Well as with most business in college towns it s kind of a two headed monster so to speak.Business can be really good as long as you can advertise well enough to bring in and relate to college students, providing your prices are within the average and all that fun stuff.Overall if you do everything right sales will be great during the college season, but if you live in a big college town where most of the students leave during the summer it will be hard to make it by especially considering the economy.I know that many business where I went to college had difficulty in the summer months or even closed completely down until college was in session.If you have good credit I would say it s worth a shot, do some market research on the average number of resturants within the area plus deciding on a nitch can really help, what separates you from the others and can make sure you get off the ground quicky?Good luck, there is a lot of work that goes into running a business... it s very profitable and rewarding if you put the effort in and succeed at making a living off something you already love!
Firstly, if you have no experience in the restaurant business, I d advise that you work in restaurants for the next six months or so doing everything from busing tables and washing dishes to waiting tables and cooking if they ll allow you back there and if you have the skills. This will give you some of the work experience that you ll need to understand and run a restaurant profitably in your college town.If this is your first business venture, I would strongly recommend that you talk to a business counselor before you do anything especially spend money. I d call the local office of SCORE (go to the link below and input your zip code to find the chapter nearest you), the advice is FREE. Ask for someone who has a background in restaurants and they ll try their best to match you with the right counselor.The counselor at SCORE will most likely advise you to write a business plan which is very good advice because it will force you to dig out all of the start up details and the costs of starting a restaurant and force you to also understand all of the aspects of this business including the customers you ll concentrate on (your market) and how you ll get them to find out and want to come to your fabulous college town restaurant.The location of the restaurant is important but doesn t make it successful. To prove that all you have to do is walk down a street in your college town where there are several nice restaurants all in a row and you ll find one or two that are empty while the others are very busy. It has to do with the menu, the ambiance, and your reputation at the beginning and over time.You also have to have food handling licenses, the right zoning, the right city and county licenses and permits and you have to be skilled at negotiating with your landlord about who ll stand the cost of the build-out or the changes to the premises to make it ready for your look and feel. You also have to worry about the normal business planning and management issues related to starting up any business. Take a look and read some of the articles at YCHANGE web site (see link below)especially the ones about a business plan and starting a business. Also look at the link below for good reasons to start a business in this down economyHope this helped.
