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How to Find the Right Location for Your Next Restaurant

Evaluating the market and selecting the right location is as important as creating the concept, developing the menu or designing the restaurant. In fact, it may well be more important, because a location that at first may appear to be a good deal may in the long run turn out to be a bad deal. You don't want to ante your restaurant into a crapshoot. Good food, pleasant service, and aggressive marketing rarely overcome the wrong location.

It's also something that is almost impossible to correct; location is the one "permanent" thing about a restaurant. That is because if necessary you can modify your concept, change the menu, redesign the interior, redirect the marketing and even replace the management if you want to. You cannot, however, easily change the location of your location. You better get it right from the start.

In this article, we discuss the fundamentals of choosing a good location. It is a complex process, and one that the big chains study carefully. While you may not have the benefit of a skilled site selection team on your payroll, by applying the following information and a little street smarts, you can sidestep a bad address.

First, Define Your Target Market

To select good locations, one must first know the target audience the concept is designed to attract. Simply asked, "who is your customer?"

Do you really know? Many restaurateurs think they do, but often their personal enthusiasm for the concept overwhelms common sense. We sometimes tend to overestimate the mass appeal of what we see as a "dream concept." This delusion leads to a misperception that your customer base is much broader than reality would dictate. It's a vicious cycle, since in the attempt to appeal to this broad demographic, the concept becomes diluted from the original intent. Remember that a restaurant concept can seldom be "all things to all people."