People wanting to cash in on the current trend towards take-out convenience need this book, as well as From Kitchen To Market and How To Get Your Product Into Supermarkets.
The three books are invaluable for overlapping reasons. A prospective store operator needs to understand how to setup his or her store and, just as important, how their competition operates. Beginning store operators also need to understand their industry in detail not merely from the viewpoint of their competition and from their customers, but from their suppliers position.
Gourmet To Go does a great job from a narrow viewpoint. Probably the only topic not suffriciently explored is the hands'-on advice. Perhaps the next edition will detail the possibilities for including rollergrills, microwaves and how to earn what the industry refers to as "Plus-sales." I'm speaking of the technique in all fast food chains and convenience stores to get customers to spend more money.
Other hands-on topics that should be discussed are controlling theft and the experience of many store operators who have lost significant chunks of money in providing lottery tickets. I know of a feww whose losses exceeded $10,000. Adding insult to injury, lottery only reimburses stores from one to three percent of gross sales and pay-outs for winning tickets. Despite such a poor return on investment, many stores consider it mandatory to provide lottery.
Further, computerizing the store could be considered, as well as installing UPC readers. It is not uncommon to see even the smallest store using such equipment. Yet, those installing such systems all seem to have to reinvent the wheel.
Again, buy this book but augment it with From Kitchen To Market and with How To Get Your Product Into Supermarkets so you can keep up with and, perhaps, improve upon your competition and keep customers, suppliers and yourself happy!
It is full of relevant and cogent thoughts for anyone interested in this market niche. What I found very well done is the sections of writing the biz plan and the steps therein critical to putting together and then implementing such.
Also included are fairly thorough lists of resources such as consultants, trade journals, suppliers, etc.
What could possibly have been additionaly useful was stress on two key areas: concentration on obstacles and their probability of happening (i.e. scenario plotting) and finding and use of two key players from the outset: attorney and accountant/tax specialist.