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We all know that feeling. After a long day of crushing deals and swimming through spreadsheets, your mind begins to wander.
“I should start my own business.”
While history has always made entrepreneurship an intimidating process, the age of the internet has made the practice easier than ever, and there’s no better clientele that the swaths of millennials eager to expand their debt to new horizons. We’re talking an entire generation that convinced themselves that spending $50k+ on college would solve all of their life’s problems. It’s not exactly a hard sell.
This series will be your flawless guide to creating a profitable business catered to Millennials that will sustain through the test of time. Or at least until Snapchat goes under.
Without further ado, I present to you The Ultimate Brunch Establishment.
Get a Pink Neon Centerpiece
Figuring out where to start with a new business is often the hardest part. Not for a brunch restaurant. You should spend 95% of your initial planning phase sketching and conceptualizing your pink neon centerpiece. Two shades of pink too dark and you’re ruined. Pick the wrong font and Instagram might unveil a “dislike” feature solely for your sake. With a poorly executed centerpiece, the only Snaps you’ll get will be of the food stamp variety.
When it comes to the actual copy of your sign, there are really only two options. The best branding choice is simply the name of your restaurant, but this can be risky. Unless your moniker is particularly catchy, contains the word “Rosé,” or shares its name with several white women over 80, there is a safer option. All you have to do is go to Target. Look for the cliché posters and coffee mugs with sayings on them for your best bets. Here are a few to get you started:
“Coffee is my BFF”
“Wine Not?”
“Namastay In Bed”
“Coffee Before Talkie”
“No ‘Pagne No Gain”
Find Your Cocktail Niche
Once you’ve nailed down your centerpiece, it’s time to focus on the libations. Believe it or not, this part is simple. “Craft Cocktails” is a phrase that means absolutely nothing, and people have been mixing boozy concoctions since the advent of human history. You already have thousands of years of experience as your starting point.
All you have to do is take a handful of cherished cocktails and add a single unconventional ingredient. That’s not an old fashioned, it’s a “New Fashioned” because you added a scoop of artisan apricot paste. You just took your French 75 to a French 150 with that dash of nutmeg and chili powder. Charging $19 for that Bloody Mary isn’t a problem when you’ve garnished it with a blue cheese stuffed olive, a slice of pizza, and a validated parking garage ticket.
If trendy ingredients aren’t your forté, you can always take the easy way out. Just up the serving size by 300% and your customers will be buzzing too hard to realize your bacon tastes like shoe leather.
Pick Your Buzzwords
A business without buzzwords cannot stand. Every restaurant piggybacks on the same ten phrases to show the world just how unique and quirky they are.
Here are a few of my favorites. Pick a few and slap them on your website, menu, and Instagram accounts as often as you possibly can. If you have any budget left for a second neon sign, these are all fair game.
“Farm To Table”
Technically a factory farm is still a farm.
“Locally Sourced”
Buying Velveeta from the local warehouse still counts.
“Traditional”
Words that don’t really mean anything add the most to your intrigue.
“Craft Cocktails”
Just pick a fruit, vegetable, or herb, and muddle the shit out of it.
“Homemade”
Nobody lives at this restaurant, but who cares.
“Gluten Friendly”
We have one menu item that tastes even more like cardboard than the others.
Craft Your Food’s Aesthetic
Once you’ve got your sign, cocktails, and buzzwords in order it’s time to get the the literal bread and butter: the menu. While you might think the food is the most important component of the Ultimate Brunch Establishment, it actually barely matters at all. The bar you’re aiming for here is “sexy and somewhat edible.” You can’t taste a biscuit through Instagram, after all.
Your food should be the brunch equivalent of a really hot person who only replies with “Hey” on Tinder. Ensure that every dish looks great on at least three separate Instagram filters or you’re doomed.
Don’t be afraid to set your margins ridiculously high. After all, they’re not just paying $12 for a 20-cent biscuit. They’re paying $12 for a 20-cent biscuit, a miniscule amount of airline points, AND 100+ Instagram likes. No price is too high for that kind of self-validation.
Do Something Ridiculous
While you’ve done a lot to prime your restaurant for maximum ‘Grammability, you’re still not trendy enough to be truly successful. You need one more hook to set yourself apart from the neon masses. Luckily, the solution is simple. All you have to do is think of some form of entertainment that a basic millennial would never expect from a brunch joint, and give it a catchy name.
Tarot Cards & Tarragon. Jugglers & Juice. Board Games & Benedicts. Old School Rap & Food That’s Crap. My net worth just tripled writing this paragraph and I’m not even starting a restaurant.
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It’s really that simple. If you follow these guidelines, the currency will follow. Just remember to keep your guard up. All it takes is a bigger brighter neon “Rosé” sign around the corner to topple your bougie ambitions.
Respond
Joe Nullet
Joe is the VP of Branding & Marketing for Grandex Inc and co-host of the Dudes Doing Business Podcast. He prides himself on his abundance of LinkedIn Powerpoint Endorsements.
@JoeNullet
@jpnullet
joenullet
I’m working out the finishing touches on my Farm to BBQ hunting ranch with a “You kill it, you eat it” policy, full bar, walk in humidor, poker room, and whatever else would attract Teddy Roosevelt types.
How do I invest?
Want to ask the same question. What’s the location?
The entire state of Nebraska. It’s very flat so your line of sight along the rail is almost infinite if you take the correalous effect into effect, plus it will be helping out a defeated state’s economy
How do I invest?
include a “No Will deFries” sign on the front door though and it would be perfect.
Take my money
sup?
Take me
I’m trying to get funding for my artisanal concept eatery called Third World Country where everybody has food and water on their tables when they walk in and then the staff takes it and locks the doors. The everyone begins to starve. Meanwhile, everything is videotaped and linked to local police stations in case anyone tries to do something crazy then the staff throw in little morsels amongst the chaotic crowd to hold people over and also start divisional/secular tribal wars that combat with each other over resources. It’s really hard to get funding right now…
I’d invest in that, you know, if I had the money to invest in things
This place would definitely be Girl’s favorite brunch spot to talk about Todd
Joe, you’re a goddamn genius and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.
“Old School Rap and Food That’s Crap” sounds like every Saturday night I decide to stay in
Lol’ed at “Homemade – nobody lives at this restaurant, but who cares”. Some solid ideas in here.
Not ashamed to admit my favorite brunch joint has all of these…
Worst thing I ever read in my life.