Start a Restaurant

Up until recently restaurant financing, was burdensome and very limiting. Not only are there only a few lenders interested in restaurant financing, refinancing for this type of business is very difficult to obtain. If you are already in the restaurant business or are planning to open a restaurant, you really do have only a handful of lenders to choose from and even they remain overly cautious with very conservative guidelines.Thankfully, in the past few years there have been a few more lenders decide to offer restaurant financing, and a few more options. For example, no you can look at stated income loans or loans that are amortized over 30 years. The main reason for the conservative lending patterns is [...] Continue Reading…

Many traditional lenders have unofficially removed bar and restaurant properties from their short list of business loan candidates. Other lenders will restrict their restaurant lending to a handful of restaurant businesses with a long track record. There are two dominant reasons for these actions by traditional lenders:(1) Bars and restaurants will usually have the highest failure rate among new businesses. Traditional banks have discovered that an infallible strategy for avoiding such business loan failures is to avoid making these kinds of loans in the first place.(2) Commercial mortgages for bars and restaurants will involve special financing requirements for liquor licenses and items generally categorized as FF&E (furniture, fixtures and equipment). As a result, there will be a perceived intermingling [...] Continue Reading…

In recent years, businesses needing restaurant loans have been treated as an almost separate, and some may say unequal, category of financing for business loans. Many lenders that understood the special needs of restaurant owners are no longer lending, and other lenders have placed them on a so-called “black list” separate from other small and medium sized businesses because they are considered too risky.This has left restaurant owners in a real predicament as they fight to regain much of the working capital that they lost in the economic downturn. Even healthy establishments have seen their lines cut due the banking collapse, and this has forced restaurant owners to seek out other sources of financing such as secured equipment loans, [...] Continue Reading…

There are many sources in which restaurant owners could turn to in search of restaurant funds. All of these funding methods have both advantages and drawbacks. Therefore, it is up to restaurant owners to evaluate their individual businesses, and determine which funding options best suit them. Traditional Bank Loan ExplanationA traditional bank loan is a business loan that a restaurant owner can receive through a bank. The money must be repaid over a certain period of time. Many banks offer business loans to small business owners who meet specific requirements, some of these loans are even backed by the Small Business Administration (SBA). Benefitso SBA loans available o Low interest rates Pitfallso Strict, often hard-to-meet requirements [...] Continue Reading…

There are still viable options for restaurant financing in the market today. Borrowers however should realize and accept that the choices have become more limited, than they where just 6 months ago. For example, most conventional and or conduit type loans for restaurants are now gone.Instead, borrowers should be focused on portfolio lenders, i.e. banks or lenders that hold the debt on their balance sheet. This is the opposite of what we have seen in the last decade as most restaurant lenders packaged and sold their loans off onto the secondary market and thus rid themselves of the loan in exchange for a split.Portfolio lenders can be difficult to find though. And they don’t really advertise themselves as such. [...] Continue Reading…

What are restaurant loans? This is a query being circulated amongst restaurant owners and fast food chain franchisers for the past year. To answer this briefly, restaurant loans are business loans that are primarily availed of by restaurant owners. These are loans that have been personalized in order to address to each and every need of such restaurant owners. The amount that you can get will depend upon the type of restaurant or business that you have together with the time frame that the said business has been established, a summary of the annual sales of your restaurant, the total amount that you need and your credit score. You will also be asked if you have already filed for [...] Continue Reading…

A small business cash advance can be your restaurant funding solution, when you need quick funding and low documentation requirements.You as a restaurant owner have at one time or another been faced with applying for a restaurant loan, possibly getting your loan request denied and faced rejection unless you had money to do your own self restaurant financing.Getting startup capital to open a restaurant is much more challenging then it is for other non food businesses or retail businesses. Banks do not like doing restaurant financing period because of the high failure rate associated with restaurant businesses.The nice thing with the internet and article directories is that it gives you immediate access to great loan information and options. You [...] Continue Reading…

Getting funding for a restaurant this year of 2008, is definitely harder on a national level is more difficult then ever before.Why You Will Find It Difficult To Get A LoanUnfortunately bank loan officers do not like to do restaurant financing! This year of 2008 is a very tough year, foreclosure rates the highest ever in the history of the United States, a credit crunch due to the mortgage crisis, lenders cherry picking their loans, even denying borrowers with good credit.So as if the food and hospitality industry was not already difficult for getting restaurant loans, it is much more harder to get loans then ever before due to the recession that is happening currently around major cities in [...] Continue Reading…

If there’s one thing restaurant owners can learn from Wolfgang Puck, it’s never to give up. Their journeys to success may not be as extreme as the famous chef/entrepreneur, who began as a cooking apprentice in Austria at the age of 14, then moved to France four years later and “…wrote letter after letter to all the two- and three-star restaurants,” as he told Inc.com, until he was finally hired. For some, it may be as simple as letting go of age-old ideas and traditions and applying for a merchant cash advance when business loans don’t come through. The circumstances and stories will differ as greatly as the types of restaurants these small business owners own, but the decision to work hard [...] Continue Reading…

This article is primarily directed toward people who own, or are considering getting into the restaurant business. I myself used to own a restaurant several years ago. It is tough work I know, but it can be very lucrative if you work hard, make wise decisions and with a little luck.So often, we get so caught up in the day to day struggle that we forget to step back and take a look at the big picture. Think for a moment of what you could do if you had an extra 10, 20 or 50 thousand dollars to invest into your business. What would you do with the money? I don’t know about you, but I can think of [...] Continue Reading…