Talk to any established or successful restaurateur today about setting up a restaurant and they’ll tell you how location is the most important aspect. A restaurant’s success or failure could be well determined by where it’s located. Seldom do people go across town to visit a restaurant that they’ve read rave reviews about. People don’t have the time or patience to commute long distances for a meal. It’s all about convenience these days. And it sure is something to factor in while scouting for a restaurant location.

Let’s say you’ve settled for a spot at one of the best restaurant hubs in town. There’s more to it from here. Is there a good parking facility? Are there too many restaurants? Is there too much competition for you to survive? There are so many questions to be answered and many more factors to be considered.

What are you serving?

Let’s take a step back. First ask yourself why are you opening a restaurant. If you’re passionate about it, you’ll already have answers to most questions, like this one. If you’re thinking of picking the location before deciding on what you want to serve, it’s a gamble that could go either way. But looking at it purely from a business standpoint where you’ve figured out the rest of the details, maybe this gamble would work. If you aren’t, stick to what you know best. For instance, if you want to serve burgers, you should know what kind of burgers you want on your menu – gourmet or fast food. This will streamline the process of other factors like decor, staff, vendors and even location. A gourmet burger restaurant clearly isn’t a suited to do well in an area filled with schools and colleges. What you then need to scout for is a slightly more up market, yet not highly premium.

Who is your demographic?

Corporates, college students, local residents – you need to know who are you targeting. Are these the kind of people that frequent the location you have in mind? Or is the mix of all these people and your location more trendy and hip? If you want to open a trendy bar or restaurant, a residential area is not apt. You need a location with floating crowd with high spending capacity. Take the time out to drive around in the city and learn about the different areas and the demographic there. Arun Prashant of Tovo Infusions, Chennai, believes it’s important to spend time in various locations.

“Spending nature of people varies with location as well. For some, money isn’t an issue but cuisine is. Spending time in a location will give you an idea of the kind of people there and the kind of food that will work well.”

Do you have the budget?

If the high rents in plush areas make you cringe, a good option is to scout the area to find a spot off the main location. For instance, 100 feet road in Indiranagar (Bangalore) is one of the most sought after locations for restaurants. But also one of the most expensive ones. The best bet here is to scout the lanes off the main road that might work out better financially for you. Besides, finding a place a little away from the hustle and bustle of the main road will sure work in your favour. It’s going to convenient for your customers to park and even keep things quieter, unless yours is a bar.

Do you know your competition?

Let’s say you’ve narrowed down the ideal location for your restaurant. Have you checked out the other restaurants in the vicinity? It’s not a bad thing if there’s some competition for your restaurant. It means more footfall. People are going to go a particular area in the city where they have a set of restaurants to choose from. After that, it’s your job to draw people in and get them to stay. But check out your competition, their USP, price points, service and anything else that you need to know that might give you an edge over them or help you compete with them.

If you’re clever (not to mention really lucky) to pull off the first mover’s advantage, you set the tone for the other restaurants that open in the area. Like how when Adda by Striker opened in Sector 29, there weren’t any others in the vicinity. Slowly others came along and today it’s one of the most sought after locations in Gurgaon for restaurants. One of the partners, Subodh, believes that you need to understand the pulse of the city and location to take a judgement call of opening a restaurant there.

“If you open a fine dining restaurant in a mall, how is it supposed to do well?”

Lastly, if your product isn’t up to the mark, location won’t fix it for you. Get your food right and customers will walk in—wherever you are.