regarding open at small town, the set back is that the crowd during the night( after 8pm) is very little, I currently staye in a small town, here its like a ghost town at night, while we want to maximize our operation time serving day till night. ofcourse it will be stressfull and tiring and taxing...but when we see lots of money coming in, hopw it will cover the tiredness lol..may be we will start to slow down, not so aggresive and bit relax.

This post has been edited by ah_suknat: Apr 1 2011, 04:33 PM

You must remember though, depending on area, wall tiles will be noted when licence is approved. You are just giving excuses for them to delay or harass. If you have a kitchen area, then it is more critical that you have to pave them. Sitting outside , actually they don't allow but most if not all use the belakang way. The enforcements makes more money during World Cup, go figure. They can't do much because most have already accepted bribes for many others around the area. So, they come, tell you so and you say, "lain kali, tak buat." Still, the next day you do it or until you catch their routine, you usually can or the others in the area (those that given bribes) will tell you that they are coming. Once in a while they will really put all your chairs and your tables onto their lorries and after writing a summon you can claim it back the next day.

I think you are over forecasting your sales, hence the numbers of equipments you are buying on instalments. Usually for a restaurant, we only break even if we are lucky for the first few months till a year. We only see profits after a year. There will so many things that still needed to be bought and updated. I would say, it is quite risky.

1. Before you start anything, you need to submit your renovation plan to local council for approval before you start renovating anything. If you start renovation without approval, they will stop all your site work. Then your headache begins.

2. Wall tiles are compulsory requirement. (that why they need you to submit your renovation plan)

3. Setting tables outside the premise requires approval from local council. However, you are required to pay monthly fees to the local council as the fees to rent the walkway by putting your tables and chairs outside.

More sharing are welcome.

Which do you think to be the priority in sequences?

1. Capital

2. Location for business

3. Cooking skill

4. Experience


5. None of above like me

my pick would be

1) location - as the general rule of thumb for all businesses, its location, location, location. good location as in high flow of traffic, near to your target market, car park availability, rental rates, etc etc
without good location, no matter how good your food is, people wont go there every single day. may be once a week or so.

2) Capital - you need money to start a business, other wise any one would have started one.

3) Experience - Experience can be learned, every one started and learn from zero, and even experience restaurateur makes mistakes, so its ok to make mistake. of course, some experience in F&B prior to throwing your hard earn cash in before starting your own restaurant will always be a good idea.

4) cooking skills - unless you have money to hire and keep the chef, you dont even have to learn how to cook, even if you know how to cook, you wont even have the time to cook as you need all you time to manage the business like purchashing, employee management, money management, marketing, etc etc. cooking and other labour job leave it to the employees to do.

---

Added on April 1, 2011, 10:55 pmthanks for the reply yek, didnt know wall tiles are compulsory, but some kopitiam I also dont see they put up wall tiles
as long as they allowed us to set up tables outside, little payments are worth it

by the way, I saw an ads in mudah got people selling flat land in kundasang, you might want to check it out http://www.mudah.my/Tanah+CL+2+ekar+di+Kundasang-9150089.htm

This post has been edited by ah_suknat: Apr 1 2011, 10:55 PM

I am back to Malaysia. I was there on 2 years working holiday visa. I do not want to damage my reputation. So I came back to Malaysia upon my visa's expiry. I did not save up much when I was there. Just enough to clear off some of my debts when I got back.

I have been thinking much about setting up my own business since I came back from the UK. Even I have bought alot of cook books over there and shipped it back. Right now, I am all alone. I tend to procrastinate on the planning part. Of which I think I will need a friend partner to push each other to make the idea works.

On the capital part I think I will have some problem. It will not be enough. Do you think for a fresh startup business the bank will provide business loan facility to me? (Assume that I already have my business plan in hand with all the forecast, cash flow, estimated ROI and etc)

its good to hear atleast you have the initiative to learn how to cook.

unfortunately, I dont think you have a good chance to secure a loan, it will be hard, especially for start ups. you can still though, no harm done

Bank is smart if you got nothing to give them like mortgage your house or car they will definitely wouldn't approve loan for you. I had try to apply loan to setup business long time ago but unsuccessful. I believe if you got a wish they is a way. Me also know nothing about cook and got limited capital but still wish that can open a kopitiam cause so far this the business I can foresee still can make money and demanding. A lot of things still need to be concern like the foods whether people will like it or not, location or people who you are targeting come to eat, capital, etc. I still believe the capital will be the last option for me cause if you know how to cook a nice food no matter how bad your stall or shop or how far the place is people will still can find and eat. May be we need to gather those are really interested to setup a kopitiam to brainstorm exchange some idea and lastly we can open up a perfectly kopitiam with sharing capital. The only main concern here is the trust.

