Restaurant Success by the Numbers, Second Edition: A Money-Guy's Guide to Opening the Next New Hot Spot

This one-stop guide to opening a restaurant from an accountant-turned-restaurateur shows aspiring proprietors how to succeed in the crucial first year and beyond.

Ninety percent of all restaurants fail, and those that succeed happened upon that mysterious X factor, right? Wrong! A man of many hats—money-guy, restaurant owner, and restaurant consultant—Roger Fields shows how a restaurant can survive its first year and keep diners coming back for years. Featuring real-life start-up stories (including many of the author’s own), this comprehensive how-to walks readers through the logistics of opening a restaurant: concept, location, menu, ambiance, staff, and, most important, profit. Updated to address current trends such as food trucks and to tackle online opportunities (and pitfalls!) including Groupon, Yelp, and Twitter, Restaurant Success by the Numbers remains a critical resource for navigating the food industry. Opening a restaurant isn’t easy, but this realistic dreamer’s guide helps set the table for lasting success.

After ten years as a CPA, ROGER FIELDS stopped counting beans and started cooking them. He owned two successful restaurants in New York City before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a partner at Merchants Accounting Services, which has been providing financial services to restaurants, bars, and nightclubs for almost two decades.