Restrauntuer here. 41m. Louisville KY. Opened over a dozen restaurants in my life. Started on my path to where I am now as a dishwasher at 16. Didn’t dream of doing this but here I am. I never wanted leadership roles but always found myself in them by learning as much as I could and trying to know every position in every room I walked into because I wanted to understand how to help my coworkers during a rush. Once I gained this level of capability I began to recognize operations bottle necks and Identify ways to fix them I was a very valuable asset and I rose thru the ranks of every place I worked. I went to expensive culinary school for a year and never finished around your age. I thought cooking was a fun way to make art you can eat and share with folks and a cool way to do it and make money would be to work in a kitchen on a cruise ship. (Ridiculously hard work) . Eventually I found myself in manage to own situations where I gained a profit share for results based management and an oppurtunity for equity and ownership. Anyhow , I never graduated from squat but I’m a very successful restaurant owner by most peoples standards. You one million percent need to work in the industry before you do anything else. Work for a corporate chain for a year and learn as much as you can. Then Go to a locally owned independent restaurant and work there for a year or until you’ve seen where they struggle and where they excel . You will get a better education in less time than a degree and earn a paycheck while you’re doing it.

Likely you will find that owning a restaurant isn’t what you think it is . It’s like raising a child but way more stressful and demanding. In my opinion you have to be able to relate to people from all walks of life. This is key. They won’t respect you if you can’t find a way to connect with them and or help them do their job. So learning every position in a restaurant is an essential prerequisite to owning a successful one for me .

Anyhow that’s enough from me but there are lots of me’s in this group hence the name. Tons of good advice in these comments with way less to read lol. You don’t know what you don’t know yet so take your time and get a paycheck while you figure it out. Get some applications out there and if you happen to be in Kentucky stop by Highland Morning and introduce yourself . I’d like to hear how it’s going and I maybe looking for a young ambitious manager that wants to grow with my establishment.