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.
I think on the face of it this is a good idea, but like with anything there will be challenges.
One challenge is location. Is this going to be in a high traffic area where land is expensive, driving up costs for the farm? Or a low traffic area where land is cheap, driving up marketing expense for the restaurant? One solution could be to split them up, farm where it’s cheap and cook where there’s traffic, but that erodes the offer to let people tour the farm.
Another challenge is going to be balancing the two businesses. Most likely, the farm will have other customers outside the restaurant. If not, balancing supply and demand will be difficult probably driving up overall shrink costs. I think the solution is to run the farm separately with the restaurant just being the largest customer. Challenge there is your time as a founder making both these businesses work. People who own restaurants can spend 60+ hours a week just managing the restaurant.
Finally, I think capital will be a big issue. Opening up a sit down restaurant isn’t cheap, and that’s even assuming your renting the space. A McDonald’s can cost upwards of $1m to open, and they just serve burgers and fries. Now you have to either buy or rent several acres, plus build out a restaurant. Not really sure how you overcome this one.
One idea I have reading your post is to make the “farm” and indoor hydroponics setup. This way you can rent warehouse space that’s close to a city center and get that traffic, and still have the farm to table in your marketing. You could give tours of the grow setup, and charge a premium on both the restaurant and farm side since this is a unique way to grow vegetables that few people are pursuing. This is just an idea though. I’m not in the industry, so I’m not really aware of the economics of a hydroponic farm. Definitely a starting point and not a flushed out idea.
Best of luck! I would definitely eat at a place like this.