Why does every person I know think they would be a great restauranter

 Perhaps it's the result of millions of years of evolution. Or perhaps it's got to do something with the consumerist capitalist society of today. Wait, scratch the capitalist, possibly even consumerist because I've discovered this outside the West, in small mostly poor villages of Nepal too. It's what seems to me like the universal desire to open a restaurant or cafe of some sort, and the belief that one would be great at the task, despite zero previous experience or interest in the vocation.

I was reminded of this because roommates BB and PK were talking about their plans from early pandemic, when BB suggested that they open a 'cloud kitchen'. Bro, BB said today, if we'd opened up that place and been in uber eats, postmates, all those apps, we'd have been rolling in cash. To which PK replied, yeahhh I don't know too many restaurant owners who're that well off. There was a bit of to-and-fro conversion, the outcome was inconclusive.

There was a time -- perhaps still is -- when I too thought it'd be a good idea to open up a restaurant, as long as you had a clear and good idea, and the means to execute it, aka well-designed recipes and somebody to cook well. Then I looked up youtube and the newspapers and literally any published paper or report and discovered that oops, it's actually a terrible idea, everyone thinks the same but is really unprepared which leads to restaurant businesses being the most failed businesses in America. There's a ridiculous statistic about eateries in New York, how thirty percent of them fail every year, and like twenty percent go out of business in the first year of running. And that's not a surprise, if you look below the surface.

A restaurant business is, first and foremost, a business. Which means, your expenses need to be less than your revenue, by a healthy margin to account for special circumstances and disruptions. AKA the covid. You need to optimize on the labor force, on space, on renting and location, on raw materials, marketing, sales, and what not. You need to have good relations with your customer base, and you need to keep it expanding. Keep the review sites happy and well-paid, improve your google rankings and get your name out in the big papers and review sites. And then you might have a chance. Maybe.

People forget that. They believe running a restaurant is opening a chill space where they would like to hang with their friends, and eat delicious goops. Creative, interesting foods, items that one wouldn't eat regularly. Be fun and flirty with the customers, who'll come over and over again. Manage and be loved my their employees. What could go wrong, right?

So many things. Let's not get started.

There's only one person I know of who's successfully running a restaurant and that's PS. And that's because her family started with a food stall in an existing store, as a market research strategy, build up a base, figured and optimized the logistics, and took a long time to open the restaurant. Even then I'm told it was a whole lot of blood and tears.

It's a tough business, very few will survive.

There's more to write on this, it's a work in progress.