Roger Fields - Restaurant Success by the Numbers, Second Edition: A Money-Guy’s Guide to Opening the Next New Hot Spot

Copyright 2007, 2014 by Roger Fields

Front cover photos by Punchstock/Jupiter Images (top) and Katy Brown (bottom)

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com

Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress has catalogued the first edition as follows:

Fields, Roger.
Restaurant success by the numbers : a money-guys guide to opening the next new hot spot / Roger Fields.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13 : 978-1-58008-663-9 (pbk.)
1. Restaurant management. I. Title.
TX911.3.M27F54 2007
647.95068dc22 2007010637

Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-60774-558-7
eBook ISBN: 978-1-60774-559-4

Original cover design by Katy Brown
Front cover photo (bottom) props courtesy
Williams-Sonoma, Inc., www.williams-sonoma.com

v3.1

According to a report released by Bank of America Merrill Lynch late in 2011, since 2009 consumers have been spending more of their paychecksnow almost 4.5 percenton dining out. The report went on to note that, while spending on restaurants has increased over the same period, spending on groceries remained flat. One of the reasons is that, because of rising commodity prices, supermarket food prices are increasing at an astonishing 6 percent per year, which is approximately 2.5 times as fast as restaurant meals. As the number of American households earning two incomes grows, parents will have less time to prepare meals at home and thus will demand more dining conveniences. The popular Zagat restaurant guide has even coined a term for restaurants that cater to customers who choose to go out for everyday meals: Better Alternative to Home, or BATH. The National Restaurant Associations 2012 Industry Forecast reported the following: pent-up demand for restaurant services is substantial, with two out of five consumers saying that they are not using restaurants as often as they would like; the restaurant industrys share of the food dollar is now 47 percent; 90 percent of American adults reported that they enjoy going to restaurants; 66 percent of adults said their favorite restaurant foods provide flavor and taste sensations that they cannot easily duplicate at home; and the average household expenditure on food away from home in 2010 was $2,505. Also, a 2012 Gallup poll found that consumers who eat out of their homes spend an average of $150 per week.