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There are a lot of ways you can go about opening a pop-up restaurant. Learning how to start a pop-up restaurant at home is one great option for your pop-up restaurant ideas. It comes with much of the work of starting a pop-up restaurant with a food truck or storefront option from the beginning.
You’ll need to learn about pop-up restaurant regulations and pop-up restaurant marketing. You’ll study the cost to open a pop-up restaurant, and even look into the best pop-up restaurants for inspiration. You’ll have the home-field advantage, so to speak, as you work on this from your kitchen.
Learning how to start a pop-up restaurant at home can be similar to how to start a food truck business or how to start a restaurant. You’ll need a restaurant business plan. You’ll need to focus on customer experience and customer satisfaction. This BinWise blog post will help you get started.
Starting a Pop-Up Restaurant At Home
Starting a pop-up restaurant at home takes all the work of starting any other type of restaurant. It also has the unique aspect of being a business taking place, in part, in your home. There are different things you’ll need to think about to make a business successful when your dedicated workspace is your home. These 10 tips will help you focus on the things that will help you along.
10. Have a Dedicated Workspace
When you’re doing any sort of work from home, a dedicated workspace is crucial. For your pop-up restaurant starting at home, this may be your kitchen, an office, and a storage space. Whatever room you need, make sure you have plenty of space ready to be set aside for this work.
9. Look Into Licensing
Licensing needs are a must for every restaurant, no matter where it is operated from. If you’re serving food out of your home without a set location, your licensing needs will be different. There will, however, still be licenses and permits you need. Check out your local regulations to see what those needs are.
8. Invest In Your Kitchen
When you’re operating a restaurant from your home, your kitchen will become one of the most important areas of your home and business. You need to invest in your kitchen in the form of appliances that will be able to accommodate all the work you’ll be doing for your pop-up restaurant.
7. Practice Your Menu
Since you’re working from your own kitchen, and getting used to menu items, practice is important. You can practice your menu with family and friends, to get opinions and find interesting tweaks for recipes.
6. Focus on Advertising
As you start out at home you’ll need to work to get the word out about your pop-up restaurant twice as hard as a restaurant with a storefront. You won’t have a location to share, but you can create content around your menu items, brand, and customer reviews.
5. Track Your Expenses
Tracking your expenses is important at every step of your restaurant business journey. It’s especially important to start tracking expenses from the beginning. The earlier you start will help you avoid having to play catch-up with tracking and accounting.
4. Practice Through Hosting
You can practice more than just your menu items through hosting parties. When you’re practicing hosting, you can practice the presentation of your business in every way. That includes answering questions, developing an experience, and working on customer–and guest–satisfaction.
3. Take Time With Your Business Plan
When you’re starting your pop-up restaurant at home, there’s a lot of work that will take up your time. One thing you can and should focus some time on while you’re still at home is your restaurant business plan. You can take time while you’re still getting started, to make sure you have all your ducks in a row.
2. Check Your Housing Situation Rules
Your licensing requirements will have a lot of specifications to do with restaurant licensing. You should also look into any rules around running a business out of your residence. If you’re in an apartment, your lease will likely have information to help. If you own a home within a homeowner’s association, you’ll want to check in there.
1. Look Into Storage Spaces
You’re going to need storage for ingredients, marketing materials, and much more. Your home may have space for those items. If not, a storage space like a storage locker will help you start to expand your pop-up restaurant while you run it from your home.
"Key Takeaway: Starting a pop-up restaurant at home takes all the work of starting any other type of restaurant. It also has the unique aspect of being a business taking place, in part, in your home."
Frequently Asked Questions About Starting a Pop-Up Restaurant At Home
The process of how to start a pop-up restaurant at home will take plenty of time, effort, and information. The 10 steps outlined in this blog post will get you headed in the right direction.
The BinWise series on pop-up restaurants is also a great resource for solutions along the way. Our answers to these frequently asked questions will give you some tips on opening a restaurant from home, and small restaurant ownership in general.
How Do I Create a Restaurant Experience At Home?
For a pop-up restaurant experience that comes from your home to your customers, you create the experience by maintaining professionalism and care. You may be starting from home, but the work you put into your pop-up restaurant business should be on a similar level to any restaurant experience.
How Do I Start a Small Local Restaurant?
To start a small local restaurant, pop-up or otherwise, you need to secure a location, plan your business, and dive into the process. You’ll need a business plan, staff, a budget and likely an accountant, and a goal for your restaurant. That goal will revolve around the mood you want to set and the experience you want people to have when they visit your restaurant.
How Do I Make a Homemade Restaurant Menu?
You can make a homemade restaurant menu with software like Canva, or something similar. You’ll need to map out your menu items and the information that will go in each section. You’ll also need pricing, and any additional information ready to go. From there, you can design your menu and print it in batches at a print service establishment.
How Much Money Should You Have to Open a Small Restaurant?
The cost to open a small restaurant can range from $150,000 to well over $700,00, depending on your needs. Pop-up restaurants are often a more cost-effective option for opening a small restaurant because you have less to worry about with the cost of location. That said, you’ll still need a fair amount of capital before you’re ready to open for business.
Starting a Pop-Up Restaurant At Home: Home Is Where the Work Begins
Learning how to start a pop-up restaurant at home can be your final point of starting your business or the beginning of kicking off your pop-up location. Whatever the case may be, this blog post can be a resource at any time. Come on back to the BinWise blog for more solutions for restaurants and businesses in the hospitality industry.
When you’re looking for inventory and order management support for your restaurant, reach out to BinWise and BlueCart. The BinWise Pro inventory program, paired with the BinScan mobile app, will ease the process while you take inventory. BlueCart’s order management software streamlines your order management system.