Opening a restaurant

What is a restaurant opening ?

The restaurant opening is a significant day that symbolizes the culmination of a long process in creating a business. It is crucial to adhere to the various formalities and to make it a success, whether it’s the opening of a new restaurant or the reopening for a new season if your establishment closes part of the year.

To increase your chances of success, the practice of “soft opening” or “trial service” is increasingly used in the restaurant industry. It consists of opening your doors to a limited number of people from your circle… or not, who will test various elements of the customer experience you offer, such as:

• menu
• service
• logistics
• atmosphere (ambiance, interior design…)

Most of the time, friends and family members are invited before you begin advertising and open your restaurant to future customers. The feedback, whether positive or negative, will help minimize difficulties before the official opening, allowing you to obtain an objective, supportive, and transparent view of your establishment. If you cannot apply this method, it is important to find another way for your staff to practice.

In general, although it is not mandatory, a soft opening helps refine all logistical and operational processes and ensure that food safety and hygiene standards are properly followed in your restaurant. Regulations in this industry are very precise and strict. It is important to stay regularly informed and apply them: the operation of your establishment (hotel, bar, restaurant) could depend on it. The soft opening also allows you to verify that everything is ready for the big day, that the equipment is functioning, that your kitchen and dining staff are well-prepared, and to identify areas for improvement to ensure optimal operations.

Our best practices

You’ve understood it well: setting up a soft opening before the official launch of your establishment is a key success factor. Only open when you’re 200% ready, and don’t hesitate to delay by a few days if that seems essential. This allows you to review procedures, put your staff at ease, and even provide them with accelerated training if needed. In short, everything that needs to be fixed will be addressed in time, because first impressions matter. Remember, by doing a soft opening, your friends, family, and invited guests can create mass marketing once you’re sure everything is ready to launch your business. Keep in mind that a first impression only happens once; you’ll rarely get a second chance.

Ideally, it’s beneficial to conduct multiple trial services a week before officially launching your business. This time frame gives your restaurant enough opportunity to correct elements that don’t meet the requirements and maintain momentum with all teams on-site, while also optimizing your budget. Depending on the time you have, we recommend a gradual soft opening: start with a limited menu during the first few days, then increase the number of dishes available on the menu over the following days. This approach helps minimize stress for your teams and initial errors. You’ll more easily identify areas for improvement and reinforce staff skills with targeted training.

As for the guest list for trial services, it’s useful to establish this gradually as well. Start by inviting close friends and family of your staff during the first service, then local business owners for the second service (to help build good relationships within your community), and finally, once your teams are more practiced, invite targeted guests such as influencers to generate buzz. Journalists and culinary experts (if you have the good fortune of knowing Didier Chenet or Roland Heguy, don’t hesitate to invite them) can create anticipation around your concept before the official public opening.

Similarly, depending on your budget and business, you can also charge for these “practice” meals in stages:

• Free of charge
• Reduced prices
• Full price

Don’t forget to create a questionnaire to distribute at each trial service in order to collect essential feedback. It can be structured around 10 to 20 questions (open or closed). Analyze both the statistical results and the comments to learn lessons and adapt your concept accordingly. This exercise should serve as your ultimate guide. To improve data processing efficiency, we recommend using online platforms such as Google Forms or Survey Monkey, which can perform an initial analysis of the collected results. Since restaurant openings can be organized over several days, it’s useful to create a rollout plan, which will help facilitate the management process.

Finally, a restaurant opening wouldn’t be complete without one crucial aspect: your communication! It must be flawless and up to date. You wouldn’t want your customers, for their first visit, to complain that they couldn’t find the address or opening hours. Consider your external signage, which must be visible and welcoming, displaying your menu, prices, dishes, and beverages.

The same goes for your social media. They must be up to date and, if possible, already have some quality content:

• Warm, representative photos of your establishment
• Presentation of the establishment (and the staff, depending on your business)
• Menu
• Contact information
• Reviews (from your soft opening customers)