Restaurant Life Cycle Strategies

For the past 10 years, Atlantic Restaurant Group has been working with chef and first time owners in the process of buying restaurants and with owners who wish to sell their restaurants.  It wasn't until this past week that I realized that our company has been focused on the beginning and end of the restaurant life cycle but we have not provided support and guidance throughout the other stages of the life of restaurants.

A restaurant is a living, breathing object that has a predictable life cycle.  Like the life cycle of the restaurateur, it is born and eventually dies.  The birth of the restaurant is when a buyer makes a commitment to buy.  They invest time and money in the process of purchasing their dream.  The death of a restaurant is the day that it is closed or sold to another owner.

The Restaurant Life Cycle-

• Birth
• Infancy
• Toddler
• Teenager
• Young Adult
• Prime-Zone of Maturity/Maximization
• Mid-Life
• Aging
• Institutionalization
• Death

The majority of independent restaurant owners have no idea where they are in there restaurants life cycle. Knowing what to expect next and having some strategies in place to assist them in navigating the life cycle would save many from the financial destruction that so many restaurateurs experience in the death of their restaurant.  

Unfortunately, the Atlantic Restaurant Group's primary role over the past 10 years has been to assist restauranteurs exit from an industry that got the best of them.  By not understanding where they were in the restaurant life cycle, they go down in financial flames.  Imagine trying to fly from Boston to Hawaii without a map or a GPS.

There is a smarter way to conduct business!  As we re-engineer Atlantic Restaurant Group, our primary focus is to educate and offer solutions that will help guide restaurant owners through the business aspects of starting, growing, operating and exiting the restaurant business.