Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Tips on How to Buy a Restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia

If you build it, they will come works better in the movies than in restaurants.  Here’s why buying versus building makes sense if you want to be a restaurant owner in Atlanta, GA.


Buying a restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia has reached a new height of popularity.  Would be small business owners are meshing a love of food with a desire for business ownership to create unprecedented demand for restaurants for sale.  With high failure rates on start up restaurants (nearly 60% fail by year three), well-known restaurants with a track record are hot commodities. 

Earning rewards in the Atlanta restaurant market comes quickly to those that buy instead of launching a new restaurant.  Restaurant buyers find the advantages are immediate and the risk is minimized.  It’s no wonder this path to achieving the dream of owning a restaurant is coming through the purchase of an Atlanta restaurant for sale rather than the start up of a new concept.   

Managing the cost is the number one reason to buy over building.  Restaurants don’t succeed when the cost of capital exceeds the income over a sustained period of time.  It’s the single biggest reason that Atlanta restaurants close after only a few months.   Just because an Atlanta sous chef is brilliant in the kitchen doesn’t mean he’s equally skilled at managing a building project just because it’s a restaurant he’s putting together.  Atlanta restaurants built from the ground up are closer to the cable TV “flipping” shows where the costs far exceed the budget and the timeline stretches beyond the original goal. 

You can shorten your time to market when you buy an Atlanta restaurant for sale.  Evaluate whether you want to be in business next week serving your latest special or waiting an average of six months for licensing, permitting, building and then opening your restaurant.   Competition in the Atlanta market is fierce to be the first to market with the latest ideas.  There’s no waiting when you buy a restaurant versus building from scratch. 

Every brand new restaurant suffers as the sales volume builds.  That’s not the case with buying an Atlanta restaurant since sales are already established.  Even a restaurant undergoing a change of concept  has an established traffic pattern from the current location.  Buying these sales in a restaurant purchase can be far less costly than developing them over time a customer at a time or a marketing campaign at a time.   Growing sales from $1000 a week to $2000 a week means a 100% increase each and every week before you realize baseline volume to satisfy your costs.   That’s at difficult job in a competitive restaurant market like Atlanta Georgia. 

A significant reason for most to buy Atlanta restaurants for sale is the cash flow from existing operations.  Manufacturing and retail businesses often sell for many times cash flow while restaurants with good books and records can often be acquired for three times earnings or less.  A restaurant owner can buy an Atlanta restaurant for sale and pay off the purchase in less than three years leaving himself with a debt free earning machine.  That’s attractive to most. 

Brokers that specialize in Atlanta restaurants for sale have access to listings and information on multiple opportunities in the marketplace.  Buying that established Atlanta restaurant for sale gives you clear costs, verifiable earnings and instant revenue.  That’s a fast path to restaurant ownership for most.

Eric Gagnon is a designated industry expert in Restaurant Sales and Restaurant Business Brokerage.  He is a frequent writer and speaker on the topic of restaurant sales and restaurant valuation.  He is the president of We Sell Restaurants an online resource for buying and selling restaurants in Atlanta, Georgia and across the southeast.

To learn more about buying or leasing Atlanta restaurants CLICK HERE

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