Five tips for finding the ideal space to open a restaurant

Randy Sokol of Sokol & Associates

The majority of my restaurant experience comes from growing up in my family’s restaurants: Tee Jaye’s Country Place. From age 10 through college and all the way up to 2005, I worked at Tee Jaye’s. You could find me working every position, from dishwasher to general manager.

Following my mother’s passing in 1989, and my dad growing dark with sorrow, I was thrown into the position of president at the age of 30. After spending several years learning how to lead a company, I directed our growth from four to 13 stores. After my father’s passing, my sister and I fell into ownership of Tee Jaye’s Country Place.

Throughout the years, I have found locations for new Tee Jaye’s restaurants, negotiated our leases, supervised the building of many restaurants, and sold some of our locations. Those experiences are where I gained the expertise to achieve success in my current work: finding locations, negotiating leases, and selling restaurants.

I realized a long time ago that the most important piece to producing a successful restaurant is to find the ideal location for your concept and, next, negotiate a lease that will be 6 to 8 percent of gross sales. I constantly recall one thing my father taught me: It is vital that you control the costs coming in the “back door.”

Below are a few pointers to help you negotiate a restaurant lease and find a location.

1) First, ask yourself a few questions:

• What is your restaurant’s concept?
• Who is your customer?
• Where do your customers live and work?