RestaurantLaunch or Udemy? Choose Your Restaurant Course

Start with the free material. If it answers your questions and you can put it into practice, you may not need my course.

A course can organize the work and explain it in a format you find easier to follow. It cannot make a bad location affordable, obtain approvals for you or replace professional work on your specific lease, taxes or immigration status.

The course itself comes in two editions: the more complete RestaurantLaunch edition on this site, and a shorter Udemy edition for people who already use Udemy. This guide gives you a free worked lesson, a short exercise to run on your own plan, and then a plain comparison so you can pick one edition if you decide you need it.

Try this lesson before spending anything

A restaurant expects an $18 average order. Food, packaging and transaction costs total $7 per order. Monthly staffing and operating bills are $25,000, and the owner needs another $4,000 of cash pay plus $1,000 for loan payments. It opens 26 days a month.

1. Contribution per order is $18 − $7 = $11.
2. Operating break-even is $25,000 ÷ $11 = 2,272.73 orders, or 88 orders per open day, rounded up.
3. The owner's cash target adds $5,000. Now the restaurant needs $30,000 ÷ $11 = 2,727.27 orders, or 105 per day.
4. At 80 orders a day, monthly contribution is 80 × 26 × $11 = $22,880.
5. That leaves an operating shortfall of $2,120 and a cash shortfall of $7,120 after the owner's target and debt.

The practical answer is not “sell more.” Find out whether 105 orders are plausible at the location and whether the kitchen can handle their busiest-hour concentration. Then test an actual change to pricing, food cost, coverage hours or rent. These fictional figures demonstrate the method; your plan needs your own inputs.

If you solve the shortfall by eliminating owner pay, you have changed the question to whether the restaurant can survive while you work without that income. That may be a deliberate temporary choice, but it is not the same result.

Do it yourself: a one-page order target

Take fifteen minutes and repeat the lesson with your own numbers. Write six inputs on one page:

1. Average order value after discounts and refunds, excluding sales tax and pass-through tips.
2. Food, packaging and transaction cost per order, from costed recipes rather than a guess.
3. Monthly staffing and operating bills, including rent, utilities, insurance and software.
4. Owner cash pay you must take out each month to live.
5. Monthly loan payments.
6. Open days per month.

Then calculate four outputs: contribution per order, orders per day to cover operating bills, orders per day to cover everything, and the monthly cash gap at a sales level you can defend. Keep the page. Every later decision on price, menu, staffing, rent and financing changes one of those inputs, and the page shows the effect.

Use the fictional restaurant to see how small changes move the target. Raising contribution by $0.50 per order, to $11.50, lowers the full target to $30,000 ÷ $11.50 = 2,608.70 orders, or 101 per day. Cutting $1,000 of monthly rent instead lowers it to $29,000 ÷ $11 = 2,636.36 orders, or 102 per day. Neither change closes a 25-order gap on its own, which is the point: if your defensible forecast is 80 orders a day, you need to revise the sales assumptions, location, costs or concept before committing.

Do the free exercises in order

1. Test the customer and neighborhood with paid behavior rather than compliments.
2. Cost a recipe, including usable yield and portion size.
3. Calculate the required orders and compare them with a defensible sales forecast.
4. Compare direct and app orders using the actual fee structure.
5. Build opening costs and first-year cash, including staffing, owner pay and debt.
6. Map the approvals for the address and assign each next action.

Keep the outputs: a concept test, recipe costs, sales assumptions, cash plan and location questions. Those are useful whether you enroll or not. If the exercises stall because you do not know what a step means, or you want the subjects taught in order with video, that is the moment a course earns its price.

When a course could help

Consider it if you are new to restaurant operations, want the subjects taught in a sequence, prefer the teaching format, and will set aside time to do the work. Review the current curriculum, sample material, price and enrollment terms before deciding. Do not assume a service or personal support is included unless the current offer says so.

Which edition: RestaurantLaunch or Udemy?

Both editions are taught by me, in English, and follow the same three-part sequence: getting ready to launch, pre-opening and restaurant operations. The RestaurantLaunch edition is the more complete version. The Udemy edition, How to Open a Restaurant Business: The Complete Guide, is a slightly smaller version built for people who already use Udemy and want the course in the same library, app and account as the rest of their learning. At the time of writing, this site lists 67 lessons across its three courses and Udemy lists 48 lectures, but counts alone do not show which topics and resources are included, so compare the current curricula.

What the Udemy edition covers

At the time of writing, the Udemy listing shows three sections and 48 lectures, including videos and 23 articles, with about five and a half hours of video in total:

• Introduction: starting point, legal formation, location selection, key-money deals, money, lease negotiation, restaurant layout, concept and business plan, and menu design.
• Pre-Opening: construction basics, health inspections and maintenance, budgeting and the opening to-do list, equipment purchasing, kitchen efficiency, supply chain, inventory and purchasing, and restaurant technology and point of sale.
• Restaurant Operations: opening week, an accounting guide, hiring and training across three videos, growing sales, making adjustments, financials, and a closing “are you ready?” lecture.

Three lectures are marked as free previews on the Udemy page: the Starting Point, Legal Formation and Location Selection videos. Watch them before buying; they show the teaching style and level of detail in the rest of the course. On this site, the free course preview does the same job for the RestaurantLaunch edition.

How to choose

Three things to be clear about so nobody buys twice or expects something the listing does not say:

• You do not need both. Pick the edition that fits how you like to learn.
• The two platforms are separate stores. Do not assume a purchase on one grants access on the other. Having a Udemy account does not by itself give you the course. Access on Udemy comes from an individual purchase or an eligible subscription, as shown on the listing.
• Check the current curriculum, included resources, price and terms on the platform you choose. Downloads, updates and support are whatever that listing says today, not an assumption carried over from the other edition.

When I would spend the money elsewhere

• You already understand the fundamentals and need a specific answer from a restaurant architect, lawyer, accountant or other qualified professional.
• Your next major risk is an uninspected space, uncosted build-out or unsuitable lease.
• You need hands-on restaurant experience more than another set of lessons.
• The course price would take money away from an essential check or from cash you cannot afford to lose.

If the free exercise above already helped you reject an unaffordable plan or improve a real decision, use it. The value is the decision you make, not whether you bought another product. If you do want the course, the route is simple: finish the free exercises, watch the previews, and buy the one edition that fits.