Picking the right restaurant location

Picking the right restaurant location

Picking the right location of your restaurant is everything!

No matter how great your concept is, and even if your food is incredibly delicious, the wrong location can undermine your business and even lead to it failing. Restaurant owners know this. 

They also know that a great location is like a great marketing tool. When a potential customer walks by your establishment and is wowed by the concept, that leaves a strong impression. Many potential customers walking by your restaurant is therefore great for business. 

The more people see your restaurant and know where it’s located, the more likely they are to become customers.

With that in mind, here are three factors to consider when picking the location for your restaurant.

1. Your target customers

Where do your target customers live and how far are they willing to travel to eat at your establishment?

There’s a reason “Restaurant near me” is a popular search phrase on Google. Most people like to eat at restaurants that are close by or at least easy to travel to. Understanding the eating and traveling habits of your customer can narrow down your options for a good location. 

Say you were opening a restaurant to cater to university students – the ideal location would be in a student town, or next to a university. If you wanted to open a cafe mainly serving breakfast and lunch to office workers, you might consider the central business district.  

It’s never a bad idea to scout areas that your target customers frequent for a possible location for your restaurant. 

2. Access to utilities

Restaurant kitchens have more electrical requirements than standard home-kitchens. And once your restaurant is up and running, you’ll find that your utility bills can get quite high and eat out of your profit margins. 

So when you’re analyzing a potential location, make sure your kitchen equipment will be able to operate without a hitch. If the electrical fitting of the location won’t accommodate your kitchen equipment, you may have to speak to your landlord about upgrading it. 

Making sure you have great access to utilities allows you to better manage the usage of those utilities to try to lower utility costs that can sometimes get out of hand. 

3. Visibility and accessibility

Picking a location where your restaurant will be visible to pedestrians and motorists is important because it helps advertise your restaurant to potential customers. If your location isn’t visible, you will have to spend on marketing to make up for it. 

Restaurateurs like corner locations because they stand out, they’re easier to find and direct people to, and since cars slow down on corners, your restaurant is more likely to be noticed. 

If the flow of traffic is fast all the time, the site may not be ideal for a restaurant as people won’t be seeing your establishment. Similarly, construction projects may redirect traffic away from your location.

On the other hand, pedestrians and motor traffic passing by your restaurant will boost your chances of attracting more customers. So consider setting up next to the following landmarks if you want good visibility:

• Malls
• Recreational facilities
• Central business districts
• Entertainment centers
• Mass transportation stops

4. Parking availability

If you’re planning on locating your restaurant in populated urban areas where taxis, parking garages, and public transportation is readily available, then this won’t be too much of a concern for you. 

Otherwise, is there enough parking in the area to accommodate your customers during peak-hours? 

The question of parking becomes even more important when your concept is convenience-oriented, or if you’re based in residential areas where your customer base is made up of families. The last thing you want is a customer visiting your restaurant then leaving because there wasn’t any parking space.

Conclusion

To recap, the location you pick should be easy for your primary customers to travel to. Beyond that, look at foot traffic patterns as well as road traffic – a lot of potential customers passing by and noticing the restaurant is only good for business. 

When analysing your options for a location, revisit the factors talked about in this blog post to make sure all boxes are ticked. For more insights, check this article out on the pros and cons of nine restaurant locations.  

Shopping at Interwaters.com

Even if you pick the best location for your restaurant, you’ll still have to tend to delivery orders. Or at the very least, customers will want to pack food and take it home. 

In such a situation, your packaging solution will be vital. That’s where we come in. We have a wide array of packaging solutions for all businesses in the Food & Beverage industry. 

Browse our catalog here, or if you’re looking for custom options, something unique that your customers will remember you for, get in touch with us here, and we’ll have you covered.