Restaurant Operations and Start-Up

This unit guides students through the operational, regulatory, and managerial tasks required to open and run a restaurant. Students will plan compliance, pricing, staffing, facility layout, procurement, inventory, and customer-facing communications to move from concept toward an operational business ready for launch.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze federal, state, and local regulations (including health, safety, liquor, zoning, and water quality requirements) and produce a compliance checklist and site-selection recommendations.
• Apply cost-of-goods, overhead, and pricing calculations to develop menu prices, breakeven estimates, and a basic financial plan suitable for presentation to investors or stakeholders.
• Demonstrate hiring and workforce-management processes by creating job postings, screening résumés, conducting interviews, and producing staff schedules and standard operating procedures for training and cleaning.
• Evaluate facility layout, equipment adaptation needs, supplier options, and inventory-control methods to design an efficient kitchen/bar workflow, procurement plan, and targeted marketing/PR approach to attract customers.