Save Bistro Elan
paulgraham.com
paulgraham.com
It's unlikely that this business can be saved; if they're anything like most such small shops, they've been struggling for a long time without any of the kind of support that sexy YC startups receive. They likely have razor-thin margins and not a lot of money in the bank; getting their rent raised on them is just the straw breaking their back. They'll "pivot", but only as much as their meager resources will allow.
I've seen way too many good small businesses just completely fall over lately, but since they don't offer the kind of investment opportunity that the next Google does, nobody cares.
...unless it happens to be their favorite little sandwich shop.
For problems with a tech bent, the entire POS industry that restaurants rely on is ripe for the plucking. Restaurants pay tens of thousands of dollars for truly awful software operating on antique hardware, along with support contracts and all kinds of other expensive goodies.
Then there's their ordering systems: they still make phone calls to their food vendors after looking at fax printouts.
For non-tech-related stuff: restaurateurs could use help with marketing. They could use help with financing. They could use help with staff training. They could use help with organization. They could use help with customer metrics.
Things that we take for granted when it comes to improving our customer experience -- like A/B testing for example -- are completely nonexistent in these other industries, and they make up a hell of a lot more revenue than the startup field does.
I'd really like for someone else to get to these guys before I do, because they deserve a lot better than this.
Unfortunately, we're not in much of a position to help ourselves:
http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/In-Thirty-Days-Payments...
What's the current status of FaceCash? Can you continue operating?
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/culture/street-smarts-t...
Restaurants hate them, since they don't have to pay the overhead of rent/property taxes. Plus, they can park directly outside a restaurant and steal their business. No need to deal with any landlord. It's getting political though; brick & mortar restaurants are very much against them for obvious reasons.
You build a restaurant, with a special kitchen. The kitchen is split into 4 or so separate work area, each fully equipped and with room for a chef and his assistants to work. There is one shared pantry and shared big walk in refrigerator. Each of the separate work areas has its own smaller pantry and fridge.
Each of the separate work areas is run by a separate chef, who leases the spot from you. There is a single menu, with a section for each chef's dishes, and the menu makes sure to prominently name the chefs.
You handle front of house. You also handle the wine, and maybe you also run a bar. You also keep the shared pantry and fridge stocked with all the ingredients that should be found in any fine restaurant's kitchen. (The individual chefs deal with stocking any speciality ingredients they need). Decor, advertising, and basically everything else other than composing the menu and cooking the food is handled by you.
The chefs set the prices in their section of the menu. You handle all the money, calculating each chef's share and paying them. You deal with the accounting, taxes, and all that.
The idea here is that a young, talented chef who doesn't yet have the resources to go out and open a restaurant can lease a spot in your food incubator, where all he has to worry about is covering 1/4th of a menu with fine food and building up a following. When he's well known and people are coming in just to eat his food, he can go off and start his own restaurant (perhaps with an investment from you--you've had a chance to see how he is as a chef, and to see at least some of his management skills by watching him manage his assistants).
Note also that this is a good place for the diners. When you are going out with someone, and you want Italian and they want Mexican, why argue about it? Go to the food incubator and one of you can order from the Italian chef's part of the menu and one from the Mexican chef's part of the menu. Think of it as essentially the fine dining or gourmet equivalent of the food court.
The beauty of this is that there are ALWAYS going to be young chefs who want to get out from being an anonymous sous chef at someone else's restaurant and move up to their own place, and so there should always be chefs eager to lease a spot at your food incubator to get that started. If they succeed, great! If they fail, there's someone else to take their place--and since you are making your money out of leasing space to them, you make money in either case. (On top of what you are getting for the wine and bar).
Also, since the purpose of the restaurant is to showcase the chefs, and the clientele is going to largely be foodies, perhaps information on preparation and such would be included on the menu.
It might be good to have the chefs come out during service and meet the customers. After all, as I said, the chefs are there to build their reputations, and the customers are likely to be foodies. If the chefs can build up good will with them, they are likely to get more buzz and more good blog write ups when they eventually go off and open their own place.
My idea was to purchase somewhere that is square, have a central kitchen, but have four different restaurants so you go to one of the four corners and can get completely different experiences.
It's not quite the "incubator" idea you have, and it may not hit all tastes, but it is a good place to go when people can't agree on a theme, and it's never empty.
PG: Have you considered buying it yourself? I'm assuming that you are one of those regulars and can probably afford it. You said the business was doing well in another comment so I assume they could continue paying you rent at their current rate.
Depends on what defines a restaurant, is it the building or the people. While the building itself isn't mobile, the people who run the restaurant certainly are. If the manager, head chef, sous chef, maitre d', and a few other key people where to close up shop at their current location and set up a new place serving the same food a couple of blocks down the road, wouldn't that count as mobile. Sure it will cost a bit of cash upfront, but if they can negotiate a better deal on the rent, they'll quickly make that back.
http://www.bistroelan.com/Bistro_Elan/Dinner_menu.html
Also, can they expand and start serving dinner at the Birch St location, partly subsidizing the operation at the California Avenue place?