Restaurant to Catering, Equipment by Update International Is On the Menu
Life as a junior chef in a prestigious restaurant is not as glamorous as it may seem. Sure, it's only a few positions away from the big job, head chef, but you could wait a decade for a shot at running the kitchen and how many restaurants even last that long? I did my time for years in three different restaurants before coming to the conclusion that if I ever wanted to be running the show, the only way it was going to happen was to open my own restaurant. Unfortunately, after sitting down with my girlfriend (who is an accountant) and my buddy, who happens to be a realtor, I discovered that opening a restaurant takes far more capital than I realized. Certainly far more money than I had or could possibly hope to borrow and that meant having to bring in investors if I wanted to proceed. And that meant losing control, so what would the point be? I'd still be answering to other people, only my entire life savings would now be on the line.
My girlfriend approached me with a different idea. 'The major expenses killing you in terms of the restaurant were rent and staff,' she said. 'If you take the fifteen grand a month you'd need to lease a decent location out of the mix and the twenty grand a month for staff, you could make it fly.' I had to bite my lip to avoid snapping that this was a rather obvious statement and what of it? 'I see you don't get where I'm going with this,' she said. 'Here's another way of thinking. You already have a good cooking set up in your own kitchen. To buy just the ranges you'd need to set up a restaurant kitchen, you're looking at what, ten thousand dollars? But you could buy a gas-powered supreme metal hot food table that holds three different warm foods for under one thousand dollars.'
And the light bulb went off. Catering! Cook at home, invest in some basic equipment from update international that I can afford without having to borrow heavily and hire a server or two when needed. I get to cook, I'm my own boss and the risk is much lower. I resigned from the restaurant and started equipping myself: cutlery and dinnerware, carts to wheel the food around, serving centers, trays and displays. The biggest expense was a cargo van, but I traded my car in on a used one, so it wasn't bad at all. Bon appetite!
