Horeca: expectations & reality

Restaurant owner, a dream job?
I think we need to make our dreams come true. You don’t want to come to the end of your career and think: “Had I known… I would have done this or that instead.” I think the advice here is to study the project you have in mind from all angles. Because a restaurant is not just chatting with customers, serving wine and concocting recipes. You need to fill your restaurant, have the staff to run it, it also means working when others are out having fun, not making weekend or evening plans… There’s a pile of constraints. I’d say it’s one of the most restrictive and tiresome jobs out there even from a psychological standpoint. So you need to consider it carefully, because… a lot of people would like to buy a restaurant, they think it’s their dream. But if you won’t be invested enough, I don’t think it’s realistic.

A typical day
My typical day is a lot of administration, office work. There are two aspects I haven’t entirely delegated, which are the work around salary statements and fiduciary relations for the social secretariat, and all that’s accounting, payments, etc. which I do myself. I spend several hours per day on it. Beyond that, I have lots of meetings, interactions with my team because I do delegate a lot. But you’re always in touch with them to answer their question, give them guidelines and supervise too. That’s my typical day. I try to take a break at home between 6 and 7pm, then I spend the evening in one of my restaurants, but more for customer relations, chatting with people I know. I try to get to bed before midnight, or midnight at the latest. But it’s hard.