There are tons of costs involved in opening or reopening a restaurant in California, and probably a ton more since i left 7 years ago. On top of rent or mortgage payments you have staff, workers comp insurance, building insurance, 3rd party insurance. Health inspectors costs, to get you a bull shit
A rating ( used to be $500 a year but probably way more now?)
Grease traps. Electrical costs which are huge and ran me an average of $1200 a month per store. Each line cook or chef
(in fact anyone that handles food) has to have a food handling license. You pay for that.
And the real fucker is an ABC license. For just one of my restaurants in Mission Beach ( probably has more ABC licenses per square mile than any other area in Cali) where i wanted to sell 500 different beers, took a petition to 2500 local residents hand delivered and 3 years of written requests, even a personal request to Arnold Schwarzenegger, which finally paid off. This cost to me $40,000 in total. A hard liquor licenses used to change hands for anywhere up to $150,000 with no guarantee the ABC would allow the transfer.
Its a great dream owning a restaurant burger joint or bar, but remember 60 percent close or change ownership in the first year of business. 80% fail within the first 5 years.
I wish you amazing luck
