A great session on the title of "Why Restaurants Fail" was moderated by Akhilesh from Malt & Salt Hospitality at the Zomato Restaurant Summit in Dubai.
With a panel strength of industry experts, Akhilesh delved & implored with them the many reasons for the success and failure of restaurants, around the world as also, specifically in the UAE.
It was very interesting to understand and share experiences across the board including but not limited to the following :
- Owner led restaurants find it difficult to grow out and expand
- Owners are very tight with their controls, which is both good and bad for the restaurant
- Spending too much capex on non-essentials vs focusing on hiring the right skill sets and establishing superior cuisine standards led to many a restaurants’ downfall
- Choking of financial capabilities due to lack of funding sources turned out to be another key bottleneck
- The belief that anyone/everyone who opens a restaurant will be successful was amongst the highlights of the discussion points
- Too much discounting led promotions impacting top & bottom lines value erosion
- Entry of people in the business without adequate and appropriate know-how
The topic being so interesting, we all got fairly engrossed and could have carried on for a few more hours, had it not been for the time limit. All in all, a great session and a superb summit organized by Zomato.