I got to a place that used to have books on the wall, entertainment at night and the style of food was different from what I see right now. There might have been a local crowd that came for the music and to read, more so than to eat. Perhaps that explained the reason for the restaurant to lose business. It had to pay its bills and make some profit along the way too. Another reason may have been that the food portions were to large. Maybe the owner just got tired of being as generous as he was in serving too much in return for little.

I miss that old style restaurant compared to the factory type of eatery there is now. Then again, being over-generous may have been a cause of the previous owner’s failure. Since the new one has more of a factory made formula and the atmosphere is brighter than before, then maybe that was a solution for the business. I know for a fact that the new owner looked into the style of clientele they would like to attract and on how to keep them. It looked like they had more of a “contemporary” marketing plan.

This leads me to talk about what makes for a better restaurant in a certain area of town. Its comes down to getting a better than ordinary marketing plan and that means studying what the previous owners did that made them fail. More so, it has to do with what can be added that the clientele in the area would like to come back to besides eating. New restaurants make a big difference in fact when they set up a sweet offer in the beginning, a two for one deal let’s say, so that the client is encouraged to bring his friends along.
Sweet deals are not enough to keep the client happy. He won’t be happy with rude surprises, like a complete change of menu pricing. I noticed that the new restaurateur asked some of benefactors what suggestions they had a far as affordable dishes were concerned. The idea was to offer his customers something for lunch that they could spend within reason and not have to skimp. I should add that the new owner was a franchiser with the backing of a local coffee roasting company whereas the previous owner did not have this backing or the collateral that the coffee company provided.

Getting into franchises means that you can become an owner of your business, but not be the owner of the business name and often it is the business name which will attract the clients, especially if it is already known for its good service in the sector it specializes in. Since coffee and tea go along with what you eat for lunch or breakfast, then it made sense that the new owner takes advantage of what the roasting company could supply for them to exhibit: a rich assortment of different coffee blends and paraphernalia. That would attract the consumer while he would be choosing his food or while sitting and reading a book.
Numbered are the days that a person would just sit down to a plate on the table and look up to empty walls and a boring view. It seems more and more people want to add that extra zing so that clients can stay after they have eaten.

Sometimes the restaurant can get involved in helping a young mother take care of her tot. On the plateau in Montreal, there are such places with a small spaces where parents can leave a young child to play with a brightly colored toy, while they continue chatting with a friend. The inclusion of a playroom corner has been in vogue in the area for a while and offers an advantage to young mothers saddled with a preschool kid for the afternoon.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of different eateries out there and niches to suit different pocketbooks. One person might decide on a locale where the food is prepared in house and served to a maximum of four ordinary tables. A smaller locale like this means a lower overhead and most likely that is going to be a place where the staff is smaller. In addition, as I have noticed, the assortment of goods is going to be less and the owner’s targeted market might just be ordinary people who will come for a desert or for a single lunch deal as opposed to the a franchise that can afford a daily special as well as original dishes from a better than standard, glossy menu.

Either way both the small eatery or the franchised place have room to succeed, it all depends on the market that the person wants to serve, how much he is willing to spend to get started and what he is willing to borrow too. If there is going to be too much of an investment with little return, the smaller restaurateur is likely to fail because he can not keep up with his bills and be able to pay his staff. A larger concern such as one which sells franchises, will most likely be able to ride through rough economic times because of allowances that the manager has from the company or because larger companies tend to spend more on marketing studies that would prevent excessive or wasteful investments.