Small Food Businesses Afraid to Scale
These businesses, ranging from bakeries and online kitchens to convenience stores and microbreweries, are struggling to grow beyond a certain revenue level or are hesitant to launch due to fear of failure and financial risk. Many are facing challenges with consistency, scaling, and the anxiety of investing resources without guaranteed success. The common thread is the vulnerability and uncertainty inherent in small, often home-based, food and beverage ventures.
SOURCES (60)
“A good idea is to start expanding your online market, building a proffesional website and socializing with others is extremely imporant for a growing business, reach out if you need help building a website or anything really!”
“I would try local caterers and coffee shops. Some of those businesses don't bake on their own. You can offer them daily deliveries in the morning.”
“Surprisingly little, at least for my company (which is suoer small). I'm sure it depends on how many seats you need.”
“Nope to help a friend... if some investor is like damn that cool I will sell this bitch.... but as of right now im waiting for my friend to come back and work on his damn food truck.”
“So you spent all this time to help a friend… OR You made this app to try and make money”
“That "polite defeat" part really hit home. I think I've been asking people to give up something they're comfortable with instead of just working quietly behind it. A customer messaging you feels easy and personal to them - asking them to fill out a form instead is a bigger change than it looks like from the outside. Maybe the fix isn't replacing the DM at all. Maybe it's just handling everything behind the DM - she still gets messaged the same way, she just doesn't”
“What is the best way to find kitchen workers? In your opinion submitted by /u/captainluckyjr [link] [comments]”
“Kind of like an AMA, here's a weekly post where customers can ask questions. This is for anyone including market research, app developers, people who watch too much "reality" TV about bars, and general industry bullshit. Maybe a bar owner will have an answer for you, maybe not. If you are already in the industry your question may get better responses if you post your own thread instead of commenting here. submitted by /u/barowners [link] [comments]”
“Or at least I think it is. Recently I began to review my own expected prices. Keep in mind I'm building towards a food truck operation and don't want to mess things up. I'm going through this slowly and methodically as I've seen people rush in and crash hard. HOWEVER...prices need to be addressed. How do you apply plate costs? Do you use the low 28% or the higher 35% when adding plate costs. Plate costs are to cover labor, overhead, profit. So for example if a basic bitch hot dog”
“we moved to reprinting our menu every 6 weeks because inflation keeps eating margins and i refuse to hand cross out prices with a sharpie like its 2009. problem is reprinting 250 menus that often at the local shop is brutal, 1.20 a menu means 300 plus every cycle.looking for an online option that does paper menus at 250 to 500 for noticeably less. quality has to be good, these go on the table in front of paying guests. id trade same day speed for cost since i know my reprint schedule in advance.”
“Start small. Tent setup first or catering gigs. Keep it simple. Do one thing really well. Don’t buy a food truck until you’ve built up a client base.”
“Keep it simple. All the food trucks that kill it here have 1 main thing they do well. Don't put a Cheesecake Factory menu on wheels.”
“Could you please share your log with me. I’m getting ready to open soon hopefully it goes well.”
“margins, shipping, food regulations and shelf-life? I am sure there is some government department in Italy dedicated to helping local brands to sell overseas. I am not into food imports but selling to the distributor eats a lot of margins. If you have a family based business that sells locally in Italy with their expected cost of operation you would probably need to double those prices to sell it abroad. And with those prices you would be not able to compete with italian brands that sell in the”
“Hello all! A friend and I have a snack shack within our company but is currently cash only. We would like to add a card payment/POS option. We are ideally looking for something super simple. Ideally it would give us the ability to let our customers select what they want on an ipad and either let them add it to a running tab or pay right away. I was looking at Square Free but couldn't find if they had a running tab option or not. If there is another option that makes more sense I would love t”
“we’ve been around a while and have had this come up numerous times. a customer loves something and asks for the recipe for it…. we try to be an accommodating and approachable business. in the past i’ve given regulars a recipe (knowing it’s too complicated and that they likely won’t do the math on the batch to make it less than a 10 year supply for their house). but i was just hit up for a recipe again. i brushed it off and thanked the person for the compliment, but they asked again for the recip”
“Been doing it for 10 yrs in our first location. Opened location no. 2 almost 2 years ago. Sales way down. Losing money. Is anyone making money in bars? If so, what types of concepts are doing ok or better these days? submitted by /u/Lowkey_Odin [link] [comments]”
“Hello! Me (21F worked in business consulting/finance space) and my CoFounder (21F worked in food hospitality for 6 years), plan to open a bar in a place highly trafficked by college students. The purpose is to be the place with cheap drinks, good vibes, and fun events. There are other college bars around us but they feel really disconnected to the campus and are too lax with fake ID’s and end up getting raided often. By day: We are a soda shop and study space a lot like Swig (sodas with crème, f”
“wouldn’t work for burgers. no fryers. but for pizza? you actually could do it with far less if you serve slices and par cook nice build. works well for pizza.”
