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Madison Co. Virginia | There's an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet available at a conventional restaurant nearby. They seem to do well. They don't limit the bacon and sausage. If I were to limit the meat, I'd say that a breakfast consists of x-number of meat servings. You can have those meat servings in bacon, sausage, ham, or any combination thereof. If you want more than x amount, you pay a little extra.
On the free coffee thing. Y'all might be right. I guess coffee could be free with a sandwich or breakfast purchase.
I would avoid the many kinds of bread and fruits for a start-up operation. Menus would be kept simple.
The breakfast bar would be simply the basic fried foods. Fried eggs, scrambled eggs, pancakes, sweetened griddle cakes, ham, bacon, and sausage would be fried on the griddles. Velveeta cheese is readily added to any of the above upon request. An oven nearby is used for biscuits. A sausage and milk gravy is kept warm in a slow cooker. If you're the oddball who requests oatmeal, that's tossed in the microwave. Pancake syrup, whipped butter, ketchup, and other condiments are loose on the bar and on the tables. Drinks are orange juice, milk, water, and coffee.
Fruit could be added later, though I'm not sure how that would be handled, since the kitchen side of the bar would be getting a bit crowded. I would not cater to vegans, though if they requested, there would be a few limited options available. There would probably be a package of veggie burgers somewhere in the back of the freezer, and grits would be available. The expected customer base would have very few vegans though.
The deli counter is making basic ham and cheese sandwiches, with 2 kinds of bread, 3 kinds of meat and 3 kinds of cheese, plus the lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, and mayonnaise. Could expand into pork barbecue sandwiches.
On one wall would be the ubiquitous drink cooler with a full selection of gatorade, energy drinks, soft drinks, single serving milks, etc.
A display case near the registers would have fresh fruit(bananas, apples, small oranges), bags of peanuts, and little debbie cakes or the equivalent. All intended to round out a lunch bag.
An interesting aspect, is that large portions of this restaurant could be shared with a fancy sit-down evening restaurant. Parking lot, bathrooms, coolers, loading dock, and portions of the kitchen would be useful in another restaurant enterprise. The dining room could be converted back and forth, but it would be a lot of work. I picture one building with one front entry. Inside this entry, the bathrooms open directly ahead, and a door on either side goes to the respective restaurants. The kitchen adjoins both dining rooms. If properly done, one restaurant closes its doors at 2pm, and the chefs are just then arriving to start prep work for a 5pm opening of the other restaurant. Separate inventories, staff, marketing, bookkeeping, etc for each restaurant. Each one can focus on what they do best, but still save money compared to operating separately. | |
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Thinking about opening a restaurant
