If You Owned A Restaurant....

What kind would it be?

Would it be more of a coffee shop with bistro style food or haute cuisine? Would you require uniforms? Would you serve liquor?

My dad had kind of played around with this idea for a couple of years before my mom passed away.

The guy who owns (owned. He sold it to the guy who'd been trying to buy the truck shop for awhile) had bought another piece of land just off of a busier exit .

No word on what he was planning to do with it, but my dad came up with the idea of moving their RV to that lot, turning it into truck parking, and my mom would cook up lunch & dinner for the drivers & have picnic tables set out for them to eat at... But it would be what my mom chose to make each day- typical, very filling, Southern food, of course. And for a small fee, they would make trips to the grocery store to get things that the drivers needed/wanted- whether it's food, beer, or other things.

Of course, charging for dinner as well.

I thought (& still think) that this was a brilliant idea. Decent truck parking for drivers in New Boston just isn't there. And having that kind of hospitality available, I know, is something that truck drivers would greatly appreciate.



For me personally, I think that were I to have my own restaurant, it would kind of emulate that laid back feel. Yes, I would be sure to have a bigger parking lot and offer truck drivers free parking.

I don't think that I would necessarily have my servers & chefs wear uniforms- as long as what they wear is work appropriate. Chefs & other BOH, yes more leniency on the dress. But FOH, they should somewhat look polished. And non-slip shoes are required.

The food? Homestyle Southern & Mexican. Fried chicken, fried cube steak/ fried cube steak sandwiches, enchiladas, fajita, chiles rellenos, tacos, Mexican rice, beans, grilled corn, mashed/fried potatoes, etc.

And yes, alcohol would be served... But I think I would limit it to a couple of domestic & imported beers on tap- Bud Light, Miller Light, Dos Equis, and maybe a couple of others on tap, have more options for bottled & canned beers, but as far as hard liquor options- no blended margaritas. A few choices of tequilas, whiskey, and all that stuff, but no blended drinks,

hehe.

IDK what I'd call it... Maybe something with "Guera" (white girl) in it.



What would you do?

In a breakfast/lunch restuarant it would every style of egg cooking possible with a side of sausages or bacon.

In a Dinner restuarant it would be any style of potato cooking possible with a side of steak.

Also you make orders with an electronic device at your table unless you actually request a waiter/waitress.

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Originally Posted by blackmage_nuke

Also you make orders with an electronic device at your table unless you actually request a waiter/waitress.

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Applebee's is already trying this in a few stores from what I've heard.

I SAY NO.

DOWN WITH YOU.

The selfserve checkout was the greatest invention to ever come to supermarkets and large retail stores.

I hate waiting to be served and I hate waiting for my cheque and counting up our money. It would be great to just have a cash slot and just inserting money so it can calculate for you as well as a card reader where you type in your amount (or it automatically calculates it based on your seat) for those who want to pay by card.

AND IT WILL ALLOW YOU TO ALLOCATE ONE ITEM TO MORE THAN ONE SEAT SO IT CAN AUTOMATICALLY SPLIT THE BILL FOR ITEMS SHARED BY MULTIPLE PEOPLE SO SO SAYETH I.
None of this Jug of Beer all alocated to seat one nonsense!

edit: And with an electronic device you can have pictures for ALL the items on the menu and not just a select few.

And again if you want to have a traditional waiter with a fallible memory and have no hard evidence to force your cheapscape friends to pay their fair share as well as pictures for only a third the items on the menu then we will provide you with these "services" though what our waiters are doing is just inputting your choices on the exact same electronic system you're too lazy to lift your fingers for.

Also nutritional information for every item on the menu.

And you can just get more drinks and desert whenever, none of this flagging down waiters.

ALSO i'll engrave seat numbers onto the table and have little sensors to detect who's holding the ordering pad with an optional manual overide

I don't know what kind of restaurant I would own, because it is too easily confused with "what kind of restaurant do you wish existed?". I come from somewhere that has a lot of Turkish street food and there is none here, but that doesn't know that I would do well owning such an establishment. If I won the lotto I would make a food cart that sold different kinds of fried potato products, with falafel and whiskey/bourbon.

What I do know is that the servers would never clear your plates before you left, and they would go more than ten minutes before hovering around filling up your water glasses.

I would aim for something that's a mix between casual and fancy; somewhere you'd be happy to go with a friend, co-workers, or take a casual date. A mixture of seating arrangements to cater for different numbers of people with different purposes.

