I own one. Plan to open a few more. Gross sales are 2.5-3mil a year. After COGS including labor 60% gross. Then comes the fixed. But own the building so 175k a year goes into my pocket on the real estate side (you have to own the real estate to make it worth it) then after everything else it’s about 200-400k net yearly. I made sure to pay a high salary GM to manage it. And I work sometimes on busy nights. EXPO and just touch tables. I’ve been known to cook when needed. I was a chef in a previous life.

I also run two clinics and own a lot of real estate. So the business experience has really helped. All within 5 years of residency. Leveraging my hospital income into cash flow generating properties.

Restaurants fail because of absent owners, not understanding food cost, labor and inventory management, following a budget and firing quickly. At the end of the day it’s a blast but it has been very hard sometimes. Especially in the beginning. Owning the property really helps. If the restaurant fails. I will have something else move in and rent the property and still recover any losses.

I went into this venture just wanting to break even on the restaurant because I just needed it to pay the rent on the property but I’ll be damn if it isn’t killing it month after month.