Opinion of Restaurant Venture Please

[The Big Mango]

Some good points made so far thx.

So I should consider the additional investment in activities aimed for the kids , for me the idea was the kids would want to go therefor bringing mum and dad to eat rather than them choosing one of the many restaurants close by.

Mmmmmm.....

Edited June 9, 2015 by The Big Mango

[Suradit69]

Oh sorry and to add , if you dont have children , would you choose not to go as there would be perhaps alot of children ?

If the children were running around being noisy, it might be a put-off to someone without children, but if you expect your target customer is Thai they may not find that a problem ... in part because Thai children tend to be fairly well behaved around adults.

Supervision of water play needs to be a high priority. Small children can easily get into trouble in seconds without their disappearance being immediately noticed.

Edited June 9, 2015 by Suradit69

[KarenBravo]

Thais are price sensitive. You won't be able to compete against those other restaurants that are near by due to the extra expense of looking after kids.

Frankly, opening a restaurant is a nightmare. You always have to have fresh ingredients and if you don't sell them, you have to throw them away. There is a lot of wastage.

Many restaurants are tempted to keep stuff way past there best to try and save money.

Restaurants don't make a lot of profit. You have to charge 100% more than cost. A third to replenish your stock, another third for costs and a third for your living expenses. Doesn't leave very much for savable profit unless you are wildly successful.

With the size of the land, plus the lake, I'm sure you can come up with a much better (and more profitable) idea.

Edited June 9, 2015 by KarenBravo

[optad]

Just having a lake I would imagine is a good selling point though.

Until a kid drowns while the supervisor is busy on their phone.

You wanted feedback, OP. All this supervision of young kids really isn't a good idea. In fact, it's bonkers.

Go back a step and consider a nice restaurant on the lake without the additional hassle.

What a bizarre comment

He is completely right.

The supervision will lapse, become erratic and if.... or when something happens all current intentions to provide a safe environment are what?

Poster was complete right to refer to a supposed acceptance of responsibility in that environmemt as 'bonkers'.

[optad]

Aside from that, all the things you plan for are not your problem. The amount of ways you can be blindsided in hospitality in Thailand is awesome as the stories are fabulous. That is the challenge, keeping ahead of those issues as they will arise and the bare minimum skills set apart from funds are being perennially personal and fluent in passa Thai.

Do you speak Thai?

My last point is this. For the project to work, you have to do it better than the Thais: service, price points external remedies and above all consistency and in the doing so market it in such a way the Thais get more than just the restaurant and kiddies experience if a falang intends being front of house.

Edited June 9, 2015 by optad

[stoli]

Two things I did in my restaurant:

1) It was a BBQ restaurant, so I had "saddlebags" filled with 25 cent toys, one side for boys, one side for girls. At the end of the meal, the kids were allowed to blindly reach into the saddlebags for a gift.

2) I had a sign that stated "Unattended Children will receive an Espresso and a FREE puppy". ( The parents always watched their kids. )

Good luck with your venture. You will work harder than you have ever worked before, and you will earn $10 a week.

[phuketandsee]

I would be very, very wary of starting a new business venture of this type right now. Who knows what the effect on the hospitality industry will be <removed>

Edited June 9, 2015 by LivinginKata
forum rule 1

[The Big Mango]

^^ good point

[GlutinousMaximus]

The previous posters have made good points - a lot of local places are run by Thai families and they're prepared to graft hard all month for maybe 20K-30K of profit (plus they eat off the business). As a farang, I'm not prepared to do that.

Staff pilfering is a real issue and you need to be on site all the time (or have good security systems which are expensive and not foolproof). Theft from business takes many forms, it's not just nicking the takings, it can be selling food underpriced to relatives/friends as well as lifting expensive ingredients like meat, booze, seafood etc. which is hard to detect unless you reserve the right to search employees (which obviously isn't popular). As an example, we had a maid nicking from us by putting our stuff in the rubbish (clothes etc.), depositing it down the road, and picking it up on her way home.

Hygiene is another issue - we've all seen filthy dishcloths being used to wipe tables over here, a practice which would get you shut down in farangland. Training the staff to observe hygiene standards can be an uphill struggle. Plus being in the tropics you have plenty of vermin, rats, roaches, weevils etc. to contend with.

Staff can be also unreliable - "my mother is ill today, I can't come in" being a typical line from your head chef one hour before you're due to open and/or the staff disappear for weeks at a time at rice planting season. Can you deal with that, do you have backup systems in place?

Selling it on may not be easy either (I speak as someone trying to extricate myself from a restaurant venture).

In my experience, the locals also don't have a high level of discretionary spending available to them. That picture is changing as Thailand develops and there's definitely more money sloshing around than 20 years ago, however a lot of people can't drop 1,000baht on a meal more than say once or twice a month.

