So You Want to Open a Restaurant? Welcome to the Most Delicious Roller Coaster of Your Life

By Shari Lockwood

There’s a moment many hospitality professionals know all too well: you’re enjoying a perfectly respectable Tuesday lunch when your friend leans across the table and says, “You know, you should open a restaurant.” For some, this idea passes like a cloud, pleasant, fluffy, quickly forgotten. For others, the cloud sparks lightning, ignites a fire, and before you know it, you’ve got a notebook full of concept sketches, a list of potential investors, and an Instagram account for a restaurant that does not yet exist. 

Welcome to the club

Opening a restaurant is one of the most thrilling, chaotic, emotionally rich, financially terrifying adventures you can choose. It’s also deeply rewarding, occasionally absurd, and surprisingly philosophical. If you're dreaming of taking the plunge, pull up a chair. Let’s talk about the things no glossy cooking show or motivational quote on a chalkboard will tell you.

The Menu Is the Easy Part (Sorry)

Designing the menu feels like the fun part, and it is. For a chef or culinary creative, it’s the artistic heart of the project. You can practically smell the roasted garlic as you imagine signature dishes that will one day draw crowds and inspire rave reviews.

But here’s a truth universally acknowledged by anyone who has ever tried to scale a recipe: the menu is the beginning, not the destination. After the euphoria of brainstorming “elevated street tacos” and “grandma-inspired pastries,” reality arrives wearing a hairnet and holding a calculator. Can your dream signature dish be executed consistently by your line cooks? Can your suppliers reliably deliver that obscure Peruvian chili you fell in love with on vacation? Can you charge a price that keeps the lights on without giving your customers heart palpitations?

Creating a menu isn’t just about food. It’s about logistics, economics, seasonality, equipment needs, labor skill sets, and, most importantly, what you can realistically pull off during a slammed Friday night service without anyone crying.

Your Floor Plan Will Become Your Personality

There are few things more fascinating than watching a future restaurateur sketch their first floor plan. Some approach it with the architectural precision of designing a spaceship, while others float tables around like they’re rearranging a dollhouse.

But the truth is: the flow of a restaurant is the restaurant. Where the servers queue, how far the expo window is from the tables, the distance between the dishwasher and the prep sink; these details will determine whether your service feels like ballet or bumper cars.

Your future self will bless or curse every early decision you make. Do you want cozy intimacy? Great; until you realize you’ve created a labyrinth that servers must navigate while balancing hot plates. Thinking about cramming in “just four more tables”? Future you is sliding into the walk-in to scream quietly.

Spend the time. Sweat the layout. And for the love of all things plated, test the path from kitchen to tables with a real tray.

People Will Tell You You’re Crazy

If you want an honest gauge of human nature, tell people you're opening a restaurant. Responses will fall into three categories:

1. The Enthusiasts: They’ll clap, cheer, and immediately ask about reservations.

2. The Worriers: They’ll gently remind you that restaurants are risky and margins are thin.

3. The Silent Breathers: They inhale sharply, as if you’ve announced you’re moving to the moon.

All of them are right in their own way. But enthusiasm is fuel, concern is reality’s voice, and sharp breaths are just part of the soundtrack.

The truth? No one opens a restaurant because it's a “practical” idea. You open one because you have a vision, a craving to create experiences, and an inability to ignore the burning desire to feed people something special. That spark keeps you steady. Hold onto it. It’s your dream

You Will Develop Strong Feelings About Things You Never Thought About

Before opening a restaurant, you may have believed you were a chill, flexible person. Then you spend a few weeks choosing chairs and suddenly you have opinions, big ones, about seat height, lumbar support, and the psychology of chair color.

You will care deeply about plates. Glassware. The exact angle at which a fork should be placed relative to a napkin. Whether your lights are warm enough without making your restaurant feel like a sepia photograph.

And then there’s the ice machine. Every restaurateur eventually has a moment when they find themselves passionately defending their choice of ice. Cubes? Pellets? Artisanal spheres? There are hills worth dying on, and apparently, one of them is frozen water.

This is normal. This is part of the journey. Embrace your opinions, they’re shaping the identity of your restaurant.

Hiring People Will Make You Appreciate Humans on a Cosmic Level

Staffing your restaurant is an adventure within the adventure. You will meet culinary geniuses, chaotic creatives, seasoned pros, absolute wildcards, and people who seem to exist solely to add color to your future memoir.

Hiring cooks and servers isn’t just about skills; it’s about building a culture. Restaurants are ecosystems, delicate, intricate, occasionally volatile. A great hire can elevate the entire team; a mismatched one can disrupt the flow like a pigeon in a pastry kitchen.

And when you find the right team? It’s magic. There’s nothing like watching a crew hit its rhythm, move in sync, and bring your concept to life night after night.

Opening Night Will Be Chaos, and You Will Love It

The doors open. The first guests walk in. The smell of your kitchen fills the air. The place buzzes with nervous excitement. You feel every imaginable emotion at once.

Will something go wrong? Yes. Will several things go wrong? Almost certainly.

Someone will almost certainly misfire an order. A guest will ask for something that is inexplicably missing. Your POS system may attempt a small rebellion.

But amidst the chaos, something extraordinary happens: your restaurant becomes real. Not a plan. Not a dream. A place, Your place, with energy and laughter and dishes that you created being carried to tables where people are genuinely excited to eat them.

It’s messy. It’s imperfect. It’s unforgettable.

You’ll Discover Why You Did It

After the dust settles, you’ll find your reasons. Maybe it’s the look on a guest’s face when they take the first bite. Maybe it’s the way your team grows into a family. Maybe it’s the satisfaction of creating a space where people connect over food.

Or maybe it’s as simple as this: you had a dream, and you made it happen.

Opening a restaurant isn’t easy. It’s not tidy. It’s not predictable. But it is one of the most vibrant, creative, heart-full ways to bring something new into the world.

If this dream is tugging at you, pull up your sleeves. There’s a seat open. And the adventure is just getting started.