Attorney or other legal professional skilled in the ins and outs of the restaurant business - this professional can help you with such things as obtaining all of the necessary permits and certificates (like a liquor license) you might need to operate in your locality.
In addition, this person would be responsible for reviewing any rental leases or agreements before you put your signature to paper, or real estate transactions if you are buying a property, outright. Other areas where this professional would be helpful would include helping to draft a business plan, drawing up a will or representing you or finding appropriate legal counsel in matters pertaining to liability.
Accountant - this professional, almost as important as legal counsel, would help you in the important area of managing your finances. Services here would include preparing yearly income statements, quarterly or other periodic sales tax statements for any municipal/governmental sales taxes due that are collected as a course of doing business, keeping track of payroll, including any withholding expenses due to the government and paying out any regular bills like utilities or other services like garbage collection or lawn care and snow removal.
While you may have sufficient skill to run your books after the system you choose to operate has been set up, it is always good to have a skilled professional who can help in the areas where governmental tax/withholding issues are concerned. The accountant would be more likely to be aware of the specifics of these issues, and in conjunction with your legal professional, would be instrumental in setting up the necessary escrow accounts that these debts are likely to be paid from on a regular, set basis.
A qualified accounting professional could also help in figuring out what kinds of bonds might be necessary to obtain such things as workers' compensation coverage and could help set up an accounting system that you could use so that his/her supervision would be needed only on an annual or semi-annual basis at tax time.
Mentor or other skilled counselor who can assist in running a restaurant - while this particular individual could be hired and put on a consulting retainer for the first two years, luckily one can be gotten at little or no cost to the entrepreneur through governmental channels like a local chamber of commerce. (In the US, this program is available through the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) at the Small Business Administration, and similar programs may exist in Canada and the UK through the Canada Small Business Financing Act and the Ministry of Finance.)
The mentor can help to develop a working business plan necessary to obtain funding, oversee the daily issues facing the restaurant owner like finding suppliers, hiring and firing of staff, and navigating the mazes of local licenses and certificates necessary to be in business in any given location. The counselor might also be aware of any programs that can help with funding or provide incentives to those starting up a new business.
Even if you cannot afford to hire their services regularly, it's important that you have the names of those professionals that you can trust to consult when you really need help.
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Tags: business, small business, restaurant management, restaurant business planning