Equipment for Your Restaurant: Choosing a Restaurant Concept
September 11, 2018Some people who start a restaurant know exactly what they want.
They either buy an existing restaurant with a concept, or they create the menu based on their family traditions or ethnic flair.
However, not everyone who wants to start a restaurant knows exactly what they want to focus on. Maybe they have a variety of interests, or maybe they’ve had a restaurant with a specific concept and it’s time for a change.
As you look at equipment for your restaurant – new or remodel – it’s vital to choose a concept that works well in your market. Here are some tips!
Formal vs. Casual
Choosing between a formal and casual concept is the first step. A formal restaurant will command a premium price, but requires better chefs and an excellent menu.
Casual restaurants are very popular, but there’s a lot of competition in that space. You’ll need to stand out in some way – either with a unique food concept, through pure quality, or by having a unique location.
Once you make this key decision, you’ll be much better prepared to choose equipment for your restaurant.
Choose a Service Niche
Among both formal and casual restaurants, there are a variety of niche concepts that can help you refine your restaurant ideas and focus your menu.
Some ideas to consider include:
- Fast casual, which is in between a fast-food restaurant and a sit-down location with waitstaff. Examples include Chipotle and Panera.
- Family style, where families feel comfortable bringing kids and are served by waitstaff. Examples include Cheddars and Ruby Tuesday’s.
- Café or Bistro, where customers order at a counter and sit and enjoy their meals at small tables or outdoor seating. Simple meals are key.
- Food truck, where you have a mobile food service that serve fairs, festivals, and city areas.
- Buffets, whether served open style or cafeteria style, can be a great way to offer big value to patrons.
- Fine dining, where dress is formal and you’ll serve high-quality food on tables with white tablecloths. Each restaurant is unique, even if one owner runs them all.
Within each niche, you can have a variety of food concepts, which we’ll discuss next. Your food focus will have a lot to do with what you need as far as equipment for your restaurant.
Selecting Your Food Focus
The final step to choosing your restaurant concept is to choose a food focus. Just because you have family style dining doesn’t mean you have to serve Americana food. You can do barbecue or even Asian cuisine.
As you think about what type of food you want to serve, ask yourself these questions:
- Do you have a love for a specific type of cuisine?
- Do you have a unique ethnic background?
- Is there a type of food underserved in your niche or local area?
- Do you have a chef with expertise in a specific area?
Once you choose your food focus, along with the other elements of your restaurant concept, you’ll have a great idea what you need in terms of equipment for your restaurant. You can move into décor and menu design with the decisions you’ve made so far.
Get the Right Equipment For Your Restaurant
Finding the right equipment for your restaurant isn’t always easy, especially when you’re trying to balance your dreams with your budget. Fortunately, you don’t have to do it alone.
Tipton Equipment has helped restaurant owners in the Little Rock area for years, and we’d love to be by your side as well. Let us help you find the cooking equipment, smallwares, and more that you need to fill out your restaurant concept!
Kitchen Equipment: Choosing the Right Cutting Board
Every kitchen, from a food truck to a large restaurant, needs cutting boards. From vegetables to bread to meat and fish, your chefs and cooks have to chop things every day. Have you put a lot of thought into this important piece of kitchen equipment? Like many other...
Catering to Generation Z
As time marches on, we continue to have new generations arising behind the ones we’ve already named. Most recently everyone has been focused on Millennials, whose tech-savvy and focus on experiences over things have shifted the face of every industry. Now, there’s a...
4 Ways to Keep Your Restaurant Employees Engaged
You can have everything you need to run an amazing restaurant – a great menu, incredible chef, the best location, perfect pricing, and top-of-the-line kitchen equipment. But even with all of that, you won’t succeed if your employees are disengaged and unprofessional....
Kitchen Fun : Food and the Oscars
Hollywood’s biggest night was February 24th, 2019, and was it ever a show. There were stars, glitz, glamour, and amazing outfits everywhere. There were also cameras catching every moment, from the red carpet to the after-parties. What happened at the show and after...
4 Keys to Successful Commercial Kitchen Design
If you’re opening a new restaurant or renovating your existing kitchen, you probably already have some ideas about how it should look. However, it’s important to look beyond your own ideas and understand the keys to good design in general. This will help you...
Bring Together Your Back and Front of House
Does your restaurant feel like a simmering battle between the back of house (BOH) and front of house (FOH)? Or do both units get along famously? If your restaurant is like many, you find yourself somewhere in the middle. Rarely do you have an all-out war, but...
Commercial Kitchen Fun: Cooking With Mustard
One of the things that make owning a restaurant so fun is the ability to be creative with your menu. With the help of your chef and cooks, you can come up with some really fun dishes to serve. To get your imagination going, we’re going to share some fun dishes that...
Drive Traffic to Your Restaurant From Instagram
You have a lot of restaurant equipment that you need to make your location run smoothly. You might think about your point-of-sale system, refrigeration units, cooking equipment, and more. But what about Instagram? That’s right, a social media platform can be one of...
Handling Theft in Your Convenience Store
Running a convenience store is challenging to say the least. You need to staff it, but not with too many people. Then again, too few and you have a lot of problems – including theft. There are three groups that can be responsible for product and money loss in your...
Kitchen Equipment Spotlight: How Clean is Your Coffee Pot?
If you were going to rank kitchen equipment based on how much work it does, the humble coffee pot has to be near the top. In almost every restaurant, people order coffee with their meal or dessert. The problem is that because the coffee pot is working so hard, it...
Should You Add a Food Truck to Your Restaurant?
If your restaurant is doing well, you might be thinking about opening a second location. After all, that’s usually the next step when it’s time to expand, right? Before you jump in, though, consider another option. Maybe having a food truck would be a better choice....
Kitchen Equipment Spotlight: How to Maintain a Commercial Freezer
Your commercial freezer can be a lifeline for your restaurant. Safe food storage is vital, and a high-quality freezer is essential kitchen equipment. However, a freezer is only as good as the maintenance that goes into it. Without proper care, your freezer will become...
Take Advantage of Your Customer’s Technology
Some restaurant owners hate seeing customers snapping photos of food – it means that the food isn’t eaten at its best, and sometimes it’s a sign of a table that’s going to be slow to turn over. Then there are other owners and managers who see an opportunity. The truth...
How to Reduce Turnover at Your Restaurant
Having the right employees can make or break your restaurant. You can have the best food and kitchen supplies, but tension in the back of the house can cause delays, poor morale, and even the loss of key staff. You can have a beautiful dining room, but surly wait...
Should Your Commercial Kitchen Consider Catering?
As a business owner, it’s important to always be looking for new ways to grow your business. There are a lot of ways to do this, and one of the most common for many restaurants is catering. Of course, catering changes how your commercial kitchen runs a lot of the...