Building Your Dream Team

Developing a restaurant in today’s economic climate demands a broad base of expertise.  Within your organization you may have partners with various talents – chef, front of house manager, accounting and finance person. In addition to these skills you will need expertise in site selection/real estate, lease or purchase negotiations, planning and design, construction, marketing/advertising and all areas of operations that are not covered by your internal organization.

If you think it is easy to build this team, you are in for an expensive lesson. It’s not rocket science, but you will need to think through the skills you have and the skills you need. You will also need to determine how you plan to allocate your finite time and skills toward this venture. You may be passionate about design, but can you execute this project alone or do you need to bring on additional professional help. Is your current chef capable of developing the menus and food concept for this venture or do you need fresh insight? Is your partner, who dabbles in real estate, the right person to be searching sites or negotiating a lease?

Take an honest look at your internal team, assess their skill level and then determine the skills you need to add for this project that are missing or require more qualified people to handle a venture of this size and scope.

When assembling your design team, list all the disciplines that will be required:

Legal

Financial

Real Estate

Design/ Architecture

Mechanical, Plumbing and Electrical engineers (MEP)

Structural engineer

Interior designer

Food Service Designer/equipment specialist

Graphic designer

Acoustical designer

Lighting designer

Sound system

Security system

POS system

Other specialty consultants

It may be a larger list than you anticipated and you may not need them all. But regardless of which ones you actually need, you should follow the same process when evaluating and selecting them.

Here are a few guidelines:

1. Establish a clear scope of work, timetable and budget for each discipline.  This is your responsibility although you may need or want help to refine this. It may also evolve once you assemble your team and review it with them.

2. Develop you concept and Design Program. You don’t want to waste time or money with your design team while you flesh out your concept, operating style and design requirements.  They can assist with refining it, but you, as the owner, operator and creator of the concept, must draft the initial working document.  The design team will use this as their road map.

3. Seek recommendations from restaurateurs you trust and who have been down this road.  Referrals are usually a good starting point.

4. Check credentials and talk with their past clients.  Be sure your personalities and approach to the project are compatible.

5. Be involved in the selection of ALL team members. Many architects have a team of consultants that they usually work with. This may be a good starting point, but, as the owner and the one paying the bills, you have a responsibility to meet these people, interview them and feel comfortable with them on your team.  If you are not, don’t let the architect foist them on you.  This is usually true for MEP engineers, food service consultants and specialty consultants.

6. Get formal proposals from all parties that detail their scope of work, fees, expenses and any additional services.

7. Restaurant designs evolve. You want your team to understand that you will keep refining the schematic design until you are comfortable with it. Do not let them limit you to a certain number of revisions or schemes.  However, once you approve a schematic design, they will move on to more details (design development) and changes at this point may trigger added expense.

8. Establish a point of contact and authority to make decisions within your organization. This is the person who will sign off on the various phases of the design. This should be the only person communicating with the General Contractor and authorized to make decisions. Make it clear to your staff that while they may visit the site (supervised) they cannot give any direction to the GC or their sub-contractors.

9. Establish a point of contact on the design team. Usually the architect or someone from their office. All communication must be coordinated with these people.

10. Maintain a paper/email trail for all correspondence and decisions.

11. Stay engaged. You or your representative must be involved in all design decisions that affect the budget, aesthetics and operations.

Enjoy the process. Understand that, unlike your daily restaurant operations, decisions take time. I’ve had operators screaming about waiting a few days or a week for information on hoods, equipment, factory information or answers from consultants. The design process takes time. While you may be an important client, you are one of several, all clamoring for answers and results.

Take the time and put in the effort to get it right.  You will appreciate the time spent when you are open and operating in a well-designed, functioning restaurant.