- Thread starter
- #31
Have you considered a home delivery and/or frozen food meal service to supplement the restaurant?
Running any startup is tough. Running a restaurant startup is 100x harder. When we were kicking around different business options, I specifically ruled out restaurants after working at many over several years. There's just so many moving parts to manage that are out of your control. Suppliers, staffing, kitchen equipment, customer service.
Preparing frozen meals with an online order website delivered to local homes is entirely different. There's no dinner rush. You can dedicate 1-3 days each week solely to preparing food and 1-2 days for deliveries. You can use seasonal foods that are much cheaper from week to week. You can offer a meal subscription service for monthly recurring revenue.
Frozen meals can be inventoried to balance out demand. There's almost no waste. Online ordering makes the payment system trivial. Depending on local laws, you can work out of a home kitchen or rent a commercial shared kitchen only when needed for meal prep. The freezers can be warehoused anywhere. You can promote meals on the website and with email to estimate demand before cooking a single one. Or maybe cook a single one for good photos.
The frozen meal business model is so much easier than opening a physical restaurant or even a ghost kitchen. I realize you lose the camaraderie and joie vivre of serving customers in a working restaurant, but it's a great way to become profitable quickly without losing your mind. A restaurant can easily be opened down the ro
Totally agree! I looked at selling frozen pizza nationwide because there is absolutely no good frozen out. However, I had a hard time to find packaging/nutrition labeling contractors to meet the health standards. I never thought I can sell it myself instead of working with Whole Foods. Thanks for your suggestion. I will take a look at local rules.Have you considered a frozen food meal delivery service instead of the restaurant?
Running any startup is tough. Running a restaurant startup is 100x harder. When we were kicking around different business options, I specifically ruled out restaurants after working at many over several years. There's just so many moving parts to manage that are out of your control. Suppliers, staffing, kitchen equipment, customer service.
Preparing frozen meals with an online order website delivered to local homes is entirely different. There's no dinner rush. You can dedicate 1-3 days each week solely to preparing food and 1-2 days for deliveries. You can use seasonal foods that are much cheaper from week to week. You can offer a meal subscription service for monthly recurring revenue.
Frozen meals can be inventoried to balance out demand. There's almost no waste. Online ordering makes the payment system trivial. Depending on local laws, you can work out of a home kitchen or rent a commercial shared kitchen only when needed for meal prep. The freezers can be warehoused anywhere. You can promote meals on the website and with email to estimate demand before cooking a single one. Or maybe cook a single one for good photos.
The frozen meal business model is so much easier than opening a physical restaurant or even a ghost kitchen. I realize you lose the camaraderie and joie vivre of serving customers in a working restaurant, but it's a great way to become profitable quickly without losing your mind. A restaurant can easily be opened down the road. Aside from the obvious marketing angles of vegan/vegetarian/healthy/eco-friendly/Millenial, don't forget the less obvious one of meals specifically designed for people with particular food allergies.
This isn't a hypothetical idea, BTW. I researched this with several local companies who took exactly this route as we've been moving around the country over the past fifteen months. Farmers markets, restaurant space, popup kitchens, Uber Eats, Whole Foods distribution have built-in problems that are simply not worth solving. The only difference for me was considering organic dog food frozen meals, but everything else is exactly the same.
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