What 20+ Openings Taught Me About the First 90 Days
People ask me what the hardest part of opening a restaurant is. They expect me to say the construction, the permits or the money. Those are hard. But the part that decides everything is the first 90 days after the doors open.
I've opened more than 20 restaurants, bars and clubs over 35 years, nine of them in Los Angeles in five years. Every one of those openings had a different chef, a different room and a different neighborhood. The first 90 days looked the same every time.
Here's what they taught me.
1. Opening night is the start of training, not the end
Before you open, you train the team on the menu, the steps of service and the systems. Then the first real guests walk in and you find out what you actually taught.
I always treated the first weeks as the second half of training. Short meetings before every service. One thing to fix, one thing to celebrate. Not ten notes. One. A team can absorb one change a night. Give them ten and they absorb none.
2. Protect the team's energy
An opening is a long run, and new teams start it as a sprint. Everyone wants to prove themselves. Managers work double shifts. Cooks stay late to re-prep. By week three, the people you need most are exhausted.
Part of the owner's job in the first 90 days is to slow people down. Build a real schedule early. Send people home. Eat family meal together, sitting down, even on the crazy days. A rested team gives better hospitality than a heroic one.
3. Write down what you're learning, every day
The first 90 days are when you learn the most about your own restaurant: which station gets slammed, which dish comes back, where the service path crosses the kitchen door. If you don't write it down, it disappears into the next busy night.
Keep a simple log. What went wrong, what went right, what we're changing. Read it with your managers once a week. Most of the systems I trust today started as a note on a busy night.
4. Fix the room before you fix the menu
When something feels off in the first weeks, the instinct is to change the food. Sometimes that's right. More often, the issue is in the room: the lighting, the music, the pace of service, how long a guest waits to be greeted.
Guests remember how they were treated more than what they ate. In the early weeks, I spent as much time watching the door and the tables as I did tasting dishes. A great plate in a cold room still feels like a cold night.
5. Know your numbers weekly, not monthly
The excitement of an opening hides a lot. Food cost creeps. Labor runs high because everyone's still learning. Waste piles up while the kitchen figures out its pars.
You don't need a perfect system in month one, but you need to look every week. Weekly counts, weekly labor, weekly sales by item. If you wait for the monthly statement, you're reading about problems that already cost you money.
6. Earn your first regulars one table at a time
Opening buzz brings people in once. The first 90 days decide whether they come back. That doesn't come from a marketing plan. It comes from the host who remembers a name on the second visit, the manager who stops by the table, the server who says, "Last time you had the fish. Want to try something new?"
The regulars you earn in those first three months become the base of the restaurant. That's the real reward of an opening.
7. Set the culture in the first week, because it sets itself after that
Whatever you allow in the first week becomes the standard. If the owner walks past a dirty station, the team learns that's fine. If the owner picks up a bus tub during a rush, the team learns that everybody helps.
Culture isn't a speech at the pre-opening meeting. It's what the team sees you do in the first 90 days, especially on the hard nights.
What I'd tell any operator
Paiche and Faith & Flower both received the Best New Restaurant in America award from Esquire. Those were great moments for the teams that built them. But I've never seen an award decide whether a restaurant makes it. The first 90 days do.
Train every night. Protect your people. Write things down. Watch the room. Look at your numbers every week. Earn the regulars. And set the culture by example from day one.
Today, with Chef Eric Greenspan at LA'telier, every event is its own small opening: a new room, a new team and new guests. The same rules apply, just faster.
Thirty-five years in, the first 90 days are still my favorite part.
Stephane Bombet has 35 years in hospitality. He is Managing Partner of LA'telier, a catering and events company, and helps restaurant owners through The Operator Forge. More about Stephane · More writing