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Let us know what you decide to do! Any chance of having a City-Data Member's discount?
I promise I will tip well!
City-Data Member's discount? Absolutely!
In all honesty, we offered repeat customers a "frequent diner's" card, it gave customers discounts on meals, free desserts or appetizers and in doing so, allowed us to see what really worked to entice repeat business.
Also, there are a lot of posters who mentioned breakfast. After doing years of breakfast, lunch & dinner, with my husband and I always being there while we were open, (at least one of us was there at all times) I don't want to go back to those 18 hour days. However, I plan on Sunday brunch, possibly even Saturday, depending on demand. If business is good and I can find competent, dependable help, I'd open for breakfast Monday through Friday, also. At this point, I'd say the chances for us actually opening up another place are pretty good and I'm excited about the thoughts of doing so!
OK...I'm getting excited about the possibility of a new restaurant. So some other thoughts or replies would be:
Breakfast on the weekends would be great. I know you don't want a breakfast place bc the long hours (and who blames you) but a lunch/breakfast place would be really great. You'd only be open in the AM.
Regarding the liquor licsense issue. We used to live in the north and many places had BYOB. At first we were surprised but then really came to like them. We could bring our own alcohol (closed of course) and gave it to the servers when we were sat. They would keep it chilled and would actually pour the drinks. Our tabs weren't as high and we went out more often consequently. We really liked the places across the street from liquor stores.
Just asked DH what he'd like to see in HS...I'd say naturally he likes what I like...LOL. He mentioned sushi, BBQ and bagels (as mentioned in my first post). He'd prefer a private owned vs. chain...someplace you'd like to take company to as well. Oh, and delivery down the road, as you'd get established. There is only one place that offers that (despite your pizza places) and we order from there a LOT.
I'm sorry that you can only see the negative when reading about the idea instead of the big picture.
Yeah, that's me all right. My beer glass always seems to be half empty
I guess my ability to understand your post was clouded by the following paragraph:
"I'd like to keep prices in the $10 to $20 range with the items over $15 being veal and seafood. Italian food when done right, is fairly inexpensive to serve and you can still use top quality ingredients. I have a family recipe that was a big favorite and it was "melt in your mouth" manicotti. I also want to serve real Italian hoagies, not what passes for them at some of the chain style places"
OK...I'm getting excited about the possibility of a new restaurant. So some other thoughts or replies would be:
Breakfast on the weekends would be great. I know you don't want a breakfast place bc the long hours (and who blames you) but a lunch/breakfast place would be really great. You'd only be open in the AM.
Regarding the liquor licsense issue. We used to live in the north and many places had BYOB. At first we were surprised but then really came to like them. We could bring our own alcohol (closed of course) and gave it to the servers when we were sat. They would keep it chilled and would actually pour the drinks. Our tabs weren't as high and we went out more often consequently. We really liked the places across the street from liquor stores.
Just asked DH what he'd like to see in HS...I'd say naturally he likes what I like...LOL. He mentioned sushi, BBQ and bagels (as mentioned in my first post). He'd prefer a private owned vs. chain...someplace you'd like to take company to as well. Oh, and delivery down the road, as you'd get established. There is only one place that offers that (despite your pizza places) and we order from there a LOT.
I mentioned having a BYOB rather than incurring the expense of a liquor license immediately but the developer I spoke to said it wasn't allowed in Holly Springs. Maybe he was mistaken, actually I hope he was, since I'd prefer to do that at first and just provide the set-up at no cost for beer, wine, etc. brought in by our guests. It does allow us to keep costs down because the insurance for a liquor license can be very costly. I haven't gotten that far in my research here but it was astronomical at the NJ shore area.
As far as delivery goes, that is something I'd get feedback from customers on. I don't have a problem with delivery but with the current gas prices, we wouldn't be able to do it for free as we used to. The problem is that every time we offer an additional service, take-out, delivery, etc. the costs rise for us and to try to avoid passing them on to our customers, I'd do whatever possible. The cost of decent take out containers used to run close to $2 per dinner! I really took a lot of pride in running a high quality, medium cost family restaurant but it became more and more difficult as years went by. I'm hoping that since the cost of leasing space was far less than I thought it would be, that we can do it again.
I really do appreciate all the feedback from everyone, you're hopefully the people we will be feeding so it's important to know what you all want and don't want
I love the idea of not going to a chain resturant. We always make more of an effort to go to locally owend places.
To be honest, I dont know that this area needs another Italian resturant. They are everywhere.
I would love to see a nice quality breakfast place. I came here form Chicacgo and was supprised that you cant really get a good quality inexpensive breakfast anywhere. We used to be able to get breakfast at any time of the day for less than five bucks at a family ownd place. You only find chain resturants or places like Briggs that cost as much a a normal dinner would. I also like the idea of a higher end sandwich shop.
It would be cool if you could do it using locally grown produce, local coffee roasters and stuff like that. It would be worth driving out of my way to go to a place that really supported local farmers and companies.
Wouldn't that be heavenly? I had to sit through IHop this morning because I had promised my kids breakfast out and that was the closest place! I would have loved a small bistro to sit at and enjoy
I despise chain restaurants. Food is supposed to be creative and made with "love" so to speak. Not assembled like a factory made lamp or something. I can't stand franchise food establishments. Everything is portioned and system oriented, pre-cooked and they use unskilled workers to "assemble" your meal out of steam tables and on a "line."
Whenever I go anywhere, I always ask the locals for the finer unique, creative owner / chef run places and try them out.
I despise chain restaurants. Food is supposed to be creative and made with "love" so to speak. Not assembled like a factory made lamp or something. I can't stand franchise food establishments. Everything is portioned and system oriented, pre-cooked and they use unskilled workers to "assemble" your meal out of steam tables and on a "line.".
No joke. I hate that. I experienced it this weekend when I went to this Mexican restaurant in Garner -- El Dorado, or something like that. Premade everthing. Just scoop it out of chafing dishes and nuke it for a minute before bringing it to the table.
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