Location is paramount to any successful bar or restaurant expansion. The location you land on will determine whether your new venue will succeed or fail—so don’t approach it lightly.
Many variables contribute to landing upon a lucrative bar or restaurant location. Much will depend on existing brand awareness, target audience and local factors.
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How near or far should the new location be?
One thing you really don’t want to do is cannibalise your existing customer base. To avoid that, pick a location a good distance away from your current one. How far you plan to expand will depend somewhat on how far awareness of your brand has spread.
If you’ve managed to build up some renown in your current town or city then moving to a new location within that city could be a great strategy for expansion. However, if you move to another city where your restaurant lacks the renown it does elsewhere, it could end up a failure.
To stop this from happening, do your research into who comes to your bar or restaurant. Are they from the local area? Are they visiting from other parts of the city? Are they visiting from other cities? Knowing the who and where of your customer base is invaluable.
Are there planning regulations I should consider?
Commercial buildings are classified based on their use. If your premises wasn’t previously used as a hospitality venue, it may be under a different classification.
In which case you’ll need additional planning permission from your local council to change its classification.
Restaurants and bars are classed as A3 buildings – if the building you’re expanding into is of a different class, you’ll need planning permission in order to run a hospitality business from that building.
Who are my target customers?
If you’re already an established business, you probably know by now who your target customer is. Let that inform you when finding the right location for your next restaurant.
Consider too where your target audience intersects. London wine bar and restaurant Humble Grape carefully picked their London locations so they could take full advantage of both weekday office trade and weekend trade – both of which were often the same people.
“Many of our locations share customers,” says Kevin Coatzee, Head of People and Operations. “People who visit our Fleet Street location after work will come to Battersea or Islington on the weekend. We want to ensure they get something different, that it’s not just the same everywhere.”
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