Despite a lot of similarities and a common path for both a standalone restaurant opening and a hotel's F&B opening, where both would follow a critical path during the pre-opening and opening period, yet, both are different in many ways!
Different in :
-Hotel's F&B, especially if part of a chain, will be subject to the corporate office's / chain's guidelines and will require approvals from both owners and the corporate office of a chain, while a standalone restaurant's concept, location selection, layout and other plans are purely the decisions of the owner's investors if not part of a franchise as well!
-A standalone restaurant GM customizes all SOPs, while a manager in a hotel's F&B might get his/her SOPs from the corporate office, plus some leverage for hotel-specific customisation of SOPs in some cases.
-The overall hiring process varies, as a hotel can afford planning recruitment trips to different countries to high for the different departments, while a standalone restaurant might be limited to one country visit for recruitment or only limited to local hires!
-The fact that a hotel's F&B budgets are linked directly and indirectly to the performance metrics of other departments, for example, the budget projections are linked to the room occupancy and size of ballroom and events , where some venus such as Room service, Lobby Lounge, All day dining restaurants are directly linked to hotel room's occupancy and performance, while a standalone restaurant's budget is purely relying on walk-in customers and capture ratio's in the case it is located inside a mall or center.
The organizational chart and hierarchy between both modules are different, where an F&B Manager / Director might report to a Hotel/ resident manager or possibly EAM or directly to the GM, and this F&B manager's authority in making decisions might be influenced by those senior's inputs, where there is a small percentage of F&B Managers that can take absolute decisions without getting their senior's approvals/inputs. While a restaurant GM is hired and might report directly to the investors / Owners and has more room to make decisions and be held responsible for those decisions, in summary, a standalone restaurant GM has more authority and power in the decision making process.
Licensing and permits vary between the two modules, as a standalone restaurant has to have all permits and licenses under its name, while a hotel restaurant might share some hotel licenses depending on ownership and operation structure. A standalone restaurant might have a different site approval plan that is specific to restaurant space, versus a hotel's Restaurant that might only need an internal modification permit if the space is already zoned. Also signage permit is different between the two. For hotel F&B, there may be additional approvals and brand compliance when the hotel is part of a large chain, while a standalone might not need them if not part of a franchise.
Overall, and based on my own experience in both standalone and hotel F&B's pre-openings, there are a lot of similarities when it comes to menu and recipe development, yet in a hotel you have a cost controller who do the costing job, yet in a restaurant it is done by the GM him/herself, hiring and training could be similar, The pre-opening period and staff advance hiring periods might be similar where a staff should join and get trained a month to two in advance, while opening periods might vary from a project to another and a hotel's F&B can be hired 3 months before a new opening, while a restaurant's GM is hired at least 6 months in advance to manage all the process which is way more complex and involves many aspects that a hotel's restaurant opening might not have such as rental agreements and standalone restaurant permits requirements.
I would say that a hotel's F&B pre-opening is more complex as it requires a lot of inter-departmental coordination, and the overall project is bigger and more complex, and one issue in the hotel's construction might impact the overall opening plans of a restaurant within the hotel, while a standalone's opening is more focused and relatively less surprises might impact the opening date when compared to a hotel's forecasted opening dates.
In my next article, I will focus a bit more on the financials / Budgets/forecast differences between a standalone restaurant and a hotel's F&B operation, especially during the pre-opening / opening stage!
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