What It Takes to Open a Restaurant

For more than a year, The New York Times followed a rookie restaurateur from the day she quit her job to the day she opened.

Good Morning!

Here are today’s highlights:

• “Unleash the hounds:” Despite the uncertainty, the owners on our latest podcast episode are making plans for 2026.

• Are boomerang hires a better bet than fresh hires? Gene Marks thinks so.

• Alan Pentz makes the case for transcribing all of your conversations.

• A construction company says it has dramatically increased revenue by going remote.

STARTUPS

Is it still possible for a rookie to break into New York City’s restaurant industry? “It’s the fantasy at the back of so many people’s minds, and maybe yours: Quit that boring job, cash in those savings, and open a restaurant where you can indulge your love of cooking and spend evenings with devoted regulars. The reality isn’t as pretty: Trying to create a restaurant from scratch is a huge gamble, and in New York City, it can feel almost impossible. Astronomical rents, stiff competition, and city bureaucracy make the process an obstacle course. Yet a record 4,557 restaurant permit applications were filed with the city last year, many of them by deep-pocketed owners and big-name chefs. We sought out the underdog, a first-timer risking it all to pursue the dream. Someone who had never recruited investors, landed a liquor license, or scaled up a recipe for hundreds of diners. Could she succeed, or is the city’s dining scene simply too rough for a rookie?”

• “Mouleena’s vision is the kind of restaurant she’s always wanted in her Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood: a casual, all-day cafe serving food inspired by her Bengali heritage, where diners can drop in without a reservation — ‘a place that people in the neighborhood go to that is warm and friendly when you don’t want to cook for yourself.’ Naming the restaurant is the easy part. Cheeni means sugar in Bengali and Hindi, and she likes its melodic sound.”

• “With an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, Mouleena knows how to pitch people on an idea. She and [her partner] Aleks draw up a list of their selling points: They know the neighborhood well. Brooklyn doesn’t have many Indian restaurants in the middle space between takeout and fine dining. The borough’s casual, sit-down restaurants are often hard to get into.”

• “They agree to invest $30,000 of their own money, and raise $100,000 from friends and family. But their emailed pitch to about 25 potential investors in March elicits a tepid response: Many friends are buying houses or having children. Eventually, eight investors come on board, including Mouleena’s father, Pradip Khan, who puts up $15,000, and her sister, Alisha Khan, with $10,000, along with several friends who invest $2,000 to $10,000.”

• “Landing an affordable New York rental is notoriously tricky. With a budget of $4,000 to $6,000 a month, the partners hope for a space with an ample kitchen and room to seat 30, on a street with lots of foot traffic and few other wine bars or cafes. They’d also like to walk to work. It’s winter, and the pickings online are slim. But they find three strong contenders. READ MORE

THE 21 HATS PODCAST

It’s Not Too Early to Be Thinking About 2026: This week, David C. Barnett and Jennifer Kerhin say they’re already making plans for next year: adjusting pricing, conducting employee reviews, and setting budgets. In the past, Jennifer has chosen to restrain growth to give her employees and her processes a chance to catch up. But this coming year? She says she’s ready to “unleash the hounds.” And for the first time, she’s planning to budget for profit first and then force her expenses to fit her margins. Unlike Jennifer, who conducts employee reviews throughout the year, David saves his evaluations for the end of the year. As he looks forward, he’s trying to figure out what the economy means for his business. He’s seeing more companies in distress, but also more opportunities to help people with severance packages who decide to buy businesses.

• Plus: David and Jennifer share how they’ve each been experimenting with ChatGPT of late.

• You can subscribe to the 21 Hats Podcast wherever you get podcasts.