Let’s Pretend We’re Opening a Restaurant

[WheelieBinPrincess]

Following on from the overrated meals and restaurants thread.

If you had a big budget (and no money worries if it failed!) and were going to open your own cafe/restaurant/pub, what would it be like?

I’ll start. If I was opening a pub, I’d do away with a long pretentious wine menu and month or so I’d source say ten different reds and ten whites at the same cost mark and they’d all be sold at £20 a bottle. Obviously I’d still make a profit on this but the point is you actually get to choose a wine properly and not just go for the ‘house’.

Cheese boards would always be sold individually so you can order them for yourself as a dessert. I don’t like sweet things but I bloody love cheese. I hate it when the cheese board is double the price of all the other puddings because you’re supposed to share it. You could pick and mix the cheese too.

I would do roasts but a very small window of about 3 hours (so just one sitting) so they’re all fresh and no heated up Yorkshire puddings and roasties.

Free gravy refills.

It’s just fantasy so it doesn’t have to be anything that would necessarily make you the most money!

Add yours.

@DroopyClematis

I'd love to see the return of the dessert trolley. It's sometimes hard to picture what a dessert looks like , but if you were able to see them all first 😍

A decent ploughman's would be nice. Hardly see them anymore and when you do it's always ordinary sliced, bland ham or a massive wedge of nondescript cheddar.

The Oxford & Cambridge Club still does a dessert trolley - it's magnificent!

So many of these ideas are brilliant.

I think all I would make sure of is that at least some dishes don't have alcohol in them.

There have been quite a few occasions, particularly around Christmas-time at works do's, that I've looked at the menu and almost every single thing is stuffed with booze of one sort or another.

I like alcohol - or at least I would if it didn't make me feel so ill.

Accessible for those with disabilties, the accessible toilet is not a store cupboard, a ‘few’ steps are not wheelchair friendly.

@CrimbleCrumble1

nanbread your chip restaurant would be my DH’s dream restaurant.

@evilharpy I'll let you know when it opens!

I'd definitely come to some of your restaurants, I do like the idea of mini deserts as some of you are suggesting, also small servings of alcoholic drinks so I can just have a little tipple when I'm driving, please.

That makes me sound very dainty and abstemious, which is not remotely the case. I'd like good tasty starters and hearty mains to go with my mini dessert and small drink.

I think this proves how different everyone's tastes are!

Set in a 12th century Manor with a Flemish chimney.
Log fire on the go with plenty of comfortable seating in the bar. (Dogs allowed)
Fine wine and Cognac.
Decadent banqueting.
Most importantly, Cheese. 😂

I've opted for a late night piano bar that does light meals - bread and pate, substantial salads, puddings, cheese and biscuits etc.

I forgot the toilets!

Years ago we visited a restaurant in Spain which had toilets which were a temple to the plumbers art. Automatic lights which came on as you entered, automatic soap, taps, flushing etc. All long before these things became normal. Beautiful, spacious and spotlessly clean.

Good selection of AF wines

Mini puddings

A group table for single diners. My grandfather's golf club had this

I would have a good menu for diners but also a variety of inexpensive sharing platters for drinkers.

My ideal would look like a pub restaurant but with normal human prices/portions and food served on proper crockery. No wooden boards/tiles/baskets. Plenty of outside space for diners and drinkers.

The food would be locally sourced or even grown/raised on my own organic smallholding. There would be a mix of simple dishes - perfectly cooked omelette & chips, steak & chips, homemade sausages and perfect mash etc plus a couple of specials to allow the chef an opportunity to shine. Vegetarian dishes would feature as a choice rather than an afterthought.

Staff would be well paid, regularly trained and given development opportunities (eg catering college). Assuming this was a country pub it would be an employment opportunity for local people whether working on the smallholding or in the pub restaurant.

I would build a good network of local taxi firms. With plenty of parking I would make it an active choice to drive to the pub then get a taxi home. Perhaps offering a hearty breakfast/brunch for the morning after.

This has been my lottery dream!

[quote WheelieBinPrincess]@hangsangwitch yep, that’s a really good one. Plates and proper cutlery.[/quote]
A positive to disabled people policy so your 'proper' cutlery needs to have fairly large handles, have plates with a lip and most important enough space between chairs for a wheelchair to maneuver (for all it's faults Weatherspoon's do this).

Tampon machine in your accessible toilet.

A tasting menu that is actually a small taste of the best of the menu not a 7 course dinner, so that if you don't know what you will like you can have a taste that might be 4 samples of the main menu.

Vegetables included in the price and appropriate for each dish.

A book ahead service for people with particular dietary needs.

Some temperature control so I'm not sweating buckets and feeling sick, ditto some lighting control.

Low music, and if a customer asks you to change it then you do. No TV, particularly when there is a football match on.

Vegetables included 100%!

No paying £4.50 for a plate of steamed broccoli to accompany your main.

A group table for single diners. My grandfather's golf club had this
This is my worst nightmare, I’m adding to my pub “single diners can occupy a four-seater table with no pressure, and read a book or whatever.”

Hot puddings!

All the fancy places round here serve cold puddings. They are delicious and fine in the summer, but in winter I want piping hot crumble served with custard, not stone cold compote with a crumb and ice cream.

@WheelieBinPrincess

Vegetables included 100%!

No paying £4.50 for a plate of steamed broccoli to accompany your main.

This is one of the things that drives me up the wall. About 20 years ago I ordered a £20+ steak in what was then called the Russell Hotel, and they brought out... a steak. Nothing else. They hadn't even suggested ordering sides.

