Cafe/Restaurant: SD, we need your help! (San Diego, Corona: real estate, 2013)

[Hestati]

Ok, we are moving!!! Within one year. So we have two choices, one is to come and grab two jobs, for me and my wife and live regular lifestyle, add to road traffic and do all other nice things new people in the city do.

Second is to open unique cafe/restaurant, create few jobs and actually help the city we love so much. We both love food, cooking, serving and we always wanted to have our own business. Yes I know that any business could fail, but I am 100% convinced our cafe will do very well for multiple reasons: low competition, original idea, our passion and mainly because we love this city (did I mention this already?). In fact, our goal is to build a small empire of unique restaurants, cafes and hotels based in SD, contribute to SD development and community and make SD proud of us. Anyway, this is long term plan; let's move to the short term, where we will need your help!

We are in a process of creating menu for our café/restaurant. I am also trying to come up with a draft business plan. Our next steps will be:

- Finance our project through Kickstarter. We do have some cash saved up for the cafe, actually we might have enough to do it without Kickstarter, but want to make sure people do like the idea and show us some support. Extra cash will also allow us to bring in few nice upgrades and offer more to our customers. We will be aiming for 20K, but probably collect more. We will need your help with this later .

- Laws and regulations. And THIS IS WHERE WE MOSTLY NEED YOUR HELP. I know it is tough in Cali. We will probably rent a place where restaurant/cafe was previously located, so that at least most of regulations are already taken care of. However, there are still many questions/concerns remaining. I am reading Retail Food Code, but I think there are also rules specific to SD County. Main question is NSF standards. Where can I find more information about what is required in Cali and SD, any specific boards, websites? The reason why we are doing it so early, is because we have time to shop around for best prices on our equipment and tableware, but I do not want to find out that the 100 plates and cups we bought are not NSF certified and we cannot use these. Same goes for ice makers, grinders, blenders, espresso machines and everything else. We could save a lot and buy better equipment now, when time is on our side, but we have to make sure all rules and regulations are respected.

- Move and find suitable location. We are looking for 1000-1500 sqft for not more than 2500-3500$/month. From what I've seen so far, it is reasonable price even for prime areas (except Coronado, have no idea what the prices are there, did not find anything for lease). We narrowed it down to few areas:
-Gaslamp or right next to it. I think this is the best place year round and we can capture both business customers during the day and party crowd at night.
-Coronado Island, ff the rent is even within our budget. Summer, it will be very, very good, maybe better than Gaslamp. My only concern is, how is Coronado during the winter, is it quiet? Maybe good spot for our second cafe/resto when we are ready.
-La Jolla around the cove. Like the area, many people there, but same concern as Coronado, how is the winter?
- PB. Cheaper than anything else, but again, will winter kill us? We will also probably live there (or Ocean Beach), so it is a big plus.
-Hillcrest, Kensington, Mission Height are less preferred and almost as expensive as other areas . But maybe I do not know something.

Any thoughts, or comments about selected area?

I will keep this thread alive with the updates and progress. I will also ask for you help once again once we launch Kickstarter campaign (September-October 2013).

Thank you, in advance, for your help and support! Help us now, and we will pay it back to the community and this fantastic city

[oddstray]

Here's an idea, which you may or may not like. Open your first cafe in the San Diego Public Market. Welcome to the San Diego Public Market?Always in Season!
You probably couldn't be self-supporting with a cafe there, since it's only open for limited hours. But it's a place to interact with lots of other cafe/restaurant owners and learn how it works in San Diego.

Coronado Island will limit your number of potential customers. Gaslamp would be better than Coronado in this aspect.

Winter, even at the coast, is not a problem as long as you have some inside table space.

[shmoov_groovzsd]

Its not very difficult, but the process can be long in some cases such as getting an alcohol license or things of that sort.

The link below is an FAQ for anyone looking to open a new business for Food.

You will need to get in touch with the San Diego County regarding food handlers cards, permits etc

http://www.sandiegohealth.org/food/new_business_664.pdf

I cant access the County website, but if you google this "san diego county food permit" there will be official San Diego County websites for Food Handlers etc.

[Hestati]

Thank you very much for the answers.

I think we will be aming for Gaslamp, keeping Coronado, PB and La Jolla as our second choice in case some crazy mega deal on the lease appears there.

As for the Public Market, not sure we want to open there, but we will be looking for suppliers from SD and around, and market is where we can find them. We want to make sure that we use as many local products as possible, from milk and eggs to chocolate, wine and fruits. We want to be able to say one day that we are 100% local (ok maybe not even SD, but So Cali).

We will get beer and wine license to offer local beers and wines, I know it may take up to 3-4 months, but it is ok, we can open without it and get it later.

And thank you for the links, I got something to read research now!

[armourereric]

Will you serve dishes with duck/duck eggs? I raise ducks, may be able to help you out there.

[Hestati]

I will mention it to my wife, she is the chef . Maybe you can give me your email and I will put it in our supplier database (we are actually creating one). One question though, do you already sell it to other restaurants? I just want to make I can use these eggs. Do they need to be certified/approved?

Thank you!

[Hestati]

One more question. Where is the best place to look for commercial properties for lease online, besides Craiglist of course?

Craiglist does not seem to have many of these listings.

[cruitr]

Originally Posted by Hestati

One more question. Where is the best place to look for commercial properties for lease online, besides Craiglist of course?

Craiglist does not seem to have many of these listings.

Try Loopnet: LoopNet - #1 in Commercial Real Estate Online

You'll need to register but a basic membership is free.

[Hestati]

Thanks! I knew about them, but looks like they have even less than Craiglist. I guess best thing is to drive around and look for places. We will do it when we get to SD.

[Think4Yourself]

Do you have experience running a restaurant? Also, no, you won't find "low competition" in the restaurant business in San Diego and instead you'll find it extremely competitive with lots and lots of places all trying to lure customers through the door so you'd better up the bar in some way and select and extremely good location hiring above average staff or your likely to be out of business in six months. That's assuming you have the experience and skills to actually run a restaurant to begin with.