Often people who start a restaurant are creative people who are excellent at visualizing their ideas and sadly lacking in skills that help them realize the practical details, forgetting that without expertise in the practical details, their ideas will never get past their home kitchens. Opening a Restaurant is a detailed plan on how to organize your restaurant ideas into something that will a) help you sell your ideas to loan officers and other investors, and b) clarify your vision to help you avoid the pitfalls that drag down most new restaurants within their first year of opening. By DeAnna Knippling

I absolutely loved this book. Not only did author Sharon Fullen tell readers exactly what they will need to do to write a business plan, she went out of her way to provide excellent examples, detailed descriptions, amble resources for finding additional and more specific information and much more. I don't think I've read such a complete book before on writing a business plan. The author describes what key things must go in a business plan, how to write the plan yourself or hire someone to do it, doing market research, and cash analysis. I loved her attention to detail. Any question I came up with was answered within the 284-paged book.

The Encyclopedia of Restaurant Forms: A Complete Kit of Ready-to-use Checklists, Worksheets, And Training AIDS for a Successful Food Service Operation (Hardcover w/CD - ROM)

by Douglas Robert Brown

If you're in the process of starting a new restaurant or are managing an existing food service operation, this is the one book you need to do it right. Always wanted a personal assistant at your disposal? Now you will have one, in book form! Designed to save the food service manager both time and money, you won't know how you got along before with out it.

Groupon: You Can't Afford It--Why Deep Discounts are Bad for Small Business and What to do About It

It seems easy. List your business on a discount giant like Groupon and your sales go through the roof. Not even close says Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor. List your deal on a site like Groupon and risk losing not just money, but your business.

The explosive growth of deal-a-day giants like Groupon has led some small businesses to think that Groupon and its clones are the way to bring in customers. Sure sites like Groupon can sometimes deliver thousands of customers and a sudden influx of business, but rarely do they deliver future sales or repeat customers.
 

Using case studies and months of research, Bob Phibbs, The Retail Doctor®, takes an in-depth look at what makes up one of these deals, what the risks are to business owners and how you can revitalize your business after a Groupon disaster.