Restaurant-ready resources for small business owners

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If you’re a small business owner—in this case, specifically an independent restaurant entrepreneur—you know that running a small business is no easy feat. The restaurant industry is competitive, and both getting started and continuing have their challenges. Fortunately, there are a number of resources for small businesses available to help you get a leg up in resources, information, networking, and more.

In addition to elbow grease, entrepreneurs can look to both government assistance programs and a wide variety of nonprofit small business associations designed to help restaurant owners. America has long been a center of entrepreneurship, and many would like to keep it that way. Pulling together to support each other is crucial to keeping both the economy and culture vibrant.

Let’s check out some of the most valuable free resources available to those running their own business. By the end, you’ll have some ideas on how to get the help you need.

Government small business resources

There’s some good news in the form of the government. Both the federal government and local governments offer a plethora of resources for small business owners, including restaurant owners. This can look like assistance with practical matters such as navigating regulations, funding opportunities, training resources, and more. Below are some of the more valuable government resources.

U.S. Small Business Administration

Becoming familiar with the Small Business Administration (SBA) is a must for entrepreneurs, and restaurateurs are no exception. The SBA provides a host of resources all the way from starting your business to managing and growing it, like:

• Help with writing your business plan, conducting market research, and calculating startup costs
• Registering your business, navigating regulations, and gathering permits
• Paying taxes, purchasing equipment, and staying compliant with regulations
• Accessing financial resources and the potential to gain extra support for businesses run by minorities or marginalized groups

An excellent example of the SBA’s offerings are two types of business loans: a 7(a) loan, which helps secure funding for necessary equipment (think kitchen appliances), or a 504 loan, which can be used for large purchases like land, a building, or expensive equipment. The SBA can also help match businesses with lenders for more specific funding requirements or access microfinancing for smaller loans from financial institutions (think furniture, working capital, or inventory, for example).

There’s also an opportunity to acquire government contracting via the SBA, though that’s not super common for small restaurants.

Chambers of Commerce

Your local chamber of commerce is another excellent resource to tap into for help in all aspects of business. The goal of a chamber of commerce is—you guessed it—to boost commerce. These exist in all varieties, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (the largest in the world) to hundreds of local chambers.

Joining helps put your business on the map and can lead to broad networking opportunities, ways to amplify your voice in your local community, and access to specific local guidance and mentorship.

Membership is usually based on fees, but this can be money very well spent. Find your local chamber of commerce and sign up to get your business registered. Many chambers go to bat in local government to help boost business opportunities for their members, so they can be a powerful ally in economic development.

Small Business Development Centers

Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) are spread nationwide, with some 1,000 local centers available as resources for small business owners.

As they note, they provide “no-cost business consulting and low-cost training to new and existing businesses.” These are partially funded by the SBA, so you’ll be getting much of the same help, but in person and locally. Business assistance from already-established players in the game can be invaluable and help build relationships.

Women’s Business Centers

The National Women’s Business Council (nwbc.gov) is a government organization designed to advance female entrepreneurs. As they note, “access to capital remains the largest barrier to market entry and success for female founders of women-owned firms.”

The NWBC helps women-led businesses access credit, federal procurements, and venture capital. It also hosts events like public meetings, webinars, a roundtable series, and more to help female entrepreneurs connect and grow their businesses.

The Association of Women’s Business Centers is a consortium of local women’s business centers that also helps female-led businesses. With regional offices throughout the country, these organizations assist entrepreneurs in building their brand, navigating regulations, and more.

Minority Business Development Agency

Minority-owned businesses and businesses in minority communities can benefit from the MBDA via membership. Access to funding, business development aid, compliance and regulation assistance, and more are all available from the MBDA as resources for small business owners. Check the list of local MBDA centers for specific information on offerings in your area.

National Federation of Independent Businesses

The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) is a non-partisan, non-profit business advocacy group. It provides a host of services, including policy advocacy, legal aid, webinars, a podcast, and much more. Membership benefits include access to legal experts, updates on important legal changes, a monthly small business trend newsletter, and guidance on remaining compliant within a changing legal landscape.

SCORE

SCORE is a nationwide organization of business mentors to help entrepreneurs through their journey. With 300 chapters nationwide, it’s a volunteer-based organization backed by the SBA that provides both in-person support as well as a host of webinars and other valuable information.

Social media resources

So you’ve got some access to funding, ways to tap into community development, great resources for development and networking, and more. Neat! That’s a good amount of resources for small business owners.

But you’ll also need to dive deep into social media and get the word out about your business to your local community the old-fashioned way… or perhaps new-fashioned way (however you like to think about it).

Claiming your spots on all major social media platforms, like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and more is a crucial step these days. Managing these platforms regularly with consistent posts and outreach to potential customers is just a part of the job now.

But there’s another, more restaurant-friendly platform that we’d like to bring your attention to: That’d be Yelp, which offers Yelp Business Pages. The audience is enormous: Yelp reaches 9x more consumers online than OpenTable.** Combine that with Yelp Guest Manager and you’ve got one heck of a package. Restaurants that start using Guest Manager experience up to 2X the traffic on their Yelp Business Page.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, reach out to us for a free demo. We know just how tricky running a small business can be, so we’re here to help. In fact, if you look around, there’s a whole world of help out there for entrepreneurs. Who’d have guessed?