Few hours ago I came up with an idea. And I still can't decide if it's shit or good. I've thought it out a bit and think that the product would be useful for people, but I don't understand why I haven't seen such businesses yet. If you have, please tell me how this is called.
Let's say we have a densely populated not-so-rich part of the city with a lot of apartment houses. People in them spend time preparing their meals at their kitchens(if they have any). Their manufacturing of meals is far from optimal. Some(like me) can't even cook tasty complex food. They spend time cleaning their kitchen afterwards and most of them don't buy raw products in bulk.
Here's the idea: take commercial space there, build an effective kitchen and sell nice warm meals for take-out cheaply. Like, so cheap it will cost more to cook them at home(this might be achieved by heavy use of machines and skilled cooks and buying food in bulk). Add some subscription service, so you can order food to be prepared beforehand, so you can pick up meals for the whole family on your way back home from work. Menu is planned by the cooks and you can select from few meals every day. Just like in an airplane, but right behind the corner.
I live in eastern Europe, if this helps our future conversation.
McDonalds is an restaurant. And it's not cheap to eat there. I can get more than 4 pounds of potatoes for the price of big fries at McDonalds. People sometimes go out and eat there. I was thinking about business without eating room.
Well, yes, maybe like McDonalds, but with simple healthy cheap food.
Daniel Brown
there is a market for gymrats, though most like to prep their meals on their own. But having balanced with certain % of protein and fat will certainly sell
Henry Powell
I thought about some kind of leftover exchange marketplace, since so much food gets thrown out. What if you could trade your leftover spaghetti for miss smiths meatloaf. And there would be ratings and reviews and stuff so you could keep track of who's is good. We need to solve the food waste problem
Leo Gonzalez
Get out.
Jace Baker
There's a bunch of different companies that do this in the U.S., mostly in bigger hipper cities, NYC, Atlanta, San Francisco for example. There's demand for it. Lots of overhead in delivery though, probably the biggest point of friction is actually getting the food to the customer.
Noah Bennett
Already tried-and-true.
Levi White
This is why I mentioned heavily populated areas. So you can place distribution point in less than 1 minute walk from them and still have many customers. Like this wine shop on the first floor on the picture. Individual delivery would be pointless, as I want meals to be cheaper than cooking it yourself.
Jackson Turner
What is true?
Charles Collins
I had this idea for years, you could do this close to a gym,or close a partnership with a gym or something. Definitly a one million dollar idea.
Question is tho, do you have the capital to do this?
Ryan Hall
> I've thought it out a bit and think that the product would be useful for people
Josiah Fisher
Still a bunch of overhead then in having a store front and basically running it like a retail space then. Maybe get some custom made vending machines made that customers can retrieve their food/boxes from, would eliminate the need for all that and act as a way of passively marketing the service.
Camden Scott
You need hipsters and yuppie types in your area in order to make it work. Unless you are thinking of making soup kitchen tier food/slop and selling it super cheap to a bunch of low income residents in the area.
I think it all depends on the type of clientele you have in your target hood. This business idea is very much like a non mobile Food Cart.
Also are you a good cook? Making a few good soups and keeping a simple menu seems like it might be workable.
Cooper Ward
I don't know how much money I need, but I've made some substantial money on SiaCoin this year, been holding since february 2017. I think I have enough to open small business here. To give you a grip on real estate prices, I can buy 2-3 room apartment in the center of the capital city, where I live. And monthly wage is 300$ here.(for cooks, I checked).
Wyatt King
Yes, you can get a bag of potatoes for cheap, but you have to pay for taxes, rent, equipment, equipment maintenance, waste, plus you need to pay yourself. McDonalds and other fast food places are models of finding the most out of efficiency and their margins still aren't that high
Landon Foster
>I live in eastern Europe
That explains a lot. We tried this in America, it didn't work very well post-McDonalds.
Nathaniel Ramirez
I'm not a good cook. I was thinking about hiring someone. Wending machines will be vandalized in a month if placed outdoors. Might be a good thing if placed inside gyms indeed.
Will I get any useful insight into the industry if I work as some cook-assistant for some time or is it just a waste of time?
Daniel Thomas
When I lived in Thailand the apartment I lived in had something like this just outside. It was just a takeaway restaurant but they mostly just catered to the apartment residents.
Good food, cheap and you could order stuff. When I was working I'd phone them just as I was leaving work and collected as I arrived at the apartment building.
Thai food culture is great. Almost nobody cooks for themselves. Because restaurants and street food stands are so cheap the only people who cook are doing it as their profession. When I lived there I cooked eggs once a week, but that was about it.
Lincoln Howard
>If you have, please tell me how this is called. A cheap restaurant.
Bentley Jones
Vending machine on the pic doesn't even look clean. No wonder it failed.
Tyler Lopez
>wage is 300$
As West-European student I love this being the reason for cheap vacations
Jaxson Brooks
And for me western Europe is so overpriced, with each euro spent I was thinking how much I could buy with them back home. Nice passenger trains though.
Leo Wood
this literally exists and is called restaurant also you might wanna look into diners, tons of those also in eastern europe
food is not a good business and you shouldn't get into it unless you are really passionate about food or cooking, there are so many regulations and norms to follow is crazy and the market is so oversaturated that it's hard to ins good place/niche to settle in, even in touristic places
Jace Murphy
Why would you precook rice? That shit gets so much bacteria after an hour of cooking.
Jason Wright
They're not vending machines. A commercial-grade kitchen would be behind the Automat's dispensing wall, reloading the slots as soon as patrons would put in their nickel and retrieve the food inside. The idea was to have ultra-cheap restaurant-quality food without waiters, tips, or cashiers. They all failed after inflation made it impossible to actually buy anything with coins and cheaper fast food with drive-thrus became standard. Many got turned into burger kings.
Nolan Edwards
I've heard so many times that food is bad business. And I trust this. What is a good business then?
Christian Cooper
...
Elijah Gomez
Every Asian takeaway precooks rice in bulk. It would be madness to wait 20 minutes to cook fresh rice for every order.
Noah Nelson
watch 'The Founder', they pivoted to land purchasing.
