Soo I’ve had the idea of starting a small restaurant on a permaculture farm for a while. Every single ingredient would be grown right on the farm and customers would be able to see and walk around the farm if they want(with supervision, I guess in a short tour?), im thinking it should be a vegan restaurant, it just makes more sense to me. All the food would be organic/pesticide free/herbicide free, This would be the healthiest restaurant in my whole country for sure.
The restaurant wouldn’t be on the middle of the farm but it would be right in the middle of a nice botanical garden. The garden would make the place so much more pretty and attractive, plus this way people can sit down benches placed around the garden and eat while. In my country theres not many 3rd place , I could advertise the place as a free botanical garden with a restaurant on it.
The farm would be right besides the garden but it would be fenced so people dont touch the plants too much or steal them. So yeah these are 3 ideas together, botanical garden/restaurant/farm. I feel like I can advertise the botanical garden and the vegan restaurant separately so its less confusin.
Have you thought of naming it “Hawthorne”?
If you have decent volume, you will run into the issue of not being able to preduce enough food to supply everything. To rectify this you could go super high end and charge a lot, thus limiting your customers
well i was thinking of having the menu be very small and use a lot of ingredients that produce a lot, spinach for example is basically a weed, with enough space you can have an endless supply of it. And I can try to flash freeze some of the produce when I haervest, doesnt have to be necessarily fresh
Look at: Flora Farms - Cabo San Lucas and surrounding entities. Flora farms is wildly successful due to this exact concept and if you live in a popular enough destination for travel it could work out very well if executed popularly.
That’s a lot of money. And you’ll have to grow as much n as fast as customer walk in
I think it’s a bad idea to rely soley on your own crop. If anything goes wrong you’re ruined.
I’ve seen plenty of quality restaurants who only source food from local farms though. Might be a better option
Just curious, and don’t take this the wrong way but do you have any restaurant experience at all? Nothing wrong with these aspirations but I’d say it’s almost impossible to achieve sustainably let alone to turn a profit.
Farms have animals too, you know. I think being just a vegan restaurant is going to limit your potential customers.
Research blue hill farms . The chef owner is Dan barber. There is an chefs table episode of him on Netflix.
It’s a farm to table restaurant. Market it as a gourmet, fresh, organic experience with multi-courses. A place here in New York State called Blue Hill does exactly what you’re proposing and with great success.
I’ve been kicking around a very similar restaurant. The front is a normal restaurant, the back is a very large warehouse with very efficient, vertical farm, probably hydroponic. In addition to providing most of the ingredients, it would also share air with the restaurant. Customers could enjoy very fresh foods and fresh, farm air.
I don’t know enough about this field to make it work, but I do think that the amount of farming space is probably larger than anyone thinks. You’d need crops in all stages of their development all the time, yet enough of them in harvest/fruit-bearing stages to satisfy the daily menu.
I also worry if it’s hydroponic, perhaps the air quality will not be pleasant for visitors, considering the nutrients that would need to be added all the time.
TBH, I don’t want to make this, but I do want it to exist.
Let the farm be the attraction. Don’t be vegan. Do growing workshops. Cooking classes. Small accommodation with a view of the farm. Mental health retreats, people can work on the farm as part of mental healing. Create multiple revenue streams based around organic farming and health.
There’s a place in Cabo doing something similar. Maybe you can draw inspiration from them. Flora Farms.
You lost me (and 90% of your customer base) at vegan.
Sorry but no.
You’re wanting to take on 2 of the highest-failure businesses (restaurant and farming) at the same time. At the very least, do some very very detailed math. And projection math should be pessimistic, not optimistic.
if I’ve learned anything from my many many years in the restaurant world is that vegan restaurants are cool, but eventually suffer because carnivores typically won’t go to them and the vast majority of consumers are carnivores or at least some take on it.
Blue Hill at Stone Barns has a similar concept. Hyper local, farm on site, etc etc.
Lots and lots and lots of education will be involved here. Not necessarily for you, but for a lot of your customers, who I’m sure have been educated to eat a very specific way over the last century or so.
The idea is cool - it could be executable - but I would do a legit market research in your area to see if I need for such a restaurant is warranted
All of these things are not atypical - but I’m curious what island you live on and wether or not enough people on that island would care. Also, if you’re on an island, maybe include fish at least. Plus chickens will help your farm.
As far as harvest, I would look into fermentation and preservation techniques (drying, smoking, fermenting, pickling) so you can utilize out of season produce all year long.