“It's so good. I am now trying to figure out how to build/rent/buy my first food truck/trailer in Baltics and it's seems like a really hard task, or just insanely expensive”
“Small catering operation. The advice is always the same and it's always given by people whose worst customer is 2% of their revenue. Fire them, free up capacity, better clients fill the gap, you'll be happier and richer. Mine is a corporate account that's about 30% of what I bring in. They're genuinely awful. Last-minute changes, they grind me on price every renewal, they once cancelled 200 covers the night before and expected no charge. My staff dread those days. If I fire them”
“I have worked at a coffee shop before. I have been thinking about doing this for a while now. I just don’t know where to start”
“this is hardly new news unless food trucks are a new thing in your area. los angeles went through this shit 15-20 years ago.”
“Yeah, PayNearMe seems ideal and I wish I could work with them and just get barcode directly but that's not an option. Do you have any direct experience with any of these options one way or another?”
“I would find somebody to team up with and piggyback on their licenses for a little.”
“Yeah, most definitely if you're set on sandwiches you got to do those hurdles. I think what the redditor is talking about, is temporary event licensing as seen here https://www2.myfloridalicense.com/hotels-restaurants/licensing/temporaryevent-guide/ and seeing if there are any slight loop holes but trust me figuring out and dealing with all that is annoying with the lack of information and grey areas. There are plenty people going the legally grey towards illegal route of either selling out”
“I'm looking to sell sandwiches at the farmers market in North Florida , I have my food handlers certificate. I've looked into the license but its not clear something about 1-3days or something the frequency is ridiculous if I say so ! I would like to sell at different markets and be free not subjected to one place for 3 days or so. Please and Thank you submitted by /u/Intelligent_Match_31 [link] [comments]”
I’m a longtime restaurant owner in SE Michigan developing and testing a new fast casual food concept with great growth potential. I’m looking to connect with an experienced, hands-on restaurant operator or…
“Hi everyone. I own a catering business which has been picking up over these past few months. I’ve gotten loads of jobs to cater private events. I’ve been looking for hot pot tables to be able to prep some meals on site and also to keep the temp just right till serving time. I’m torn between the electric ones or the gas ones, which ones are better in terms of cost and reliability? Please recommend the most portable brands as well. For now, i’m looking for ones with central pots but in future i’ll”
“I'll keep that in mind. It seems like food trucks might actually make more money than restaurants.”
in some countries in eu are tough to open food trucks. for example, greece
“Would you be open to partners? I’ve got experience in the hospitality/safari industry. Esp in Southern Africa Currently live in the US”
“Hi Reddit. I have over 10 years of experience managing bars. I found a great spot, with charm & good foot traffic. The space is mostly an outdoor space, but the original builders concepted that it would be like a hangout spot I will just be getting my beer and wine license, but plan to carry multiple kinds of beers, and wine based cocktails. What is your advice to me? Thanks submitted by /u/New-Afternoon-5706 [link] [comments]”
“We have pull up banners that have pictures but no prices. We have a chalk board that can be edited in the fly. Then our main menu can be easily re-printed. Our website has our standard street prices. We charge differently for events where we pay significant fees to get into. Catering is its own menu as well, with items that are not a available on our street menu or event menus. We also customize menus for certain events. We did a ren-fair and had Renaissance type names in our menus. It was fun.”
“Is local red tape killing the street food scene in Glen Cove, NY? 🍔🚚 submitted by /u/Wormbrain [link] [comments]”
“They can add customized setup and offer specialty cocktail menu, wedding drinking games or favors (specialty glasses)s. Lots of brides want things to be “perfect” and any regular bartender is just not the same as the “experience” of a wedding bar.”
“Look into being a "dry hire". In my state, the proper liquor license to supply and distribute alchlohol is over $500,000. That doesnt include any permitting, just the license. If the owner supplies the alcohol and all you do is pour and mix drinks, and serve, the license is less than $1,000.”
“I felt like setting up a tent at an event would make more sense starting and then maybe a truck? Or a trailer? I’m not sure yet.”
Are you trying to just pop up with a tent and set up or full truck? Ty
“Check your local permit and food/beverage department if it's even allowed and if so what restrictions are there. That's your first, second and third step.”
Try to get locked in at a bar brewery or distillery that people frequent.
“You’ve had 2 years in business to make those connections, you should be always looking for the next thing to do to bring in money. Catering, corporate orders, private events like weddings and birthdays, Christmas markets etc”
“It all depends. We did delivery services... Menus out to differnet offices work places etc. offer specials.”