A restaurant feasibility study answers three questions before you sign a lease: how much you need to open, how many orders a day cover your costs, and when you get your money back. Answer four questions on the Feasibility study tab and the study is written for you, ready to edit, while the Financial projections tab works out profit month by month for two years. The ready-made examples include a café version and a food truck version.
In the restaurant example: SAR 700,000.00 invested, a SAR 62.00 average ticket, 150 orders a day at full capacity and SAR 120,000.00 in fixed costs a month. Break-even is 97 orders a day and payback comes in month 22. All figures are examples.
How to write a restaurant feasibility study with this template
- Choose the business type (restaurant, café or food truck) and type its name.
- Enter startup costs from real quotes: fit-out, equipment, furniture, POS systems, licenses and opening stock.
- Enter the average ticket from your menu prices before VAT, and the orders you expect per day at full capacity.
- Enter your monthly fixed costs, review the study, then download it as a PDF for a partner or lender, or in Word to edit the wording.
What a restaurant or coffee shop feasibility study is
A feasibility study is a written estimate of what a restaurant or café will cost to open, what it will earn and what it will spend, prepared before opening or before asking a lender or partner for money. It answers two questions: does the business make a profit at its expected capacity, and how many months until the investment comes back? If the numbers fail on paper, changing the site or the size of the project is far cheaper before the rent is paid.
Sections of a restaurant feasibility study
A full study has three parts: market (who your customers are, who competes in the district, what a customer spends), technical (site, floor area, equipment, staff) and financial, which turns the first two into numbers. The template writes the financial part plus a summary of the concept and site; your market findings go in as an average ticket and daily orders.
| Section | What it contains |
|---|---|
| Startup costs | Everything paid before the first order, item by item in advanced mode. |
| Expected revenue | Orders × average ticket × trading days, with capacity starting at 45% and reaching 90%. |
| Operating costs | Fixed (salaries, rent, utilities, marketing) and variable (ingredients and packaging as a share of sales). |
| Break-even point | Fixed costs ÷ (average ticket × (1 − food cost %) × trading days). |
| Payback period | The first month in which the cumulative balance, after deducting the investment, turns positive. |
Coffee shop and food truck feasibility studies
The formula is the same; the assumptions change. A café has a smaller ticket and more orders, its core equipment is the espresso machine and grinders, and its food cost share is lower than a restaurant's. A food truck needs less capital, but its sales swing with the spot, the weather and events, it trades fewer days, and site fees and fuel join its fixed costs. Pick the Café or Food truck example to see how the result moves, then replace its figures with yours: the examples show the method, not market averages.
Break-even, payback and scenarios
The break-even point is the number of orders a day that covers monthly costs with no profit. In the example each order leaves 62.00 × (1 − 33%) = SAR 41.54 after ingredients, and 120,000.00 ÷ (41.54 × 30) = 96.3, rounded up to 97 orders. The payback period is the number of months until the investment comes back: first-year profit is SAR 248,601.00 because trading starts slowly, so the balance crosses zero in month 22.
Test the worst case before you commit: enter 120 orders instead of 150 and the investment is not recovered within 24 months, with the cumulative balance in the last month still SAR 619,028.80 below zero. If the project cannot survive a fifth fewer orders, revisit the rent or the fit-out budget before signing.
Common mistakes in restaurant feasibility studies
- Assuming full capacity from the first month.
- Forgetting working capital: salaries for the first months before sales cover them.
- Calculating revenue from VAT-inclusive prices; menu prices shown to customers in Saudi Arabia include VAT.
- Estimating daily orders without watching a nearby competitor at peak hours.
Regulatory notes
The study contains no official fees as numbers. Municipal license fees in Saudi Arabia, safety certificates, health requirements for staff and food truck permits vary by city, activity and floor area; get them from the municipality and the relevant authorities and add them to startup costs. Figures are before zakat, VAT, financing and depreciation.
When you move from the study to opening day
At Microtec we build a POS system for restaurants and cafés, which is the cost you enter under "POS systems and software" in your study.
Feasibility study questions
Can I download the restaurant feasibility study as a PDF?
Yes. After the four questions, press Download PDF to get the study with your figures. The financial projections download as an Excel file with formulas that recalculate when you change any number. Choose the Café example first to get a coffee shop feasibility study with its figures.
How many orders a day does a restaurant need to cover its costs?
Divide monthly fixed costs by what one order leaves after ingredients, multiplied by trading days. In the example 120,000 ÷ (41.54 × 30) = 97 orders after rounding up.
Are the figures ready to use?
No. They are examples so the calculations work. Rent, salaries and license fees differ between cities and districts in the Kingdom, so replace them with real quotes before showing the study to anyone.
Will a lender accept this feasibility study?
Each lender has its own format and conditions, and some ask for a study prepared by a firm on their approved list. Ask about their requirements first, and use this study to test the idea and prepare your numbers before the meeting.
What comes after the feasibility study?
If the project survives the worst-case scenario, collect final quotes, get your licenses from the municipality, then set your menu prices and the cost of each dish before you sign the lease.