It’s hard to come up with a truly unique restaurant these days. Just about every concept under the sun has been tried. Take sushi, for example. Sushi restaurants are a relatively new concept in many places in the U.S. outside of the East and West coasts. Still, there are nearly 4,000 sushi restaurants in the country. Fifty years ago, you would have been hard pressed to find a sushi restaurant outside of Japan. But there are now about 16,000 outside of the country. Just about any city of any size in a Western country has good sushi restaurants.
Another way to try to create a unique restaurant is to have a restaurant with entertainment. There aren’t many such restaurants in smaller cities. Many of these concepts combine games with food, but there are a number of other concepts to try. You can have music along with dining or show movies along with dinner. These are concepts that have worked in other places. If you choose to try something completely new to try to create a truly unique restaurant, be prepared for the fact that the concept may not catch on.
Because the restaurant business is so competitive, it’s a better idea to go with a tried-and-true concept, although you can aim for unique in your market. For example, many smaller cities do not have a seafood restaurant. Seafood is a $2 billion a year business in the U.S. and it is growing steadily at about 1.5% a year, which makes it a steady business if not a booming one. Fresh seafood restaurants are likely to be successful in places that don’t already have one, as long as there is a large enough market.
Trying to do a truly unique restaurant on your own is a lot of work and is going to have a higher rate of failure. It’s often better to buy into a franchised restaurant chain. Though you won’t have a unique concept, you will have one that has proven to be successful in other places, and you also will have the business and marketing support that comes with being a franchisee.