Choosing a Great
Catering Business Location

This article was originally written for restaurants, however most of the adivce is still particularly applicable to picking a commercial location for a catering business.

Choosing the right location can be one of the most important business decisions that you will make. It is advisable to compare the strengths and weaknesses of several sites before deciding which one is right for you. Also, having several sites to choose from can improve your bargaining position when negotiating lease or sale agreements.

Over the years of reviewing and selecting restaurant locations, these guidelines should prove extremely helpful and followed closely to ensure that the location of the restaurant you acquire or start is going to be successful.

To select good locations, one needs to be aware of the following:

Know Your Concept and Operation
A food operator cannot successfully expand unless he or she knows their operation. Knowing one's food service operation means fully understanding food and labor costs, controllable and uncontrollable expenses, and profitability. If that is not under control, and the unit is not profitable, expansion is probably not the solution.

Know Your Customer
Who is your customer? Do you know? Most restaurateurs think that they do, but often they are wrong. It is extremely important to understand, not only who is the customer, but more importantly, who is the most frequent customer? Knowing who that frequent customer is will help to identify other areas that my have demographics with similar characteristics.

Determine a Trade Area
What area do you intend to serve? Trade areas come in all shapes and sizes. They are not actually round, square, or rectangular. Instead, they usually reflect an irregular-shaped pattern, corresponding to the road or street pattern, altered by competition, physical and psychological barriers, and the demographics of the residents and employees of the area. What is a realistic area from which your proposed restaurant can attract customers?

Know the Layout of Your Market
Every city and neighborhoods has a structure. The structure is determined by physical and psychological barriers, socio-economic characteristics, street and highway patterns, commercial and industrial concentrations, types of employment, income, age, topography, and other factors. By identifying the most important benefits of the structure, a restaurant operator can substantially improve the opportunity for success.

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