you want, the above 6 steps are essential to decide on these issues before you can proceed to the next step of opening a restaurant.
