Opening Your New Restaurant: What to do (& what not do) to Make a Great First Impression

Meg Heriford opened her first restaurant, the Ladybird Diner in Lawrence, Kansas, on a Friday in August 2014.

Three days later, she shut the doors.

"We weren't ready yet," she says. "We got the equipment in too late and didn't properly train the staff. We were understaffed and not prepared."

After installing an additional stovetop, hiring a few more experienced people and thoroughly training them, the Ladybird Diner reopened a few days later and the lines of happy customers during most lunch periods have no memory of those horrible three days in August, which remain Heriford's worst nightmare.

But do you really want to risk those first customers not coming back? Do you want to risk your employees not coming back? Do you want to risk your mental and physical health with the stress of such a bad opening?

When are you ready to open the doors on a new operation? When do you know if the staff is trained and you have the equipment necessary to serve your customers in a timely manner? How do you avoid the nightmare that still haunts Heriford, despite the success of her restaurant nearly nine months later?