Restaurant Financial Model: All-You-Can-Eat Buffet Restaurant

The restaurant starts with $22 adult and $11 child admission, including dessert and soft drinks. Complimentary visits generate no revenue but occupy seats and consume food. Adults request 0.50 kg first portions plus 0.30 kg repeats; children use 0.30 plus 0.15 kg. Free guests consume 0.25 kg. These are selected food-equivalent quantities, not measured customer appetites.

All classes share seat-minutes, kitchen output and buffet replenishment. Adult visits use 65 seat/reset minutes; children and complimentary visits use 55. Prepared-food demand accounts for holding loss before applying the installed and paid-labor limits. One proportional fulfillment fraction allocates visits across the three groups.

• Nine-hour service runs Tuesday–Sunday; Monday is closed.
• March demand begins at 60% and reaches 100% in the sixth active month.
• Whole-visit rounding can leave capacity unused; there is no peak-queue or individual-serving simulation.

The initial $6/raw-equivalent kg basket allocates $3.40 to protein, $1.60 to grains/vegetables and $1 to dessert/drink ingredients. Preparation yield of 90% and holding/plate loss of 10% apply at different stages. Raw withdrawal equals consumption plus those two losses. Plate leftovers are already included in the holding/plate allowance.

Paid staffing starts at 12.5 FTE and grows to 14.7. Three production cooks and two replenishment FTE initially supply distinct resource budgets; dining attendants, cashier/host and dishwashing are paid separately. Owner pay begins in January at $74,880 annually. The 10.65% employer load and $1,800 monthly welfare pool both enter costs.

• All visits use $0.20 starting consumables; free guests do not create a payment transaction.
• Card processing assumes 2.4 paid visits per party, 90% card share and a gross-tender cost multiplier.
• Initial rent/CAM is $8,000/month and utilities $3,840/month; both are planning allowances.

Initial CAPEX is $553,300, including $50,300 spent contingency on $503,000 base capital. The selected reused-shell fitout is $256,000. Cooking, hot/cold holding, refrigeration, ventilation, warewashing, tableware and the admission counter are separate assets. Replacement investment is $20,000 in January 2030. The installed budgets require supplier and premises validation.

January financing totals $801,000: $551,000 equity plus $250,000 conventional debt. The assumed loan is 10% fixed over 84 monthly annuity payments, without grace; the $7,500 fee is expensed. A −$440,191 cash trough without equity already includes debt service, capital, startup losses and working capital. Equity covers it plus a $110,000 reserve, rounded up to $1,000.

• The reserve remains a cash balance; the spent capital contingency is a separate item.
• The physical stock supplement targets seven calendar days of raw withdrawal.
• Financial inventory retains the existing allocated-food-cost method, so physical and financial stock can differ slightly.

Base 2027 revenue is $1,256,200 from 68,056 total visits, including 4,612 complimentary guests. EBITDA is $79,228, but net income is −$18,928 after depreciation and interest. Positive EBITDA therefore does not establish an accounting profit in the launch year.

Monthly EBITDA and operating cash become sustainably nonnegative in May 2027; EBIT follows in June. Project payback is May 2029, month 29, using cumulative undiscounted unlevered free cash flow from January 2027. The 60-month EBITDA total is $2,453,026, dependent on the selected attendance growth and staffing efficiency.

• Minimum funded Base cash is $110,809 in May 2027.
• Low monetary stress produces $46,607 minimum cash with funding unchanged.
• Project recovery excludes financing and terminal proceeds; no shareholder distributions are scheduled.