Buiness Location

Location

The location of a business has varying levels of importance depending on the type of business. For a restaurant, location can be a make or break decision, or affect the way you operate. For example; a restaurant located in an office district may get morning and lunch traffic, with little to no evening trade. A copy center would want to be near office buildings, and a university to increase their chance to attract customers. Make a list of the location requirements that would help your business succeed. Compromise your location requirements only after careful consideration. Choosing a bad location can be expensive, and costly to correct if you choose poorly. Do your homework.

Here are a few reasons not to choose a particular location, do not choose a location because it is conveniently located were you live, do not choose a location just because a real estate agent recommends it, do not choose a location because it is cheap, do not choose a location because you own it, do not choose a location because it was used for the same type of business before.

Do choose a location on the requirements of the business.

Consider:

Cost., A cheap location may not be the best.
Traffic count., Cars per day and are you on the going home side of the road?
Customers., Are you locating were your customers are? What is the area's demographics?
Competition., Is there any synergy being near the competition or similar businesses?
Ease of access., How hard is it to get to you?.
Parking., Availability ample parking and ease of access.
Zoning., Any restrictions that would impact your operations?.Â
Terms., How will the locations total cost effect your profitability?

Business Plan Location Example:

Johnny Q's Bar-B-Que will be located in a 1400 square foot former Mexican restaurant building where years earlier (1960s) there had been a restaurant located there called Johnny Q's Bar-B-Que, hence the name. The building is located on the main highway passing through Taft, Texas and has a drive by traffic count of 85,000 vehicles a day. Many of these are people going to the beach, to Corpus Christi or on a fishing trip coming out of San Antonio about 2.5 hours away. This will put many people past us for the breakfast and supper runs.

We will be located near a traffic light so are signs will be readily visible from the intersections. Parking is available in front of the store as well as on the side. The old Bar-B-Que pits are still there and some can be reused. A detached walk in cooler and storeroom are on the site. We believe this location will serve us well, because there are no other restaurants in the area serving the same menu fare, because the traffic count is good, because the location is close to the business district and because of the locations past history of having served as a successful bar-b-que restaurant for many years. The lease is for two years at $1,200 per month with four, two year renewals and a purchase option.

Note:
We would include here a map and traffic count analysis with site photos.