rox
Veteran Member
Chris,
I enjoyed reading about your experiences and expertice. Many many people, because they enjoy dining in restaurants, enjoy food, with no experience jump into restaurant ownership. By far the vast majority are not successful and loose money and go out of business. That is why I was suggesting to Eddie that with no restaurant experience he build it with the intention, or at least the possiblity of leasing it to someone who is in the restaurant business.
I differ from you some what. Eddie is going to build the office & restaurant, I am not so sure that I would want to build it out to my tenants specifications. I guess I probably wouldnt' like someone else calling the shots on what gets built. I would be perfectly fine to let them decorate and buy their own china and pots and pans, but if the building were mine I would want to build it the way I wanted to. I would design for a full service kitchen, probably jsut install the hood, stove, grill, fryer, oven, and refridgeratos and a freezer and then stop. I would let the tenant lease/purchase their own coffee system, serving stations etc. In toher words I would ahve a nice design and have the outlets, and connections where they should be for the design but only provide the msot basic of kitchen equipment. I also probably would buy the table and chairs but that would be it. Any of the smaller equipment like buffet tables and juice machines etc. I would have the tenant buy their own, but there would be a place for them in the design.
I think it would be much easier to attract a tenant with a brand new kitchen and dining room built out and they can finish it off. I would not want the headach of "Build to Suit" inevitabley there would be differences of opinion and I probably just wouldn't want to deal with that. Also for a first build out, I probably would not go with booths, jsut tabels and chairs. After the operation is up and running a few years and you want to change things around a bit then you could add in booths. Keep it simple initially without a lot of built ins.
You are on target about the Health Department since my dad was the Director of numerous Health Departments, and my hsuband has had probably hundreds of Health Department inspections in his career. The health department actually drove a major renovation at one of his restaurants. They made a rule that all the kithen floors had to be sealed floors, meaning concrete or tile. They had to uninstall everything in the kitchen and put in a new tile floor. So yes, Health Department rules will drive design and construction. Another one is a seperate employee sink for hand washing.
My 0.02
Since Eddie is a few years away we'll ahve to watch for his "I'm building a restaurant and office thread" I am glad to know we are being printed and saved for future reference though :>)
I enjoyed reading about your experiences and expertice. Many many people, because they enjoy dining in restaurants, enjoy food, with no experience jump into restaurant ownership. By far the vast majority are not successful and loose money and go out of business. That is why I was suggesting to Eddie that with no restaurant experience he build it with the intention, or at least the possiblity of leasing it to someone who is in the restaurant business.
I differ from you some what. Eddie is going to build the office & restaurant, I am not so sure that I would want to build it out to my tenants specifications. I guess I probably wouldnt' like someone else calling the shots on what gets built. I would be perfectly fine to let them decorate and buy their own china and pots and pans, but if the building were mine I would want to build it the way I wanted to. I would design for a full service kitchen, probably jsut install the hood, stove, grill, fryer, oven, and refridgeratos and a freezer and then stop. I would let the tenant lease/purchase their own coffee system, serving stations etc. In toher words I would ahve a nice design and have the outlets, and connections where they should be for the design but only provide the msot basic of kitchen equipment. I also probably would buy the table and chairs but that would be it. Any of the smaller equipment like buffet tables and juice machines etc. I would have the tenant buy their own, but there would be a place for them in the design.
I think it would be much easier to attract a tenant with a brand new kitchen and dining room built out and they can finish it off. I would not want the headach of "Build to Suit" inevitabley there would be differences of opinion and I probably just wouldn't want to deal with that. Also for a first build out, I probably would not go with booths, jsut tabels and chairs. After the operation is up and running a few years and you want to change things around a bit then you could add in booths. Keep it simple initially without a lot of built ins.
You are on target about the Health Department since my dad was the Director of numerous Health Departments, and my hsuband has had probably hundreds of Health Department inspections in his career. The health department actually drove a major renovation at one of his restaurants. They made a rule that all the kithen floors had to be sealed floors, meaning concrete or tile. They had to uninstall everything in the kitchen and put in a new tile floor. So yes, Health Department rules will drive design and construction. Another one is a seperate employee sink for hand washing.
My 0.02
Since Eddie is a few years away we'll ahve to watch for his "I'm building a restaurant and office thread" I am glad to know we are being printed and saved for future reference though :>)
. I just wanted Eddie to know how involved this can really be. I did one job that was over conference rooms below. We had about 225 xray and core drill penetrations for water, sewer, floor drains, electric (can't all be overhead in many instances), beverage lines, remote condensor lines, etc.. That was a 6,000 SF deli. Not that big by restaurants sizes here. So the amount of stuff it takes to run one of these is mind boggling to the uninformed. And all that has to come up where it belongs. A fair number of those floor penetrations are to the fraction of an inch for location or you will have a problem. All the rest better be within 1 to 2" for location. Your husband could attest. When you have that concentration of equipment it better all be routed properly. No easy task as you know. We did the millwork on a retrofit several months ago. They finally figured ouut after about 300LF of concrete trenching that it was easier to remove the entire kitchen area slab and repour. Evidently that Superintendent was green or he'd have seen it on day one. That's where we differ. My main recommendation is don't pour concrete until your certain what's needed. Know what? I don't have it all figured out either. But I see most General Contractors struggle on restaurants, even if they do 30 a year. They aren't that difficult if you don't underestimate the complexity and get after it early. Otherwise they can be impossible for awhile. Frankly, I'd much rather just go in, sit down, and enjoy a good meal. 
