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Starting a F&B Business

Cafes. Restaurants. F&B kiosk. Bakery. Regardless the size or type of your F&B business, it is important for the business owner to take note of a few things before stepping into any planning or commitment.

1. Sorting out the preliminary requirements from the venue owner e.g. building management, local authority

Every work starts off with foundation work. In this case, the foundation work that a business owner should do is to learn about all the preliminary requirements of the location where they want to start their business at. We see this as an important step as it will greatly affect all the works that come into the picture in the later stage. For example, if the building management has a requirement for an F&B kiosk to do waterproofing work, this will definitely affect the cost of the kiosk construction. Should this information come later after the business owner has signed a lease, it may place the owner in a tight spot financially, and he or she might need to compromise on other plans in order to fulfill this requirement.

  1. Business concept

As all interior design work and business collateral start off with a concept, the owner should make up his or her mind on the business concept. For example, if the owner plans to make the restaurant a child-friendly place, the restaurant may be designed differently to attract parents to bring their kids over. If the owner decided to change the business concept to attract another group of audience, he or she might need to spend another chunk of money to redesign the space. This will greatly affect the business operation.

  1. Space planning

A restaurant or café space planning is very important as it will affect the customer’s dining experience as well as the workflow of their servers. For example, customers will not want to walk through the kitchen when they enter a restaurant. The first impression that the restaurant give will affect how they perceive the food quality and taste. Having lesser visual disruption is also very important for the servers to be able to see and attend to the customers. Imagine if the tables are placed in blind spots where the servers will not be able to see easily. They will appear to be less attentive and eventually lead to a bad service review.

  1. Types of equipment that will be used to run the business

If your business has plans to serve hot food, chances that you will have equipment that emits hot air e.g. stove or oven. You will not want to have the hot air lingering around your operation space especially if yours is an indoor business. Having a hot and humid air will definitely make it very uncomfortable for your customers to be in. As the owner, you should identify what are some of the equipment that you will be using, and advise this to your interior designer. An experienced commercial designer will be able to advise you on the best placement of this equipment.

Based on the 4 points shared above, we hope that this article will help to give you a better idea on your F&B business planning direction. Please note that the above points were observed based on our case studies.

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