BBQ Business Plan Template

BBQ Business Plan

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 3,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their barbecue businesses. On this page, we will first give you some background information with regards to the importance of business planning. We will then go through a barbecue business plan template step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

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What Is a BBQ Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your barbecue business as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategy for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan for Your BBQ Business

If you’re looking to start a barbecue business, or grow your existing barbecue business, you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your barbecue business in order to improve your chances of success. Your BBQ business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

Sources of Funding for BBQ Businesses

With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for a BBQ business are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans and angel investors. With regards to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable, but they will also want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business.

Personal savings is the other most common form of funding for a barbecue business. Venture capitalists will usually not fund a barbecue business. They might consider funding a barbecue business with a national presence, but never an individual location. This is because most venture capitalists are looking for millions of dollars in return when they make an investment, and an individual location could never achieve such results.  With that said, personal savings and bank loans are the most common funding paths for BBQ businesses.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

If you’d like to quickly and easily complete your business plan, download Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template and complete your plan and financial model in hours.

How to Write a Business Plan for a BBQ Restaurant

If you want to start a BBQ business or expand your current one, you need a business plan. Below are links to each section of your barbecue business plan template:

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of BBQ business you are operating and the status. For example, are you a startup, do you have a barbecue business that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of barbecue businesses?

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the barbecue industry. Discuss the type of barbecue business you are operating. Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers. Provide a snapshot of your marketing plan. Identify the key members of your team. And offer an overview of your financial plan.
 

Company Analysis

In your company analysis, you will detail the type of barbecue business you are operating.

For example, you might operate one of the following types of barbecue businesses:

1. BBQ Catering – this type of barbecue business provides individual event-based food services. They specialize in preparing barbecue off-site, and transporting it to events, where they may either serve the food, or simply deliver it.
2. BBQ Food Truck – this type of BBQ business prepares and serves barbecue from a mobile food truck, and may or may not use the same location every day.
3. BBQ Restaurant – this type of business includes chain and franchised restaurants that mainly serve barbecue food. Restaurants may provide this food service in combination with selling alcoholic and other beverages.
4. Korean BBQ – a Korean BBQ business that specializes in preparing beef, pork, and chicken in the method of Korean cuisine.

In addition to explaining the type of barbecue business you will operate, the Company Analysis section of your business plan needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to question such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include the number of customers served, number of positive reviews, amount of monthly revenue, etc.
• Your legal structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

Industry Analysis

In your industry analysis, you need to provide an overview of the barbecue industry.

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the barbecue industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your strategy, particularly if your research identifies market trends.

The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your barbecue business plan:

• How big is the barbecue industry (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential market for your barbecue business? You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.

 

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section of your barbecue business plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: households earning up to $70,000 per year, and households earning more than $70,000 per year.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of barbecue business you operate. Clearly, families on a budget would respond to different marketing promotions than individuals looking for a fine dining experience, for example.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, including a discussion of the ages, genders, locations, and income levels of the customers you seek to serve. Because most barbecue businesses primarily serve customers living in the same city or town, such demographic information is easy to find on government websites.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.

Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other barbecue businesses.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from that aren’t direct competitors. This includes other restaurants that don’t serve barbecue, as well as those that serve barbecue as part of a larger menu. You need to mention such competition as well.

With regards to direct competition, you want to describe the other barbecue businesses with which you compete. Most likely, your direct competitors will be house flippers located very close to your location.

For each such competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:

• What types of customers do they serve?
• What types of dining options do they offer (sit-down, take-out, catering)?
• What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. And don’t be afraid to ask your competitors’ customers what they like most and least about them.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

• Will you provide larger portions, or a wider selection of sauces?
• Will you provide menu items that your competitors don’t offer?
• Will you provide better customer service?
• Will you offer better pricing?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.
 

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a barbecue business plan, your marketing plan should include the following:

Product: In the product section, you should reiterate the type of barbecue company that you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific products you will be offering. For example, in addition to barbecue, will you provide other smoked or roasted meats or retail a special bottled sauce?

Price: Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your marketing plan, you are presenting the services you offer and their prices.

Place: Place refers to the location of your barbecue company. Document your location and mention how the location will impact your success. For example, is your barbecue business located in a busy retail district, shopping plaza, mall, etc. Discuss how your location might be the ideal location for your customers.

Promotions: The final part of your barbecue marketing plan is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

• Advertising in local papers and magazines
• Reaching out to local websites
• Flyers
• Social media marketing
• Local radio advertising

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

If you’d like to quickly and easily complete your business plan, download Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template and complete your plan and financial model in hours.

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your barbecue business, including sourcing meat and produce, cooking, providing counter service / table service, keeping the kitchen and restaurant clean, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to serve your 1,000^th customer, or when you hope to reach $X in revenue. It could also be when you expect to expand your barbecue business to a new city.
 

Management Team

To demonstrate your barbecue business’ ability to succeed, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally, you and/or your team members have direct experience in managing barbecue businesses. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act as mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in the restaurant business or successfully running small businesses.
 

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements.

Income Statement: an income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you serve 50 customers per day, or 100? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets: Balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. While balance sheets can include much information, try to simplify them to the key items you need to know about. For instance, if you spend $50,000 on building out your barbecue business, this will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $50,000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement: Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and make sure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt.

In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a barbecue business:

• Location build-out including design fees, construction, etc.
• Cost of equipment and supplies
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff
• Business insurance
• Taxes and permits
• Legal expenses

 

Appendix

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your restaurant location lease or a menu mock-up.
 

Summary

Putting together a business plan for your barbecue business is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert and be well-prepared to craft a business plan for your bbq business or a bbq food truck business plan; download it to PDF to show banks and investors. You will really understand the barbecue industry, your competition, and your customers. You will have developed a marketing plan and will really understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful barbecue business.

 

OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You

Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.
 

Click here to see how Growthink’s professional business plan consulting services can create your business plan for you.

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