In a city like KL where money is the first priority (most kids were taught the importance of money, sadly) trust is not reliable. Sad to say also, most of them in food business because of the money they dream of making and making passion for food comes second is there are any passion at all. It's a sad fact but nobody can be blamed. In food business, where most expenses are not routinely the same as foodstuffs prices fluctuates like the share market. You have to have very very very very close trust to actually be a partner. Either that or evrything must be billed and suppliers known to all partners. That is a very exhausting criteria. Everytime when you down to the market, you ask a prawn seller for receipt, then a vege seller for a receipt then a towfoo seller for a receipt then it become so tedious to you and the seller it becomes a total bore! That's why, cafes and restaurants prefers suppliers even if the goods is a bit more expensive than the markets. Easier to audit and more reliable. Your suppler will make the trouble to find the goods even if there is a shortage

No matter how close anyone can be, in F&B there are no such things are no arguments. Even waiters in the restaurant with their own jobs will argue when it is busy. There are also no fixed scope of jobs. Dividing jobs is just a matter of saying but whent he crunch comes you still have to do other jobs as well, even dish washing. If you are one who 'kira' too much, I suggest doing it on your own. If not eventually the partnership will crack open and both will lose.

I also had a partner once, a dormant partner. I am the salary earning partner because I also manage and work as the chef. Both pump in money and got it operated. Everyday she will call and ask what's the sales and what's the profit? Then after deducting salaries and expenses, the profit was RM800, actually good as a start. She gets RM400 that month and I got RM2400, why? RM2000 was my salary as agreed. After another month, same thing and then suddenly it dawns to her that I am getting more than her while the partnership was equal. She forgets that she sits and call while I have to work 12 hours a day. After another month she says, she wants out!

I said I can't afford to buy her share and she suggested that I find someone or just 'tapow' the shop and sell off the equipments. Then you know what she did? She took the registration and took a loan from a moneylender. The payments exactlly like what I have promised her. She then ask the money lender to collect from the cafe daily. It makes me look like a 'pariah' with moneylenders hanging around daily. You know lah! morally inside you are so angry and you lose mood and finally I sold off the venture and settle the moneylender. I feel safer even if I lost my share of the venture. Anything can happen in partnerships. Like like husbands and wifes, it will turn real ugly if cracks starts to appear. Think again before joining as partners especially in food business. Even brothers goes to court fighting for the name the common father built like Him Heang biscuits in Penang.

I totally understand how you feel man, because I am facing the same partnership problem as well, worse is, the partnership is between me and my sister. except, I am the one who request to go out of the business and demand my share to be taken back, since she's my sister, I just take it slowly by slowly even though I need the money to run another business which is this kopitiam business. but what to do? I cant get loan from money lender and ask them to harrass my sister right?

eventhough there is confrontation, still I have a principal and I wont be such a bad person. usually, most of the time I am the pity one.

but still, I believe partnership can work, provided all partners trust each other and have faith in the business with the right attitude.

This post has been edited by ah_suknat: Apr 4 2011, 08:29 PM

wat is the ball park figure you are looking at?
Are you married? Is your spouse a Malaysian?

DarkNite,

I have yet to research on the suppliers (food, equipments, furniture and reno) and premise pricing. So I cannot give you a concrete answer. But I am guestimate the figure will go to about 150k or more. Oh yes, I am looking at something like this http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=11861...35444&aid=19186

And I am not married yet.

that is some high class coffee shop...normally I wont go inside

We are sharing more on Old style kopitiam with some normal reno not that modern. Got some hawkers stall selling food type. Anyone here would like to share about making the coffee? May need to look for some sifu know how to make good coffee if setup the business.

I think they mixed the coffee powder and also the tea powder. Good ones larr, off course. Normal ones, they just used from one same supplier. I learned from a Hainanese in Kuala Kangsar who was also an insurance agent. I have to buy a policy from him to make him teach me. I remembered he mixes 4 types of tea powder to get what he wants. One for the good taste, one for colour, another for density, the oomph! and another one dunno liao, forgot. Coffee is easier and Milo nowadays mixed with some cheaper cocoa powder or else cannot tahan the price. For 'ais tea' or 'ais coffee' not so critical but for hot drinks very critical to be consistent.

Like food coffee and tea also subjective. I like a shop here but the people around here says it not good. I went to their places of preference and I find their tea very bitter like "kip". So, one man food is another man's poison.