Follow your passion..but is it enough?

“You should follow your passion.”  This is something that is regurgitated over and over through the various entrepreneurial articles that I’ve read.   To follow your passion takes courage but the restaurant business is a tough one.  I’ve had many conversations with restauranteurs about passion versus profit.  Bottom line, you can have all the passion in the world but not make a dime.  Passion, however, allows you to persevere through the toughest of times (and there will be some pretty tough times) to reach the end goal…a successful restaurant business.

Why you need passion

Your passion will be what makes you jump out of bed in the morning. Passion will help keep you going when everything around you appears to be falling apart. Passion will make you want to give 150 percent of yourself, rather than giving it all up for a steady paycheck. That fire inside you is necessary to keep you going even if everyone else around you is telling you to stop….but it will take more.

It takes more to make it in this business

There is one common takeaway from every successful restaurant owner that I’ve met…it takes more than passion to make it in this business.  No matter what type of restaurant it is, a business is not a business until there are customers willing to pay you.  Can you start a business and get it to a level of sustainability before you run out of money? Making a profit takes a business plan that works.  So do you need passion? Yes, absolutely. Do you need more than passion?  Yes, absolutely.