Don’t fuck around with market research before opening your store.

[President Tanaka] I am Japanese and currently have three jobs. Ramen restaurant owner, company owner, and mental health counselor.Among them, I have been in the industry for about 13 years regarding ramen, and I am a certified dashi meister. I have won awards in certain ramen magazines. I know that Ramen is very popular in foreign countries, so you can gain knowledge from this site and have your own restaurant. You can use it as a textbook in the preliminary step to train yourself. I will write about what you need in the middle of the text, so please take a look at it as well.

Taste alone is not enough to compete.

A product can be sold only when there is a need for it.

For example, if you sell soccer merchandise at a baseball stadium, you can expect it to go unsold because there is no need for it.

Many people may say, “That’s right! but there are many people who don’t think about this deeply.

あわせて読みたい

How do I open a ramen shop and own a store as an owner? What do you need? When I looked up “opening a ramen shop” on chatGPT, I found that seven items were required. This is roughly correct, but it is impossible t…

I would like to delve into the market research portion of Step 1 of the above article.

What are the facilities near the location where the store will be located that attract people?

In fact, the secret to success is already hidden here.

There is a fixed theory (with exceptions) that ramen shops near universities should be large, hearty and kid-friendly.

If you are in the suburbs of a rural area, go for a restaurant with a large serving size and child-friendly atmosphere. If you are in an office area, go for thin noodles and fast delivery.

If you are in a bar area, you must stay open until around 4:00 am and serve gyoza and beer. And so on.

There are solid reasons for running a restaurant.

Dig deep into “if you’re in an office district, use thin noodles and offer them quickly.”

Lunch break for office workers starts at 12:00. However, people actually start to move in at 11:30 for the lunchtime flying groups. The entrance boost starts at this time. Depending on the size of the restaurant, if the restaurant is full and there is a line, those who do not have enough time will move to a different restaurant that is open.

If the line is still long after 12:30 or before the food is served, some people will leave.

And after experiencing such a situation several times, the customers will decide not to go to this restaurant at lunch time because the turnover is too slow. (On the other hand, there are customers who do not hesitate to come when the restaurant is busy.)

Failure to generate sales during the lunchtime peak is fatal for a restaurant. It is difficult to serve all potential customers because everyone is different, but what would happen if you let the customers plant the idea that you are a restaurant that serves fast food and has a good turnover?

Even if there is a line, they will go to that restaurant because it is fast. This would prevent the outflow of potential customers. To achieve this, product development should be based on thin noodles, not thick noodles that take a long time to boil. We must also keep this in mind.

However, there are people who only want to eat thick noodles or love thick noodles, so offering only thin noodles is also a difficult business issue to consider.

Observation first!

The important thing is to understand the pedestrian traffic at the location. And also observe the “people”. What is the population, age group, security, and occupation of the place? Are there any thriving stores nearby? Are there stores nearby that share the same concept?

When I spoke with a consultant in the past, he said the most important and necessary thing to do is to do a survey before opening a restaurant,

Watch the flow of people at the location for a week.

It sounds simple, but it’s hard to do. It sounds simple, but it is difficult. And it’s an action that I feel embarrassed about, but honestly, it’s usually the best way to find out.

If there are a lot of people moving in the morning, we think about morning sales. If there is constant movement of people throughout the day, then open all day until the traffic calms down.

If there is a lot of foot traffic at night. If so, consider opening from around 6:00 p.m. until around 6:00 p.m. to around 2:00 p.m.

The starting point is to create a need for the place yourself until you capture the need or create a need for the place yourself.

But if you only seek needs, the concentration of your own will will diminish. If you increase your own concentration, the needs may become distant. It is also true that a difficult balance must be reached.

Therefore, we have to consider the content of our products depending on the location.

summary

Depending on the location, some flexible management decisions will be necessary. There is no such thing as a “here and there” situation! There is no such thing. It is better to think that the probability is somewhat high. There are a lot of things you can find out after you see the place.

There is one thing that all restaurant owners say in unison.

In this day and age, it is a matter of course that a restaurant’s food is good. If you don’t have anything else that shines through, you can’t do business.

If you serve good food, people will come! Of course, a certain number of people will come. But can you make enough sales to live on? If you want to be extravagant, how much should you sell?

Stores that are just cheap, stores that have been replaced many times over.

There are solid reasons. Whether or not you can find out and take countermeasures. The game starts even before the store opens.