FREE GUIDED PLAN
Start where you are. Each task says what to produce, what it depends on and where the guide or tool is. Your progress is your own record: it is not a government approval, a legal clearance or a food-safety certification, and marking a task complete never means anything has been approved.
Will specific people pay for this specific meal, and can the numbers work at all?
Every later task uses percentages of sales. Ten minutes here prevents a year of arguing about numbers you cannot check.
Produce: Your own worked example of labor %, food cost %, occupancy % and the sales a target requires, using numbers for your concept.
A neighborhood does not need a restaurant; particular people need a particular meal at a particular time and price.
Produce: A paid-test record: who bought, what, at what price, what it cost you, what they said and who came back. Friends and free samples listed separately.
A menu that is too complicated for the kitchen or too cheap for the ingredients fails before the first review.
Produce: Weighed recipes with measured yields, plate cost, food cost % and packaging cost by channel for every opening item.
Depends on: Learn the money basics.
A monthly sales number nobody can trace to Tuesday lunch is a wish. Orders per service period can be checked against capacity.
Produce: Orders and average order by day and service period, a monthly total, and the break-even sales those costs require.
Depends on: Cost the opening menu.
What does the operation cost each week, what does opening cost, and where does the cash come from?
Labor is decided by who is on shift when, not by a percentage. Overtime and employer costs appear only when you schedule real people.
Produce: A weekly shift plan by employee and role, each person's overtime, full employer cost, labor % and the local wage evidence behind the rates.
Depends on: Build a sales forecast from service periods.
Rent, labor, food and everything else have to fit inside the same sales. This is where you find out whether they do.
Produce: A monthly P&L with every cost line, percentages of sales, a lower-sales case and the owner's pay shown explicitly.
Depends on: Build a sales forecast from service periods; Build realistic coverage and pay.
A profitable plan can still run out of money before opening day. Payment dates matter as much as totals.
Produce: Opening payments on a calendar, confirmed funds, monthly cash for the first year, the owner's living costs, a contingency and a delay case.
Depends on: Build the projected monthly P&L.
A term sheet is not money, and a loan payment is a fixed cost that survives a slow month.
Produce: Quotes compared on identical terms, the payment schedule, fees and any balloon, and a written list of which funds are committed versus proposed.
Depends on: Prove opening cash, owner living costs and contingency.
Leases, permits, payroll and insurance all need the same legal entity, address and responsible person. Fixing a mismatch later is slow.
Produce: Entity documents, tax registrations, a business bank account, bookkeeping, payroll provider, insurance quotes and named professionals with their decisions recorded.
Which space can physically and legally do this, and on what terms?
The cheapest space is the one that already has the exhaust, gas, grease and electrical capacity your menu needs.
Produce: A shortlist with floor area, kitchen infrastructure, delivery condition, asking terms and the unanswered technical questions for each.
Depends on: Prove opening cash, owner living costs and contingency.
Permitted use, occupancy, exhaust, fire systems, accessibility and utility capacity decide whether a space can open at all, and they are not visible on a walkthrough.
Produce: A written assessment from the relevant professionals covering permitted use, occupancy, utilities, exhaust, grease, fire systems, access and the work required, with cost estimates.
Depends on: Shortlist spaces that can physically do the job.
Rent is only one line. Fit-out, deposits, concessions and delay can reverse which space is cheaper.
Produce: A side-by-side of occupancy over the term, fit-out, deposits, escalations, concessions, delay and reimbursement dates, with the unresolved issues listed against each.
Depends on: Check the premises with your professionals.
A license is tied to an address, a process and a timeline. Assuming one transfers, or arrives by opening day, is how openings slip by months.
Produce: The address-specific licensing path with authority, timeline and cost, or a viable opening plan without alcohol.
Depends on: Check the premises with your professionals.
Alcohol licensing overview (Italian guide; verify the current local rules)
The lease is the largest contract you will sign. Delivery condition, guarantees, approvals contingencies and exit terms cost more than the rent.
Produce: Counsel-reviewed obligations: term, rent and charges, escalations, delivery condition, landlord work, approvals contingency, guarantee, assignment and exit terms.
Depends on: Compare the finalists on cash committed; Compare financing and confirm committed funds.
Approvals, construction, suppliers, services, people, procedures and the rehearsal.
Health, building, fire and licensing approvals each have their own sequence. Losing track of one delays opening after the money is spent.
Produce: A live list of applications with numbers, receipts, owners, next corrections, inspection dates and the documented conditions for opening.
Depends on: Check the premises with your professionals; Set up the business, bank, tax and insurance records.
Construction costs money even when nobody is working. Scope, sequencing and change orders decide the delay.
Produce: An itemized scope with bids compared like for like, a dependency schedule, an equipment installation plan, and a change-order log with approvals and cost.
Depends on: Negotiate and review the lease with counsel; Track every approval and inspection.
The first delivery is where the food cost plan meets case sizes, minimums and a walk-in that is smaller than the spreadsheet.
Produce: Comparable delivered quotes, a par sheet with counted stock, an order plan constrained by usable demand and storage, and receiving and credit procedures.
Depends on: Cost the opening menu.
Processing fees, insurance gaps and a missing waste contract show up in the first month's cash and the first inspection.
Produce: Written fee schedules compared at your volume, tested orders and refunds, bound insurance, and waste, pest, internet, gas, utilities and maintenance arrangements with dates.
Depends on: Set up the business, bank, tax and insurance records.
Hiring too early pays for idle weeks; hiring too late opens with untrained stations. The timeline follows the build and the approvals.
Produce: Job scopes, lawful documented pay ranges, structured interviews, onboarding records and station sign-offs showing who can run which station.
Depends on: Build realistic coverage and pay; Track every approval and inspection.
Hire your opening team without paying for weeks of idle time
Temperature, allergen, cleaning, receiving and employee-health procedures have to match the rules that apply to your address, not a generic template.
Produce: Locally verified food-safety, employee-health, allergen, cleaning, receiving and temperature procedures, reviewed and signed by the person in charge, with the sources and dates recorded.
Depends on: Track every approval and inspection; Recruit and train to actual opening readiness.
The first customers find you through a listing, a map and a menu link. Wrong hours or a broken order link waste the opening.
Produce: Verified business details on every listing, working menu and ordering links, realistic opening announcements and a plan to measure paid repeat business.
Depends on: Choose POS, processing, insurance and operating services.
The soft opening exists to find problems while the order count is small enough to fix them.
Produce: Required permissions in hand, a tested order cap, a ticket-time, accuracy and waste log, and a list of corrections with owners and dates.
Depends on: Control construction, equipment and change orders; Have the person in charge validate operating procedures; Recruit and train to actual opening readiness; Choose POS, processing, insurance and operating services.
What do the first weeks say, and what do you change?
The first month tells you where the plan was wrong. Weekly numbers catch it while there is still cash to respond.
Produce: A weekly scorecard: sales versus plan, orders and average order, labor %, food used, waste, refunds and cash after commitments.
Depends on: Run a controlled soft opening.
A scorecard nobody acts on is a spreadsheet. The habit is one decision, one owner, one date, then check the next week's numbers.
Produce: A first-month review with the corrections made, who owned them and what changed in the following week's scorecard.
Depends on: Review each week against the plan.
A task is complete when the output exists, not when the reading is done. "Waiting" means you have done your part and an authority, landlord, contractor or professional owes the next step. Essential checks stay on the unresolved list until completed, however much else is done; completing them here records your own evidence, and only the responsible authority or professional can approve, clear or certify anything.