Monthly Archives: March 2023

Restaurant

How to Appraise a Commercial Restaurant Business Wisely?

Appraising a commercial restaurant business requires buyer as well as seller to work together to evaluate the financial performance, goodwill, and physical assets. The buyer wants to know if the key employees will continue serving the restaurant or sign non-compete clauses, what encumbrances of the restaurant business are, and if there are any lawsuits pending. If the owner wants to sell the restaurant then he should have a thorough checklist that can be useful in the appraisal process to determine a fair selling price of the business.

Here are some useful tips that play a crucial role when appraising a restaurant business.

  • Appraise the physical assets. One of the major steps when appraising a restaurant business is considering all its physical assets. These include land, restaurant building, kitchen equipment, cutlery, furniture, linen, stemware, cash registers, management software, and hard goods. Prepare an inventory of all physical assets of the business and get them inspected to find their current market value. It is better if the buyer and seller agree on a neutral appraiser or they obtain third-party appraisals. Note all damaged assets that need to be replaced since these assets will incur buyer expenses after he becomes its owner. Assistance of professional commercial real estate appraiser can be worthy when dealing with a restaurant sale or purchase.
  • Review the financial documents. Being the seller you should review the financial documents of your restaurant to check its current balance sheet and recent cash flow. Consider cash assets and amounts owed. Also, consider long term loans, leases, contracts, and insurance policies. Evaluate the net, annual profit for your restaurant business since it will help you determine an appropriate selling price, which is calculated with help of the net profit of the business. Provide your prospective buyer with bank statements and tax returns. If you are a buyer then it is better to request all financial information and inspect it carefully before you buy the restaurant.
  • Discuss employee agreements. Key employees are crucial part for the successful, smooth operation of a restaurant business. For instance, if a well-known chef works in the restaurant then his service is counted during the business appraisal process. If you don’t have restaurant experience when buying the business, the service of current manager or chef may be crucial for the successful, smooth operation of the business in the future. Check whether the employees will be available after the sale of the restaurant or they are willing to sign non-compete agreement. If you buy a restaurant operated by an expert chef then you don’t want that chef to open a new restaurant in your vicinity.
  • Calculate the liabilities. If you are a buyer, ask for a list of restaurant liabilities including money owed, contracts, pending lawsuits, insurance policies, repair or replacement expenses, the latest bad reviews, and current health department citations. Once you receive this list, sign a form acknowledging that you have knowledge of all liabilities. If you are the seller, you need to sign a statement acknowledging you have revealed all claims against the restaurant business and are accountable for anything that is discovered after the sale of your business.
  • Consider the intangibles. Check intangibles of the restaurant business including its name, trademarks, reputation, liquor licenses, logos, permits, locations, recipes, zoning, building code exceptions, and key personnel. Determine whether you can run the business without all or some of these intangibles. Also, determine which will transfer with the sale. Proficient real estate appraisal services will help you include the worth of key intangibles in your appraisal.
  • Sum it up. Determine the net profits of the restaurant over the last three years. If you are purchasing a restaurant that made remarkable net profits, you can assume that you can gain back your investment and make good profits in the coming times. If the net profits are positive for last few years but are in small amounts each year then you will have to work hard to make back your investment.

Following these six techniques you can obtain a fair and accurate value of a restaurant business easily and make final decision on its sale or purchase without any hassles.

Hotel

Wi-Fi For a Hotel – What to Think About

When planning for installing a Wi-Fi network in a hotel there’s much to be considered. Tread lightly …. it’s not quite as hard as you may think. But it isn’t simple either.

First, the hotel’s Wi-Fi strategy needs to be finalized, and following this you would know where the service needs to be available, if it will be free, if it will be solely used for guest browsing, or if it will also facilitate value added services to the hotel itself …. such as wireless point-of-sale, wireless security, wireless signage, wireless VoIP on the compound, etc. There are a plethora of resources online that you can check for the technicalities of some of these types of equipment – this is not a challenge.

After this, everything begins with an on-site survey to determine the layout of the hotel, and placement of the access points. This should include RF mapping for larger properties (or any property for that matter, since it removes a lot of the guesswork).

Bearing in mind you’re working with a budget, you need to let that budget dictate the type of equipment you’re going to use. From Access points & routers, to POE switches, packet shaping & filtering, to billing & authentication platforms. Or whether you’re going to do it all with a cheap and simple Dlink setup, complete with login ticket printers. There are a multitude of different architectures for these networks.

You will also need to agree upon work schedules with the Hotel Management, because they may not want technicians and engineers visible throughout the compound while guests are enjoying their stay there. This can lengthen or shorten the duration of the project (depending on what Hotel Management decides) and can have direct effects on project cost. All of which needs to be presented to Hotel management in different scenarios.

One of the make-or-break details that often get overlooked is the available bandwidth being piped into the hotel to feed this Wireless network, and depending on the size of the hotel, it needs to be considerable. I’d suggest a minimum of DS3 bandwidth.

Once you’ve done a simple traffic analysis to quantify bandwidth requirements, based on information from the hotel such as average room occupancy percentages throughout the year, you can determine what is required. Once you can get this required bandwidth from a service provider, you’re golden. Whether or not the budget allows, you should always push the Hotel to choose a corporate data package with an service level agreement (SLA) attached to it, so as to guarantee uptime for the guests. This is critical if the hotel has a high percentage of business travellers.

For assistance in finding just the right bandwidth solution … at best price …. I recommend using the free services at Bandwidth Solution.

Once the physical aspects of the network is in place and everything has been neatly tucked away, you need to develop a nice walled garden for the hotel – although this is something the larger hotels normally do, for branding and marketing purposes. However, this is an additional step that needs to be done, whether or not it is your responsibility. This can facilitate something as simple as the logon splash screen, or it can offer more interactivity based on the tech savviness of the hotel.

Finally, this can be as simple or as complex as the hotel and their budget requires, but even in the most complex scenario it really is quite simple and is one of the easier wireless implementations to deploy.

Food

A List of High Cholesterol Foods

High cholesterol levels in your blood system are a health risk factor that can cause heart disease. To avoid death by heart attack due to your poor eating habits, formulate a diet plan that consists of foods that will lower your cholesterol levels. Invent recipes that have ingredients that are low in cholesterol and of course exercise regularly. Foods that are high in cholesterol should be avoided completely or should be consumed in very small quantities and on rare occasions

Identifying foods that are high in cholesterol should not be very difficult; one of the best ways to do this is by consulting a doctor who will inform you on those particular foods that you should avoid. Make a list of all the food items in your home and place them in three different categories. The first category should have all the food items that you enjoying eating the most, regardless of whether they are high or low in cholesterol.

The second category should contain food items that the doctor advised on their minimal intake.

These food items should be consumed once a week or after every two weeks and preferably the individual should cease their consumption completely. Such foods include, candy bars, chocolate bars or chips. In the third category indicate all the food items that you rarely consume and which the doctor advised completely against. These types of foods are easy to avoid because you hardly buy them, nevertheless it is important to list them so as to avoid them even in future.

Having finished this process, identify those food items that are high in cholesterol and see what you can substitute them with that are low in cholesterol. Keep in mind that the reason for the exercise is to improve your health by lowering your cholesterol levels. Create a list of food items that you plan to incorporate into your daily diet.

Once you know the foods to eat and those to avoid, prioritizing becomes easier. If your health is at risk because you have bad eating habits, the good news is, you have a chance to rectify the problem using natural remedies and without having to take prescription pills. Your health should be of priority and keeping to a low cholesterol diet with regular exercise will keep you feeling strong and healthy.