I disagree...
Location is everything...
*** 90% of restaurants go out of business ***...
And they do it slow... torturing the owner for 2-3 years.

A typical URBAN restaurant needs 40,000 residents...
In a several km radius of the establishment...
Or you are gonna die a slow death.

I live a lakefront area of Toronto...
Which has been slowly building up for the last 15 years...
Where 10 yrs ago you maybe had 10,000 residents in 3-5 km radius...
In that critical area...
And I would watch business after business after business...
Open up and disappear within 1-2 years...
Each one costing the owner 50-100K and up.

Today, it's finally reaching that 40,000 threshold...
And similar businesses are opening and surviving.

Forget about this social networking nonsense...
If you choose the wrong location for a walk-in business...
You are DOA before you open the doors.

Most businesses fail...
Because of the decisions you make...
BEFORE you open you business.

Your not doing anything but opening a restaurant dude..., not copying anything in particular (deli sandwiches).

GL, its a tough gig from what i've heard, you definitely need to be both passionately creative and hard working.

Location is only 50% of the equation. 40% is the food. IMHO
"panninis that taste amazing" Can you make a panninis that tastes amazing?
Watch an episode of Kitchen Nightmares..
Gordon will tell you 90% is the food.

I am in RE, so I am never going to tell anybody that location is not important. I simply said it is not _as_ important as it used to be for restaurants if you have amazing product and following already, and I have seen over and over in my city, small local food trucks take over buildings with less then stellar locations abandoned for years (making the building and lease affordable for their business) and be very successful.

I am not even talking about a small town or city, because these won't be the types of populations that support the social communities which make up my reasoning for location not being as important. Yelp, facebook, twitter, chow hound, etc.

For this reason alone you will more then likely fail.

These guys are probably very successful because they have put their heart and soul into creating a great product, and working on that for years and years.

People like this are successful in business because they live, eat, and sleep their business and want to make the most amazing product they can.

The fact that you degrade the very art of the business you are considering starting doesn't look good.

People are putting way too much emphasis on quality of food being the determining factor and jumping on the OP for saying there is no preparation in making a sandwich, which is completely true. If you get the right ingredients, it's essentially impossible to screw up a sandwich. The same can not be said for Italian food, Mexican food, etc.

Even given credence to the assertion that a restauranteur's heart and soul must be in the food to make it work, there are plenty of successful restaurants in my city with horrible food. I would imagine in order of importance it probably goes something like location, atmosphere, marketing, quantity of food/pricing and lastly quality of food.

Anybody else hungry for a sandwich?

The preparation doesn't take time but it shouldn't be taken lightly either. I do simple stuff for my customers all the time and small choices you make can make a difference in their enjoyment of your services. There may be a lot of other factors you can use to succeed (marketing, location, pricing) but missing out on having a super high attention to detail in your product is just losing value imo.

Soup is easy though, make 2 good soups for a lot of people in like an hour or two

Well, if you are in Austin I would love to hear a few examples of successful restaurants (besides chains) that have horrible food, as I live here too.

I just couldn't disagree more in terms of quality of food and am blown away that you would think there is no preparation or art to making a sandwich. We should probably just stop the conversation here as this is blasphemy. Quality of product is LAST on your list? I am going to go out on a whim here and say that you have never worked in the food industry in any extent, nor owned a business.

I never (very rarely) go to Subway, Jimmy Johns, or even Thundercloud because there are much better options for me, and I like quality.

Fricano's Deli, Little Deli, Noble Pig, Lucky's...these are just a handful (I could name 10 more) of some great sandwich shops in Austin which blow the others I listed away because they are using great product, ingredients and making creative things.

Sure anyone can slap some turkey, cheese, lettuce, mayo on a few slices of mrs Bairds bread, but I am a little to much of a sandwich snob to come back or be impressed, and I think a lot of people feel the same these days, and seek out unique, popular, well reviewed places their friends, co-workers, or family are talking about.

So lets stop the ridiculousness of saying that your product doesn't matter, because unless your sandwich shop will be overlooking some amazing million dollar view that people want to see.....these days in most large cities, it is almost ALL that matters.

Two restaurants that come to mind are Baby Acapulco's and Bikinis. Those have done well because of both location(s) and atmosphere. Their food is atrocious.

You say preparation is important and then for the reason for the particular delis you highlighted, you say it has to do with "product, ingredients and making creative things" which doesnt have to do with preparation and has more to do with having the right ingredients which is exactly what I stated in my previous post. Maybe people are just nitting it up about what constitutes "preparing" a meal.

Somehow I've never heard of Fricano's Deli. I'll have to check that out. Thanks for the suggestion.


Ridiculous straw man you present. Never said product doesnt matter. Never said million dollar views were necessary. I just listed what I thought were most critical elements for a restaurant to be successful.

Anyway, what, in your opinion, are the most important criteria for a successful restaurant?

this has degenerated into nittery.

One side take the position that any hack can toss together the recipe ingredients, and voila, satisfying meal. The other side takes the position that it takes a good cook, be it short order or sandwich assembler, to create that satisfying meal. Now if it is a chain store, where all the food comes pre-made, then any highschool dropout can slap it together. Point for the former.

A brief example, we went to Suisse Chalet yesterday because the sushi restaurant on the block was closed. They had a corn chowder that looked pretty good on the menu, it was a seasonal special. But they were out, none had been delivered. That is not much of a kitchen when they can't prep soup. Point for the latter.

The latter is what the OP was asking about, whether he can copy and compete.

Yea, Bikini's is a terrible boobie-restaurant franchise, and everyone knows you only go to Baby A's for the purple everclear margaritas!

The food! I don't care where the f the restaurant is located, or if its sheek and new and modern or whatever. If they have great food, I am there, and then I go back.

Perhaps I misunderstood your earlier quotes:

This made me believe you aren't putting much, if any, value in the quality of the food ie. the products, the ingredients, and often the "creativity" of dishes which I just disagree with.

And yes, go to Fricano's! If you like Reuben sandwiches at all, try the spicy one and tell me its not the best you've ever had.

There is this pizza restaurant near my house where every single item on the menu is either average,below average, or just plain bad. I've had them deliver food a few times because it's one of the few places that delivers in my area. Here are some examples of my experiences:

1. I ordered a dessert of cheesecake that was completely frozen. I had to wait 40 minutes to eat it.

2. I ordered a hot dog with bacon and cheese. It was 3 dollars. The hot dog was 1/3rd the size of the roll and they cut it in half to add a little extra flair to it. It wasn't even a restaurant grade hot dog. It was a grocery store hot dog. No one does that by the way. Who runs a real restaurant and doesn't use high grade hot dogs if they decide to sell them? When I say "real restaurant" I mean it within the context of a pizza restaurant and not a real restaurant.

3. Their pizza is average at best

4. Grinders below average

Yet this place has been there for at least 10 years. Across town it's just the opposite situation. There is a pizza place there that has both the best grinders and pizza I've ever had. That place does an incredible amount of business but they don't deliver. If they decided to expand they would put every other pizza place in town out of business . Yet for some reason they don't. Their pizza is absolutely amazing but they just aren't ruthless enough or don't know how good they really are.

So I guess the point is that there is a lot more to having a successful restaurant than your food. People keep talking about all these businesses opening and closing but I've never really witnessed it. Is this in really competitive markets?