\\\'Restopreneurship\\\': Is it always a hit or miss?

According to what the famous Restaurant Mathematician Joe Bastianiach mentioned in his book The Restaurant Man, restaurant business can be comprehended with a very simple ideology:
"It's a nickel and dime business. You make dollars by accumulating nickels. If you make dollars by grabbing dollars, you'll never survive."
This has successfully grasped the entire essence of a profitable restaurant business in a nutshell. In order to create, build and sustain a brand, it is imperative that the business displays sustainable operational tactics. In order to do so, there must be a solid plan to move ahead with. Restaurant businesses are enlisted among the easiest ventures to start with. However, that has led to many failed prospects, due to the inability to foresee the future and plan the business accordingly. Therefore, in order to keep a restaurant or a café from being just another pop-up venture for the season, the minds behind them should have a distinct line of sight. Having said so, the vast profitability of restaurant business remains to be an undisputed argument. This business prospect complimented the growing interest in food of people in Dhaka and the next thing we know - there are new restaurants everywhere!
It is apparent how Dhaka got bombarded by a zillion new restaurants in recent times. Some made their mark, while others faded away. It is not necessary that the restaurants that faded off from our memories did not start off well. It is possible that they were serving the most demanding cuisine, employed the best behaved crew and bagged the highest number of "Excellent" reviews on social media. This reaction is manifested from the growing craze on food in terms of varying cuisines, comfortable spaces for hanging around and becoming a temporary food critic. The buzz created by every emerging restaurant caused a stir that made customers float into their spaces. The number of food ratings and social media "Check-ins" bumped up the sale for restaurants faster than any business had ever experienced.  Nevertheless, customers would only hover around a restaurant for as long as the "buzz" remained. Sooner or later, majority of all start-ups would fall behind in maintaining the rhythm with which it had instigated their journeys. This goes on to prove the worth of post-launch marketing strategies as opposed to pre-launch marketing strategies. Restaurants are finding it increasingly difficult to hold on to the customers, let alone encourage long-term resilience. Dhaka alone could make a huge list of restaurants it had welcomed, embraced, loved and forgot. Since they were well-accepted among the customers, what were the exact factors that propelled its extinction? Was the short-term profit enough to call the venture a success? Are the restaurant entrepreneurs only launching such buzz-places to generate a huge sum in a short-term? Or are the dying brands the product of inability to sustain business? Whatever blends of reasons the situation might be facing, it could use some neat advice for a better operation.
Drawing insights from a successful entrepreneur who has been intricately involved in the food industry with extensive experience in observing consumer behavior:
"Food business as a startup is great, but not as great as many often get excited. The market has grown tremendously over the past 3 years, and the food has to be of exceptional quality. Foodies these days look for new cuisine, and innovation in food, If you can't offer that, it falls into the category of comparison. There are examples of short term cash bump food start ups (Carts for example), but they died in 6 months due to quality control. What makes it a success: the owner has to be involved, as long as he/she is involved it runs well, there are very few examples so far where the owner could successfully instill the process into the employees and the business is running well. 'Time out' in Banani is one of those examples." -Ashiqur Rahman Rean (Founder, www.thedhakafoodies.com)
A successful business is the product of a number of variables arranged in just the right order. For instance a convenient location with a simple yet delicious menu could do well for starters. Restaurant profitability and cost management are crucial factors to make sure the revenues generated are not short-term.  For Dhaka in particular, there are a few buzz-places that work out well for restaurants since location happens to be one of the most crucial factors for customers. Aside from the basics, customers are getting increasingly getting drawn to an assortment of cuisines. Hitting off with the right cuisine that's unique and satisfies the taste buds will also give the restaurant dominance over the rest. Marketing and operational strategies must be based around holding on to customers and increasing retention rate. In order to do so, restaurants must keep profitability in check and focus initially on relationship building. Once the brand has established its brand and settled within the minds and hearts of the customers, profitability would swoop in accordingly. Customers in Dhaka mostly belong to Gen Y and are explorers by nature. They are open to exploring new trends and taste; however, they are smart enough to understand good value for money. This makes the process of cost management an imperative part of restaurant policy. There are several factors that could be mixed and matched in order to keep the profit margin at a conventional level. It must benefit the business, by pleasing the customers. Therefore, restaurants and cafes, whatever food they might be serving must maintain a reasonable profit margin to benefit both ends of the deal.
Restaurant success is not only reliant on abstract concepts such as luck. There are several concrete factors that play a major role in deciding its fortune in the culinary industry. Constant dynamism is crucial to keep up with the changing trends and demands. Quality and taste are supreme attributes that the target market is getting increasingly aware of everyday. Customers have choices and a high benchmark to look up to. This makes Dhaka a hub for conducting a restaurant business. As high the chances as the conditions might make things, it propels competitiveness just as much. It's the intensity of rivalry and dynamism that most start-up restaurants fail to keep up with and fail. Restopreneurship is a brilliant approach to the trending track of making money; however, it requires a comprehensive understanding of the customers and playing field. Dhaka offers a hub that leaves the restopreneurs with two bold options, which are to - exploit or expire.

 The write is a final year student at Institute of Business Administration at University of Dhaka. Email- [email protected]