Mahanu🚧 Draft — not final. This page was auto-generated as day-one scaffolding for the project and still needs a human pass before it reads as finished. The blanks and placeholders below are intentional — someone who runs this project should fill them in and delete this notice.
Concept & plan
The restaurant on one page, then the parts that decide whether it survives. The discipline here is honesty about the numbers — the food is the easy, fun part; the margin is where dreams meet arithmetic.
The concept (one page)
- Who it's for: the specific guest, not "everyone."
- What it serves: the cuisine and the one thing it's known for.
- Why cross town for it: the reason it exists that a home kitchen can't provide.
- The room: the feeling — quick and cheap, or slow and special? This decides everything downstream.
The opening menu (few dishes, done brilliantly)
| Dish | Sell price | Food cost | Margin | Prep complexity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Rule of thumb: food cost around a third of the sell price. A dish that can't hit that is a hobby, not a menu item.
The money model (the honest part)
- One-time: fit-out, kitchen equipment, licences, deposit.
- Monthly fixed: rent, salaries, utilities, insurance.
- Per-cover: ingredients + variable.
- Break-even: covers per night to clear fixed costs — write the real number and stare at it.
The space & the law
- Size / seats / kitchen layout: _____
- Licences & approvals: food safety, fire, trade licence, signage — mapped end to end.
- Health-code musts: the non-negotiables that shape the kitchen build.
Service design
The guest's path: door → seated → order → served → paid → left happy. Mark the three points where it most often goes wrong (the wait to be greeted, the wait for the bill, the table not ready).