My fantasy restaurant would be clear about the customers it wanted, and very clear about the customers it didn't want. It would offer a simple menu, have no delusions of grandeur at all, and aim to leave people feeling full and that they had a bargain.

Jug of water, bread and olives go straight on the table as soon as you arrive. There would be a "cover charge" of about £2 per person for this if you don't go for the set menu.

Starter would be soup, which would always be made up from the left over vegetables and stuff from the previous day.

Small menu of two or three dishes of the day, and up to half a dozen à la carte choices. The pricing, and reputation, would point you very much towards a dish of the day, although the à la carte options would only be big sellers. I would not want to be defrosting anything in the microwave just to be able to say it was on the menu for the one person who ordered it every six months.

One of the dishes of the day would be something cooked in bulk that day and ready to serve fairly quickly, so a pork and bean stew with rice or that sort of thing. You would be able to order a portion or a half portion, with a meaningful price differential.

Others would be fresh and quality but relatively simple to prepare and things with no leeway for customers to alter what the chef does: grilled pork or chicken or fish, for example. Grilled meat would come with fries and salad, fish with boiled potatoes and veg. If you want a choice of six different sides with every menu option, tough. If you want steak rare, or well done - tough because we won't serve anything where the customer can claim they didn't get what they asked for.

At least two of the à la carte options would come in half portions. There would be no children's menu (children very welcome though), no vegetarian/vegan option (draw your own conclusion on that), and lots of warnings that nuts are prepared in the kitchen for use in desserts although the main courses will be nut free.

There would be a wine list with outrageous normal markups for anyone who thought they might impress someone by choosing from it, but this restaurant would stake its reputation on a decent house red and white bought in bulk and served in carafes with minimal mark up. If Aldi and Lidl can sell perfectly drinkable wine for £5 a bottle, it cannot be beyond the wit of man to source a wine in 20l bag-in-boxes which I'd sell for £3 for a 250ml carafe.

Desserts would be either branded frozen things such as ice cream bought in and marked up enormously, fruit, or made-on-premises cake, tart, mousse etc in a display cabinet so you could go up and choose it.

I'd offer a Mon-Sat lunch time set menu of bread/olives, dish of the day, and dessert (branded stuff excluded) plus 250ml wine or soft drink or water, and espresso, priced to pack the place out every day with at least two sittings. Ideally about £12 a head.

Evenings and Sunday lunch wouldn't offer the set menu, but would still be priced to sell.

And we'd offer doggy bags if the waiter spots a lot left on a plate.

@hotmeatymilk

A group table for single diners. My grandfather's golf club had this This is my worst nightmare, I’m adding to my pub “single diners can occupy a four-seater table with no pressure, and read a book or whatever.”

Some places do have plenty of smaller tables for singles/couples. I was actually surprised on a cruise a few years ago where they usually have large tables (for 4, 6, 8, 10 or even 12) and it's pretty standard for people to get seated with others for "socialising" etc. There were also plenty of smaller tables for 2, mostly occupied by single people reading books etc. Upon entering the maitre'd asked us (a group of 4) whether we wanted our own table or to have a mixed table with others, which I thought was quite impressive. Best of both Worlds really - the smaller groups/singles had a choice of sitting on their own or on larger/sociable group tables - that's the way it should be!

@Dishwashersaurous

Five vegetarian, not necessarily vegan, main courses that didn't involve; beetroot, butternut squash, giant mushrooms or goats cheese

When you open this restaurant, would you let me know please? I'm so bloody sick of menus that think all vegetarians want butternut squash and goats cheese.

Can we also add bog-standard potatoes to your menu please? Just because I'm vegetarian, it doesn't mean I want sweet potato fries or sweet potato mash with everything.

I'm tempted to copy the vegetarians' complaints and put them on any menu I read.

My place would offer vegetarian versions of the comfort food that it offers meat eaters.

Chilli con carne on the menu? There would also be a five-bean chilli.
Chicken curry? Vegetable curry also offered.
Shepherd's pie. Lentil pie also on the menu - and with normal mash too; not this sweet-potato shite.
Steak and ale pie. Mushroom and ale pie on offer.
And so on.

It's so crap thinking, oo I just fancy a pie and chips, and then seeing you have the option of grilled halloumi with whipped beetroot on a bed of smashed butternut squash.

Ladies, I thin there is only one way to do this, we buy a street and have a range of cafes / restaurants but a we are a friendly bunch we would allow a limited number of orders from other restaurants, so if one person insists on eating in a steak house it will feature one dish from the others so the vegetarian (in family groups there's always at least on vegi) can order from the vegetarian next door.

Either no children or separate area for families.
Options that don't all contain bloody cheese, I hate it!
Half sized meals for half the cost. I simply can't eat the size of meals often served.
Choice of veg from x,y,z not 'it comes with broccoli, sprouts and cabbage' 🤢
QUIET background music. As someone who wears hearing aids it can be impossible to hear conversation at times.
Iced tap water on the table.

@Otherpeoplesteens

Move to Spain. You've basically described menu del dia, which still exists in many areas.

@nanbread

Ok so mine just sells fries, really good fries. Maybe fat chips too

With about 100 different toppings and sauces on offer laid out really nicely, and a flat rate for 3 toppings and 3 sauces

Fizzy drinks in glass bottles plus some really good beer on tap

Fresh donuts for pudding

It would be called "Get Loaded" and play 00s hip hop and 90s indie

If you're ever in Iceland, check out Reykjavik Chips, it comes pretty close to your idea!