At Emerald Coast Restaurant Brokers and Consultants, we help restaurant businesses to stay alive and thriving in a competitive market. As a brokerage, we help these businesses to change hands, but as a premier consulting service, we also help to ensure that they are in good shape to be passed on at some time in the future.
One of the things that we do for restaurants involves conducting feasibility studies that will provide a window into the business as a whole, and help chart a course for the future.
Feasibility studies are often used by large corporations or municipalities to determine what to do with assets and operations. It’s the same way for restaurants – a careful evaluation and enumeration of assets helps business leaders to plan.
What’s in a feasibility study? Here are some of the things that provide value as we conduct this type of research for restaurants.
Guest Profiles
Part of the work of the restaurant feasibility study goes into the customer – determining what the target audience is. We include demographic information that helps with a comprehensive guest profile that will show how the business matches demand, and how it attracts its core constituency of patrons, or in other words, the customer base. This direct kind of correspondence is a valuable part of the research that we do for restaurant clients.
Comparative Studies
You may have heard of comparable or comparative studies in the real estate world, where real estate agents look in detail at properties that tend to reflect the same kinds of value according to their build, location and other factors.
These comparative studies are also important in a feasibility study, and they’re useful for buying and selling as well. Part of our reputation rests on the quality of our comparable reports and what we provide to clients in that segment.
General Market Research
Parts of our feasibility studies look at the environment that the restaurant is operating in, to figure out whether the business is doing well, and how it can do better. This is where we look at what’s being bought and sold in the local area, and the impact that has on both core sales and customer psychology.
In addition, there are a number of on-site operational aspects that have to be cataloged in a feasibility study. Menu costing is a prime example – your food costs are a core part of your business accounting, and one part of the business vitally affects another.
Ask us about the feasibility studies that we do for restaurants and what these research processes can do for your business.