How much do you think someone can make as a successful owner of a restaurant ?

That’s kind of like asking how much you can make as a doctor. It could be a LOT, it could be next to NOTHING. You have to give us way more details (area, type of food, etc) for us to even think about estimating.

It is such hard work!!! It takes a big investment (risk) and you have to live it. I think that the most successful restaraunteurs get into it for the love of the business more than the money. They can probably make a living, but only the lucky few, who can combine business savvy with artistic genius make it rich.

Your revenue will depend on things like location, cuisine, the skill of the chef, the decor of the restaurant, the clientele it attracts, the skill of the competition. Your costs will depend on the skill and dedication of your staff, and on your skill as an owner.

It is a mexican food restaurant, a sit down place – not high end but I guess medium range. I was just curious because I used to know someone who owned one.

im guessing the number is really high. just look at how much money McDonald makes and i do not mean as i chain i mean individual locations, ive seen some ridiculously big ones..

It usually takes a couple years to even see a profit. A lot goes into starting a restaurant, paying staff, food cost (if you don’t have a good chef, the food cost could be out of control aka over 30%) You need to dump a lot of money into a restaurant, to get it off it’s feet.
There could be a profit though. A decent profit if it’s an affordable busy place.

We used to own restrurants and made a good living. Like the others said, there are many variables.
We kept our food costs between 11 and 14 percent which is very frugal.
A lot of the money we made went right back into the business for expansion and growth.
However, if you fgure that as an owner, you work way over a forty hour week so if you are calculating your earnings by the hour it isn’t going to look very good.