The Soft Opening: Planning for a Smooth Restaurant Opening

Build Delays Into The Schedule 

You can build time contingencies into your budget in the same way you put aside a contingency fund for cost overruns. But some delays can be prevented if you think ahead and plan events into the schedule before you actually need them done.  

“A typical delay is when something doesn’t arrive on time, such as a piece of equipment or small wares,” says Malody. “I once had a client who forgot to order cutlery. I’ve seen cases where even plates and tableware didn’t arrive on time.” 

Equipment failure due to improper installation or a defect can cause delays, too. That’s easy enough to fix, first by using qualified restaurant equipment installers such as those provided by dealers like Central Restaurant Products or certified installers or service agents, and second by scheduling equipment startup, testing and calibration far enough in advance to give you time to replace anything that doesn’t work properly. 

Health, building and fire department final inspections should be scheduled several weeks out to give you time to fix any red flags. Ideally, inspectors from all these regulatory agencies have been checking in on a regular basis to make sure that what’s being built and installed in your restaurant matches the schematics and specs they approved in the permitting process. “I know of cases where a health inspector has come in for a final inspection and made the operator rip out and replace the kitchen flooring because it didn’t meet code,” Malody says. 

Lesson Learned 

Once the equipment is fired up, have your HVAC and kitchen exhaust contractors come back to balance the system under working conditions. In one case, an operator with a demand ventilation in the kitchen-tested the balance when the kitchen equipment was off. On opening day, with all the cooking equipment fired up and the hood exhaust fan on high, patrons had a hard time opening the front door. 

“Most operators also underestimate the time involved in putting together and testing production recipes,” Malody continues. That process can be part of staff training, too, so employees see how recipes are put together and the tasks they’ll have to learn, as well as understanding the ingredients that go into them and what they taste like. When the time comes, they can use this information to do a better job of explaining menu items to customers—both for the purpose of marketing the dishes and for informing guests with allergy sensitivities. 

Having your staff help prepare and clean the restaurant in the final stages of preparation while they’re learning their job responsibilities also gives them a sense of ownership and fosters teamwork early on.

If you do decide to bring staff on board a week or two early, don’t forget to adjust your schedule for developing all of your policies and procedures manuals and employee handbooks, as well as training materials. And you should have at least an initial temporary supply of food and beverage menus to work with until all your production recipes are tested and finalized.  

The second event can be a general invitation with no set timeframe. That will likely produce a more uneven—and lifelike—ebb and flow of customers, giving staff a real trial by fire. 

Track what items customers order to see which are more popular than others. Track depletion of par levels of inventory of all the menu items that were ordered so you can adjust production recipe quantities later. And track ticket time so you can see where more training or staff support is needed.  

Conduct a staff meeting after every event to learn what went well and what didn’t work, where bottlenecks occurred and what staff did to try to remedy any problems that arose. Assign someone to take detailed notes of staff comments. You also may want to hold these meetings after every shift for the first week after opening and make them weekly thereafter.  

“Based on what you hear, you may even reposition a station based on how food flows in the kitchen,” Malody says.  

Send out customer surveys after the events—online surveys through services like SurveyMonkey work well, but you’ll need to get everyone’s email address. Offer them a discount or some other incentive to fill it out. Design it for focused feedback on: 

• the taste and quality of the item they ordered 
• their perceived value of the food and what they would pay for it if they ordered it again 
• the quality of the service they received 

Ask them to comment on any problems they encountered, how they were resolved and how satisfied they were with the staff’s response to their complaint. Ask also for comments about the ambiance, decor and overall experience. 

Pro Tip: The Customer Isn’t Always Right 

One caveat about what you hear from customers: “Everyone from the guy who did the plumbing to your family will have a comment about how you did things—including how much your mother-in-law hates the color of the paint you chose,” says Steve Starr, president, starrdesign, Charlotte, N.C. “Write them down on a master list, but don’t change anything for six weeks. If you get consensus from many people, or something operational isn’t working quite right, fix it. Other things, like the color of the walls, people will get used to overtime.” 

Read Your Complete Guide to Opening a Restaurant for more of the ins and outs of starting, and maintaining, a successful enterprise.