I'd like to serve cheap food, but make up for the profit on drinks, so I would probably serve liquor and have in-house cocktail specialties. Food would be a slightly fancy spin on homely: burgers, but with delicious sourdough buns and nice relish; pasta, but not just the basic spag bol; chicken parmigiana, but with optional extra toppings like pineapple or avocado; pizza, but with delicious gourmet toppings.

The place would be a fairly laid back design, with cool art on the walls and some exposed wooden panelling to make it feel warm and inviting. Anyone behind the scenes I wouldn't bother with uniforms, but I would like front of house to wear a uniform, even if it is just a black shirt with logo/black pants/apron deal; I feel that would work well in the laid back setting to create a slightly fancier vibe. I think walking that line between casual and fancy would be my constant focus, to be honest.

Basically, I just want to create an affordable yet still impressive option for people who can't go out to a really upmarket restaurant for a date night, a nice meeting place for friends/co-workers/family to gather, and a relaxing escape for individuals who just don't feel like cooking dinner that night.

Probably something along the lines of IHOP or Cracker Barrel and then hire a bunch of people who know what they're doing to run it and only come in when I'm needed.

Either bistro stuff with some good soups and things or a classy french place or a casual italian place. I could never choose.

I want to own a perpetual Halloween-themed coffee shop bakery/chocolatier/possible bookstore.

There would be a big screen showing old horror films above a giant fireplace with a lovely mantel, and a quiet reading room in an upstairs loft that can be accessed via a spiral staircase. The couches would be black and white stripe Beetlejuice couches like these - http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/23...25b48d6ad4.jpg - and the coffee tables would be made out of coffins. Red drapes would line the walls, and there would be framed ornate pictures of Vincent Price, Lon Chaney, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, The Addams Family, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, etc. Ornate chandeliers would hang from the ceiling, and decorative candelabras and sconces with melted candles would be littered throughout the building. I would love love a pipe organ somewhere as well. If not that, I'll settle for a bone and casket piano. It would also be cool if the ceiling could be painted in DaVinci-style Universal Monster scenes, but let's not get carried away. There would be creepy chess sets laid out for guests to play, too, and detailed Halloween masks mounted on walls, and a display of a gingerbread Haunted Mansion. Gargoyles would peer down on you from above as you sipped your lattes and munched on H.H. Holmes Keylime Pie.

There wouldn't be uniforms per se, but there will be blood-spattered aprons!

We would host "Killer Specials!" and "Un-Happy Hours" and serve things like Manson Macchiatos, Bundy Bundtcakes, skullpops, planetpops, graveyard brownies, cthulhu cookies, skeleton unicorn cookies, jack-o-lantern caramel apples, and every kind of creepy cupcake you can imagine.

I would love to host movie nights on the weekends to show old horror films and fun stuff like Rocky Horror, and I would love for there to be a small stage in the corner near the piano/organ where musicians could come to play. I would be nice to shut down the cafe portion of the shop and serve liquor after 8pm or so, but liquor licenses each year are like 10k for renewals.

As for names, my sister and friend who want to go in on this with me are conflicted. I like Alchemy Cafe (or pretentiously, "The Alchemy Cafe & Pastry Shoppe"), they like Creep Cafe. So who knows!

My dream job, running this place. I have files and files of ideas. Mostly leaning toward creepy factors, but I'd geek the place up quite a bit as well. A casual, fun, creepy place for freaks and geeks. Enter if you dare!

It would be a quaint bistro that specializes mostly in breakfast foods and bakery delicacies.

I would open a poutine/beaver tale chip stand. I would serve poutine and beaver tails.

I would serve breakfast foods only but not at breakfast time.

>>> Bratwurst, Fish and chips, all kinds of greasy food at dirt cheap prices!..:luca:

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Originally Posted by shion

I would open a poutine/beaver tale chip stand. I would serve poutine and beaver tails.

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You would have an eternal customer. :o

I'd open something similar to a bakery that also focused on serving sandwiches on fresh bread, pizza, stromboli, and other similar products. It wouldn't be especially original, but I like various bread and dough based foods. :)

Gastro Pub.

Nice, comforting, hearty home made food like Lasange, Burgers, Chilli, Pies, Mac & Cheese, Steak, Toad in the hole and Gammon & Eggs. With lighter choices for lunch like panini's with a variety of fillings with a side of chips.

Starters like filled potato skins, garlic mushrooms and calamari.

....This is making me hungry. :jess: