Three Site-Selection Tips for Startups, Independents and Franchisees

At first glance, selecting a restaurant site might seem simple enough. First, find a well-located shopping center or freestanding building and make sure there are plenty of offices, homes and other traffic-generators in the area. Next, confirm that your competitors in the market are high-volume performers. Finally, enter into negotiations for a lease or sale.

The reality, however, is that homerun sites such as the one described above tend to be few and far between. This is particularly true in today’s food-focused retail environment, in which restaurants are rapidly becoming the new anchor stores and competition for restaurant sites is intense. In this competitive marketplace, site selection is likely to involve some level of compromise and require substantial analysis and due diligence ahead of time. In some cases, you can afford to be patient as you investigate signage, ingress/egress, visibility, parking and other criteria in a bid to find a perfect match. In others (as with the…