I don't want to rain on your parade, but the restaurant business is full of failed ventures and broken dreams. If you've run a restaurant before, fair enough. If you haven't, it's quite a challenge. You have to put in an awful lot of hours and there are a multitude of tasks to attend to (shopping, repairs and renewals, staff issues to name but a few).It's definitely not a 'zero touch' business.

Having said all that, there can be money in it. The big boys (S&P, Pizza Co, Black Canyon etc.) all have nationwide chains and seem to do OK (although they have watertight operational procedures plus economies of scale). There's a cowboy-styled steak restaurant not far from me which has a petting field with sheep and goats and they're full most weekends when I drive past. I get the impression though that certain types of restaurants can be 'in trend' for a while and how they fare after that fizzles out is anyone's guess.

If you're still minded to do it, I would recommend you do some local market research. Spend time hanging around (or in) other restaurants - how many punters do they have, what times of day, what's the party size, how much are they spending? I'd also get a spreadsheet going if you haven't already with some columns for overheads/costs vs takings etc. so that you can 'flex' the results easily to understand worst-case scenarios - e.g. what happens if you have no customers for a week?

Whatever you decide to do - good luck!

Edited June 9, 2015 by GlutinousMaximus

[tolsti]

It seems like you have an additional staff overhead for a lifeguard to watch over the kids.

I know you mention that the lease is all sorted, but can you tell me how long is the lease? Is it a lease on the existing business or a lease on the land itself?

You could do more than just pedalos with a lake:

- Fishing

- some sort of shooting fake ducks (o real ones!) - Thais love to shoot something/someone...

- Floating market for the Chinese tourists

Come on Simon.... You know the Chinese don't float!

[duanebigsby]

Oh sorry and to add , if you dont have children , would you choose not to go as there would be perhaps alot of children ?

I don't have children and , yes, they would keep me away.

But I think the idea is wonderful to have a kid friendly restaurant with the amenities you describe.

[phuketandsee]

Oh sorry and to add , if you dont have children , would you choose not to go as there would be perhaps alot of children ?

I don't have children and , yes, they would keep me away.

But I think the idea is wonderful to have a kid friendly restaurant with the amenities you describe.

Would definitely keep me away.

[stoli]

Thais are price sensitive. You won't be able to compete against those other restaurants that are near by due to the extra expense of looking after kids.

Frankly, opening a restaurant is a nightmare. You always have to have fresh ingredients and if you don't sell them, you have to throw them away. There is a lot of wastage.

Many restaurants are tempted to keep stuff way past there best to try and save money.

Restaurants don't make a lot of profit. You have to charge 100% more than cost. A third to replenish your stock, another third for costs and a third for your living expenses. Doesn't leave very much for savable profit unless you are wildly successful.

With the size of the land, plus the lake, I'm sure you can come up with a much better (and more profitable) idea.

KarenBravo, as a former restaurant owner in the states, food costs need to be around 28% for a normal restaurant. In fine dining, it cannot be any higher than 18-20%. Labor is far more expensive in the states, so that can be somewhat adjusted here on food costs. In the states, if you can do everything correctly, and the economy is normal, you can get a 5% return on your money. This is why chains do not grow themselves, but franchise. There is no money in owning a restaurant. (in the states). Good luck to the OP. I am trying to be honest with you, as I wish more people had been honest with me. Forget about friends shouting "Go for it! Great idea!" They just want a free meal in the future. Think of your savings first.........

Edited June 9, 2015 by stoli

[NamKangMan]

It seems like you have an additional staff overhead for a lifeguard to watch over the kids.

I know you mention that the lease is all sorted, but can you tell me how long is the lease? Is it a lease on the existing business or a lease on the land itself?

You could do more than just pedalos with a lake:

- Fishing

- some sort of shooting fake ducks (o real ones!) - Thais love to shoot something/someone...

- Floating market for the Chinese tourists

Yeah, pedalos aren't a good idea, just look at the old and broken ones floating around the lake at Nai Harn.

The OP could copy the "jet-ski" business model.

There could be a lot of money in "scratched and broken pedalos."

Edited June 9, 2015 by NamKangMan

[catman20]

kids who want them pain in the ????????????

[davidjg]

I for one think it's a GREAT idea. Being a father of three young kids living on the island, we will often travel long distances to find activities for the kids. Our restaurant trips consist of the same circuit of places based on if they have a kids play area (Amalfi), swimming pool (Shanti Lodge, Friendship) or at the very least a safe area for the kids to play.

