Every good home cook has had the dream of opening his or her own restaurant. But we've also heard the dire warning: "90% of restaurants fail in the first year of operation." It isn't true.
AsCornell University researchers show, those numbers are a myth. Still, as in any retail operation, there's a lot of ways to go wrong. My Food for Thought pard, Seattle Times food writer Nancy Leson, a veteran of the restaurant business herself, lays out some of the most common problems in this week's installment.
The short version is that you need to be at least as good at business as you are at cooking. Maybe even better.
Her cover story on that subject, coming Sunday, November 12th in the Seattle Times Pacific Northwest Magazine goes in-depth with Seattle area restaurateurs to find out what makes for success in the hash-slinging racket.
"It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman."
– Federico Fellini
