Winning concept is vital for a new restaurant's marketing. There are millions of food serving establishments in the United States, and your restaurant or bar concept may already exist somewhere.

New concepts are hard to formulate, but it's possible with the right approach.

conceptual restaurant

Brainstorm Your New Restaurant Concept

Either you're starting a new establishment, or revamping a current dining concept, your winning idea needs to:

  • Fit perfectly with the neighborhood 
  • Meet a demand 

Brainstorming is a great place to start, and this means:

  • Taking notes of all of your random ideas
  • Creating scrapbooks with images and notes
  • Taking pictures and jotting down ideas on your phone

Start the brainstorming process early so that you can have a lot of potential ideas that you can choose from in the future. A lot of the ideas will be discarded, but you need those few nuggets to be able to build off of when the concept starts to come together.

Make sure you:

  • Conduct a lot of research
  • Study the market
  • Look over current trends

Don't expect your idea to pop up overnight - it takes time.

new restaurant concepts

Tour Other Restaurants for Inspiration

When you're looking for inspiration, it's never a bad idea to go to other restaurants and see what different concepts they may have. Plan a trip to the city or a rustling location where you can drop in a restaurant for a drink and draw inspiration from their concepts. If you want to take it a step further, take pictures and keep all of these ideas for later.

A lot of the most successful concepts started on the inspiration of another restaurant. Perhaps you like this one concept, but you have such a great way to improve upon it. You can improve on the concept and make it your own if you wish.

You can also take this time to mix and match ideas to come up with your own unique restaurant concept.

bar concept

Go Beyond the Theme and Concept of the Restaurant

Quality restaurant concepts fail when there's not a strong plan in place. A lot of hurdles will be experienced during the initial few months of the restaurant's operation. One major issue in restaurant concept development is that individuals assume that "concept" only relates to the theme and aesthetics of a restaurant.

Unfortunately, there's a lot more that has to go into your overall concept.

Successful restaurant concepts include:

  • Plans for the initial months of operation
  • Theme of the restaurant
  • Market research
  • Location and design

You'll effectively use most of your business plan as the concept for the restaurant. Using the points above, you may have a good idea of what you want the restaurant's aesthetics to look like.

But now it's time to:

  • Research. You need to know your market to ensure that your establishment will be a success. Research the competition, make sure that there isn't too much competition (it leads to business failure) and determine the food and supplies you'll need to find success.
  • Location and design. Where will your location be? A city's main street is always a great choice, but if your restaurant is at the end of the street, it may not receive the same foot traffic as a restaurant in the middle of main street. Consider parking, traffic and demographic. A restaurant serving $80-per-plate meals will not work well in an area where the average resident earns $20,000 a year.

Another question is what will you offer to your customers in terms of service? Will you offer:

  • Sit-in dining
  • Takeout
  • Drive-thru windows
  • Delivery

If you're in a small town with little competition but high demand for Italian cuisine, the idea of delivering may be a unique concept for your area. There are a lot of different types of restaurant concepts, so choose one that meets your audience's needs and your own wants.

restaurant concept development

Understand and Determine All Elements of Restaurant Concepts

If you want to know how to make a restaurant successful, it comes down to all of the elements of a concept. A concept may include the following:

  • Restaurant Name. A name should give a potential patron a general idea of what type of food your restaurant serves. You would expect a restaurant named "Steakhouse" to sell steak. "Dolce Vita" would be expected to be an Italian restaurant.
  • Menu Writing. When a patron sits down and reads your menu, will it pinpoint the high-end ingredients, explain the savory flavors with precision details or will the menu be fun? The menu should make sense for your ideal customer and restaurant style.
  • DГ©cor and Ambiance. The dГ©cor and ambiance of a restaurant should have already been part of your brainstorming session. You'll want to determine everything, including how the ambiance should be. Should the ambiance be romantic, or will you be offering a more casual dining experience? A few of the main elements to focus on here are:
    • Colors
    • Furniture
    • Music
    • DГ©cor
    • Table settings
    • Lighting

Restaurant atmosphere types are dependent on the dГ©cor and ambiance that you choose. Bar concepts can be fun, or they can offer more of a sports bar feel that is one of the best restaurant concepts in college towns.

A lot of restaurants with bars are trying to stand out from the crowd. An Irish pub with a true Irish concept with imported bars and seating are very popular in some areas. 

Choose how you would like your restaurant's concept and run with the idea. Make sure that the restaurant has a place in your area first. Classic restaurant concepts work well because they appeal to a wide range of consumers. But if you choose a concept that is too unique, it may put off some potential customers.

You need to have a pulse on the food service concepts in your area.

types of restaurant concepts

Examples of Unique Restaurant Concepts

A winning concept is going to be highly dependent on your location and its respective demographic. High-end restaurants may work well in affluent areas, but the restaurant will not work well in an area riddled with poverty.

There are a lot of concept examples that work well, but a few options are:

  • High-end establishments put a major focus on the dГ©cor, lighting and other areas of the restaurant that scream "fancy." You'll need to have a cohesive design concept throughout and also a chef that is able to bring the restaurant's food up to the quality that is expected of a Michelin star establishment.
  • Mashup establishments are a lot of fun, and it's these restaurants that may offer French or Italian food, but they have a relaxed environment. Wacky dish styles or dГ©cor may be used in these restaurants.

Of course, there are also the very unique restaurants that make a splash in a neighborhood. I remember one restaurant near my old house that didn't have the best food in town, but what they did have was a parking lot filled with patrons. The restaurant was able to bring in crowds by having all of the staff dress up as characters from blockbuster movies. 

Having Jack Sparrow serve you dinner with his unique style was a lot of fun, and it was a concept that worked very well in a busy city where people wanted to escape the hustle and bustle of life. Keeping your concept running well means running a business properly. One main question you have to ask yourself is: will the concept make sense in three years? 

Don't create a concept that will be short-lived. Concepts should be able to be used today and ten years from now. Restaurants often adapt and change concepts over time, but you don't want to have to go through a concept change too often.

A few other key business decisions you'll need to make are:

  • Securing enough suppliers to help you obtain specialty goods
  • Focus on cash flow, especially when making large purchases
  • Have backup plans for ingredients that may be unavailable
  • Hire chefs that are able to bring your restaurant to life, and always have recipes available to keep the same taste and quality if a chef quits

Consistency is key. You may find your business is running well, but then in the slow season, your food waste and expenditures are barely covered. New restaurants should keep a close eye on these slow seasons so that they have a better idea of when to cut back on expenditures.

Adapt as the times change, and you'll find that your restaurant concept is not set in stone.

Staff and chefs need to be in on key business decisions. Work as a team to bring your concept to life and to help keep your restaurant running successfully. If you have a firm grasp of the financials of the restaurant and also work with consultants when times are rough or you have questions that go unanswered, you'll be able to make your business a success.

It is easy to start a restaurant, but it's difficult to keep a restaurant operational. Choosing a winning concept is the first step in making your restaurant a success, but longevity also depends on your restaurant's ability to adapt and change with market demands.