There are a number of different expenses that must be factored into a restaurant’s annual budget. Firstly, if you are not making an annual budget then you should realize that you are putting the future of your enterprise in serious jeopardy. You never know when an unexpected expense might strike, and in these kinds of situations it is essential that you have a cash reserve that you can dip into to keep yourself afloat. Trying to think of all of the expenses that you can predict might be a good idea too, as it can help you to spend money in an organized and precise manner.
While there are numerous things that you would undoubtedly think to add to your budget include rental payments, stock resupply and employee salaries, one thing that might have slipped your mind is furniture replacement. You likely made a significant investment into the restaurant furniture that your patrons use during their meals, but the fact of the matter is that at some point or another this furniture would undoubtedly start to depreciate in quality. Sticking with the furniture at this point would make it impossible for you to maintain a profitable business in the long run.
Understanding that restaurant furniture would most definitely need to be replaced eventually is a key aspect to obtaining a more realistic outlook on how your business is supposed to be run. Figuring out what the right timing is for furniture replacement tends to be pretty crucial too, and you must also realize that there are ways in which you can delay furniture replacement without sacrificing any of the ambient qualities of your eatery that might be pulling in large amounts of customers on a regular basis.
We are going to be discussing all of these things in this article, but the first thing that we want to talk about is how you can delay furniture replacement for a long period of time. A major contributor to furniture needing to be replaced is the fact that it might get nicked, stained or otherwise damaged through frequent use. Chances are that you have pretty heavy footfall every day, and the truth is that this is a great phenomenon that can really help you to make your enterprise stable and profitable in the long run.
However, one side effect of heavy footfall is that your furniture would be more likely to get damaged. Hence, you might want to make a significant investment into keeping your furniture maintained. One thing that you need to realize is that once any kind of damage is done to a piece of furniture, this damage will just keep getting worse until you get it fixed. Hence, delaying the repair process can often result in the problem getting a lot worse than might have been the case otherwise. It would be ideal if you had a repair specialist on speed dial so that you can call them as soon as the damage is done, or perhaps after closing time so that the repair process doesn’t disrupt the dining experience of your patrons.
Getting repairs done sooner rather than later can help save on costs since early repairs tend to cost a lot less than delayed ones. If you invest some money into furniture maintenance, the lifespan of your furniture could potentially be increased by three or four years or perhaps even more. This can be great for your budget as you would need to contribute less to the furniture replacement pot.
That said, no matter how much you invest into repairs and maintenance, eventually a point will come where the only option would be to buy some new furniture. Generally speaking, good quality restaurant furniture can last about 5-7 years if you don’t really put much money into fixing damage that might incur. This can be increase to around 10-12 years with proper and frequent maintenance, so these are the two timelines that you should take into consideration based on how much money you have coming in. Some would argue that spending too much on repairs is just not a good idea because it’s money exiting your account and you might as well just use this money to buy brand new furniture with a great deal more frequency.
We would say that these people happen to be right. After all, even if you repair your furniture enough that it is still relatively functional and stable to sit on and dine off of, eventually it would start to look bad. Stained furniture can reflect rather poorly on your enterprise, and it might give certain customers the impression that you don’t really put enough effort into maintaining your state of affairs.
Hence, erring on the side of caution and getting furniture replaced every five or six years as opposed to stretching it out as much as you can might be a good idea. It can help maintain the quality of your establishment, something that becomes increasingly important if you are focusing on a fine dining eatery rather than something that is a bit more casual.
The type of furniture that you have can impact this too, of course. For example, metal furniture tends to last a bit longer than would, although you might be somewhat limited with regards to its aesthetic applications as it might not work with every kind of vibe. Taking all of these things into consideration is a key component of forestalling any situations wherein you might find yourself using up cash faster than it is coming in which is a disruption of cash flow that could very easily result in the demise of your restaurant.