We live in the South but if this restaurant idea worked out, it would definitely be added to our circuit of restaurants. Animals, bouncy castles and pedalows would be heaven for my kids! Kid friendly restaurants with staff to keep an eye on the kids are definitely missing here. We used to live in Shanghai and there were a number of places that had this service. It allows parents to have some much needed time to relax on the weekends.

In any case, I say go for it. Of course you'll need to work out your security issues with the lake and you will no doubt find that some non-parents will be put off, but I think there will be more than enough families to compensate.

My suggestion would be why try to compete on a local thai level? Why not try to go for a more premium crowd (both thai and farang) this way you can charge a bit more and offer a better service. Plenty of families on the island would pay the extra for the kids facilities.

There's a lot of conflicting advise so far on this thread about your idea but coming from someone who would basically be your ideal customer, my family and my group of friends would very much welcome your new project. I do also happen to have more than a decade of F&B experience as well as a similar idea to yours in my head. Just too busy right now to execute it!

Good luck.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I'll wear two hats here:

1. As a husband and wife couple without children, when we go out to dinner or for a meal, the last thing I want is tons of kids running around making noise, jumping on things, etc etc... And my wife doesn't like noisy places. So we'd probably take a pass on your concept.

2. As a farang resident here, I'd find myself agreeing with a lot of the warning signs raised by various posters above, including things such as injury risks for the children, liability risks for people getting in trouble in the water, finding Thai staff capable of properly supervising the activities you envision, seasonal risk as in what happens to your business during the rainy season, etc etc etc...

But then again, I'm not a businessman in Thailand, and frankly, have no desire to become one here as things stand at present.

[krisb]

kids who want them pain in the ????????????

Ask your parents.

[krisb]

Just remembered the pub up the road from us in Australia has kids eat free when 2 adults buy mains. Not a bad trick.

[krisb]

So many anti children people here. Fair enough but they forget their parents wanted kids it seems. I hate that attitude of if kids will be eating there, we won't. Seriously get a life.

[Old Croc]

So many anti children people here. Fair enough but they forget their parents wanted kids it seems. I hate that attitude of if kids will be eating there, we won't. Seriously get a life.

People are free to choose their own lifestyle. If that entails avoiding places where other peoples offspring are running wild that's their choice and they shouldn't be insulted because of it.

And to say they wouldn't exist if their parents hadn't had kids is a pretty lame argument.

I no longer go to the Windmill hotel for Sunday lunch because wet, screaming children run around my table when I'm trying to eat. That's my choice.

[LivinginKata]

People are free to choose their own lifestyle. If that entails avoiding places where other peoples offspring are running wild that's their choice and they shouldn't be insulted because of it.

And to say they wouldn't exist if their parents hadn't had kids is a pretty lame argument.

I no longer go to the Windmill hotel for Sunday lunch because wet, screaming children run around my table when I'm trying to eat. That's my choice.

Very good response. We all have the choice to find an environment that suits our dining experience. Screaming kids is not in my idea of a dining experience. Each to their own.

[krisb]

So many anti children people here. Fair enough but they forget their parents wanted kids it seems. I hate that attitude of if kids will be eating there, we won't. Seriously get a life.

People are free to choose their own lifestyle. If that entails avoiding places where other peoples offspring are running wild that's their choice and they shouldn't be insulted because of it.

And to say they wouldn't exist if their parents hadn't had kids is a pretty lame argument.

I no longer go to the Windmill hotel for Sunday lunch because wet, screaming children run around my table when I'm trying to eat. That's my choice.

See you've totally misunderstood me. No one wants out of control kids like that.

If you really want me to explain, I'm happy to. And who said anything about screaming kids? ??

Edited June 10, 2015 by krisb

[krisb]

kids who want them pain in the ????????????

Perfect example of what I was talking about.

[KarenBravo]

If kids were human, there's a chance I might like them.

Trouble is, they don't really reach that stage until they are about 15 years old

[krisb]

If kids were human, there's a chance I might like them.

Trouble is, they don't really reach that stage until they are about 15 years old

Sad.

[KarenBravo]

If kids were human, there's a chance I might like them.

Trouble is, they don't really reach that stage until they are about 15 years old

Sad.

Yes, but true.

[Old Croc]

If kids were human, there's a chance I might like them.

Trouble is, they don't really reach that stage until they are about 15 years old

That's about when they start getting into drugs and create a whole different set of problems.

[KarenBravo]

I was a late developer.

I didn't become human until I was 17 years old.

It is in youth's nature to rebel. If they don't they grow up as conventional and boring.

If you don't rebel by the time you are 16, you have no heart. If you don't conform by 30, you have no brains.

[The Big Mango]

Maybe I could set aside a section for TV members so they dont upset the kids there , :-)

But seriously , some good points to consider have arisen so far so my thx for them.

Edited June 10, 2015 by The Big Mango