A New Restaurant

Customers – the life blood of any business.  This is the areas of your business plan where you can show potential investors that you have considered who will be going to your restaurant.  You’ll show who the customers are, how many people there are in your customer base, and how much money they have to spend at your restaurant.

Customer Identification

The first step in this process is to identify who your customer is.  Be sure that you can differentiate between the population in your area and your businesses customers.  Not everyone in the neighborhood will go to your restaurant on a regular basis.  You need to be able to identify what your customer looks like.

If your restaurant appeals to a more affluent crowd, families in a lower income range probably won’t become regulars, nor would families with younger children.  So when you talk about the demographics of your area, you need to be able to focus in on the people that are likely to find your restaurant appealing. 

Chances are there is more than one target in your customer base.  A reasonably priced family restaurant might also appeal to older couples looking for an inexpensive place to eat.  Your customer could also be young couples for the same reason, or high schoolers looking for a place to go on Friday evening.  Show all of the smaller target groups, and be able to show how many people fall into each group.

By segmenting your customers into smaller groups, you can be more specific about how your restaurant will meet the wants and needs of that segment.  If your target is too broad, you end up using generalities when talking about your audience and some of what you say will not apply equally to all of your customers.

Demographics

One thing your investors are going to want to see is the growth trend of the customer base for your restaurant.  Your businesses ongoing success depends on a thriving customer base for years to come.  If you see that your customer base is shrinking, you may want to consider a different area for your business.  If, on the other hand, there is growth in the area, that will strengthen your restaurants position when you go before investors.

Part of your demographics will be to show the income level of the people you are trying to appeal to.  Your investors like to know that there is enough money in your area to support the venture.  Even the best idea will fail if your customers don’t have enough money to keep your restaurant in business.

Luckily, the US Government has made getting this information a lot easier.  Go to www.census.gov, click on the FactFinder link, type in the zip code, and you’ve got the demographics of the area right on your screen

By getting to know your customers, you’ll know whether the area your considering can support your restaurant.