90 percent of restaurants don’t fail. Urban myth debunked.

I met a good friend of mine for dinner tonight and we got to talking about life goals and ambitions. It turns out that he is a fantastic cook and lots of people who have tried his food tell him he should open his own restaurant. We talked a little bit about the specifics. My friend wants to combine all of his interests and has a vision for a really fantastic restaurant. He was discouraged to do it because of the high failure rate of restaurants.

Well, this reminded me of an article I had read recently by Kerry Miller of BusinessWeek. “The Restaurant-Failure Myth“. The myth states that 9 out of every 10 restaurants fails in the first year. A study done by H.G. Parsa, an associate professor at Ohio State University has debunked this sticky myth. In reality, 1 in every 4 restuarants fails in the first year and over a three year period, 3 out of every 5 fails.

While this may seem high, this is in line with a “cross-industry average for new businesses”.

Don’t be discouraged by urban myths!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Social: digg / del.icio.us