Here are the featured articles and editorial content in the May 2008 issue of Restaurant Startup & Growth magazine.

RestaurantOwner.com members have access to these articles in the RS&G Archive department on RestaurantOwner.com.

FEATURES

Will This Place Ever Open?
Strategies for Opening Your New Restaurant on Time
by Patricia Luebke
Before you can try to stay open, you need to get open, and the pitfalls between signing the lease and seating customers are many. In this article, the author discusses the common problems faced by startups in the opening phase, and how you might avoid them.

If the Shoe Fits...
How to Determine if a Primary Vendor Purchasing Program Is Right for Your Startup
by Lee Plotkin
Setting up purchasing programs that are “a fit” for your concept becomes more important in today’s competitive marketplace, especially when the cost of ingredients continues to increase with no end in sight. The key question facing many restaurateurs is how effectively to reduce costs without diminishing quality and service. In this article, the author examines if this strategy can work for an independent.

What’s it Worth to You?
The Future Value of Your Restaurant, and How You Can Influence It Today
by Barry K. Shuster
While it may be difficult for the owner of an independent restaurant to assign a hard-and-fast value to his or her concept, the question, “What is my independent restaurant worth?” is not an impossible conundrum. In this article, we review the factors that drive actual and perceived value of independent restaurants, and allow owners to maximize the valuation of their businesses.

DEPARTMENTS

Opening Remarks
by Barry K. Shuster
Put Down This Magazine — Until Tomorrow – The editor proposes that at least one day each week, you put down this magazine, refuse to take telephone calls from your accountant and lawyer, don’t sharpen your pencils, and just forget about the flippin’ business plan. On that day, simply enjoy what you do and do it well.

Insights
by Patricia Luebke
The best use of a restaurant owner’s time, tips on delivering performance reviews, pest control tips, and other interesting and useful tidbits in our monthly appetizer of helpful information.

Structures
by Howard Riell
Pipe Dreams: How to Avoid Plumbing Nightmares in Your Restaurant – Most restaurateurs don’t think about their plumbing until there’s a plumbing problem. If you think, however, that plumbing headaches are limited to an occasional clogged toilet, you need to read this article, which discusses the range of problems related to plumbing and how you can avoid them.

Bar & Cellar
by Howard Riell
Well-Kept Secrets: Wine Inventory Storage Challenges and Solutions – Here, the author reviews several wine storage fundamentals to help ensure the quality of the product when opened, and prevent it from being turned away by customers who are less than satisfied when sipping a spoiled wine.

RecipeMapping
by Joe Erickson
RecipeMapping is a three-step process that allows you to add new items to the menu consistently, methodically and profitably. This month, we help you offer your guests Sourdough Breadbowl Louie and Not Mom’s Mac-n-Cheese without losing your way or your shirt.

MenuMakeover
by Mark Laux
Making Do Without a Menu Matrix – Our resident menu engineer visits Little Mexico of Mattoon, Illinois, to show how you can improve a menu even without theoretical food cost and sales reports.

What Our Readers are Building, Buying and Remodeling
by Linda Lee Walden and Lynn Laymon
This month we revisit Kokobilli Bagel Cafe in the Phoenix area to see how two first-time restaurateurs have fared, nearly four years after their startup was first featured in Restaurant Startup & Growth.

New Products and Services
A description of useful gear and services for your restaurant, and how they can benefit your operations.

Points of Origin
by Doug Turner
A bird's-eye view of both the number and the geographic distribution of the nation's new restaurants.

Showtime
by Gene Gentrup
Your best ideas might be waiting for you at trade shows staged across the country.

Last Seating
by Chef J. Arthur Gordon
Why ‘Reality’ TV and ‘Independent’ Restaurateur are Oxymorons – Add televised weather reports and college basketball to the almost endless list of reasons why this wonderful business can be so crazy.

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