Opening restaurant

seemchef wrote:

Dear members,

I am thinking of opening a Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine restaurant, I am a former executive chef in one of the international luxury hotels & resorts  in Vietnam and I lost my job after Covid 19, I cannot find a job opportunity as most of the hotel sector jobs are confined to locals since the market is now a local market, but I am confused where  I open the restaurant between these cities, Ho Chi Minh City, Danang City, Vung Tau City,   Hoi An City, I am going to serve good dishes of with good quality, I will never be stingy with my customers to provide good dishes at a very reasonable price, I am not looking for a big profit,  It's just for life,
Any suggestions will be appreciated and respected,

Thank you everyone

Of those locations, I suggest Vũng Tàu.

Danang and Hoi An are really depressed right now due to lack of foreigners.

Ho Chi Minh City might work, but my personal sense (opinion without proof)  is that a small place in Vũng Tàu with an emphasis on delivery and takeout and street food options might gain you a foothold.

Good luck!

The biggest obstacle you'll face is not the location of the restaurant but the legal aspect of opening a restaurant as a foreigner. 

You have two options:

1- If your financial resource is not an issue, you can establish an enterprise with your own capital or as a joint venture; that enterprise will either be the restaurant itself or the parent of the restaurant and any other business you may want to open in the future.  If this is the method you wish to use, a lawyer would be the best source to handle the paperwork and the logistics. 

2- If you don't have the wherewithal for the first option, there's a much easier way to reach your goal: open a restaurant under the category of household business.  This is the simplest, easiest, least expensive, and most popular method to own a business in Vietnam.  The one impediment in your case will be to find a Vietnamese whom you can trust to be the legal owner because household business is for Vietnamese nationals only.

With either method, you can open a restaurant in any city where there's a demand for Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine. 

I'm not familiar with Danang's eating scene, but Hoi An would not be the best place because people come to Hoi An for the area's many specialties, none of which is Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine. 

In Vung Tau, you'll need to rely solely on the expat community for your clientele since the locals are not the adventurous sort.  This should be your second choice.

Your best bet would be Saigon for its large population and diversity, plus a huge group of young professionals who are willing to try everything new -- many of them vblog their experiences, which in turn will give you a market of ready made followers if you offer good food and good service at affordable price.

While I see Ciambella's point, I will agree with OceanBeach in that Vũng Tàu may be your best choice, You'll have to do some actual market research, of course, before making a final decision.

Although there are a number of nice restaurants in Vũng Tàu, they're all universally operated in a non-professional manner. As a result, in order to get a decent meal, it is necessary for diners to often allow themselves to be subjected to several of all sorts of indignities, such as:

rock-hard seating,
cheap dangerously sharp cutlery,
loud annoying music,
chain-smoking nicotine junkies,
wild bands of children,
wandering dogs,
oily food,
over-priced drinks,
horseplay among staff/staff on phones/sleeping staff,
leaky roofs,
missing items/ingredients,
repairs/renovations during operating hours (ex. painting the kitchen  ), etc.

These are the western-owned and operated upmarket restaurants. For the most part, they all manage to stay open year after year because there are so few places to choose from, so I think that Vũng Tàu could be a good place for a new restaurant offering something new. We already have Italian, Indian, Mexican/South American, Japanese, sort of Thai, French, etc.

johnross23 wrote:

While I see Ciambella's point, I will agree with OceanBeach in that Vũng Tàu may be your best choice, You'll have to do some actual market research, of course, before making a final decision.

Although there are a number of nice restaurants in Vũng Tàu, they're all universally operated in a non-professional manner. As a result, in order to get a decent meal, it is necessary for diners to often allow themselves to be subjected to several of all sorts of indignities, such as:

rock-hard seating,
cheap dangerously sharp cutlery,
loud annoying music,
chain-smoking nicotine junkies,
wild bands of children,
wandering dogs,
oily food,
over-priced drinks,
horseplay among staff/staff on phones/sleeping staff,
leaky roofs,
missing items/ingredients,
repairs/renovations during operating hours (ex. painting the kitchen  ), etc.

These are the western-owned and operated upmarket restaurants. For the most part, they all manage to stay open year after year because there are so few places to choose from, so I think that Vũng Tàu could be a good place for a new restaurant offering something new. We already have Italian, Indian, Mexican/South American, Japanese, sort of Thai, French, etc.

You forgot spitting on the floor, shouting at each other & drunk locals coming to your table un invited & demanding you knock a glass or half glass of beer over in a one'r or might be that doesn't happen in Vung Tau!

goodolboy wrote:

You forgot spitting on the floor, shouting at each other & drunk locals coming to your table un invited & demanding you knock a glass or half glass of beer over in a one'r or might be that doesn't happen in Vung Tau!

Well, those things certainly happen in Vũng Tàu in certain local places but I was talking about the foreign-owned restaurants with pretentions of being fine dining establishments with prices to match, the kind of place where you go to avoid the scene you describe.

Whereas in Sài Gòn, there's a a lot of competition, in a small city like VT, the choices are quite limited. For example, if you want some Indian food, you basically have 4 options, three of which aren't very good for various reasons so you go to the same one you've been to before many times in spite of whatever you dislike about the place.

For this reason  in my opinion, if the OP can open a halfway decent eatery with something no one else offers, it's got a good chance of success.

I am really very appreciative of your feedback on the the customers facing here in the restaurants Vung Tau, I will present Middle Eastern cuisine that focuses on taste and good materials, I do not say it is fine dining, but the dishes will be on a large amount of original materials, I am not looking  About the big profit, but I will offer the customers what satisfies them. I have eaten in different restaurants in Vung Tau, and I saw how the food does not match the name on the menu except for some really good restaurants where they are run by professionals.

I fully appreciate what you put forward, as for the restaurant, I will open a family business  so easier than company business for now, as for the place, Ho Chi Minh City, d1, d2, d7, these are the best places in Ho Chi Minh City to establish a restaurant, now d1 most of its restaurants have closed due to their dependence on tourists,  d2 Only Thao Dien can open a restaurant in it, but the prices are unreasonable, 48 square meters rent fee is  $3000 per month, these prices are not in Dubai even, I think that Vung Tau is possible to open a restaurant in it because there are no good restaurants in it except for two or three restaurants  Also, on the weekend and official holidays, Vung Tau becomes crowded and a huge number of locals visit Vung Tau,
in addition to the reasonable rental prices, this is what I found by talking with some friends and relatives around and also from some comments here and also  In some social media, i would like to thank you very much for your participation and for giving me some of your time to answer my inquiry.

seemchef wrote:

I am thinking of opening a Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine restaurant...

It also occurs to me that you might be able to make significant progress in introducing locals to Middle Eastern cuisine if you emphasize the significant vegetarian options in a special menu.

Many Vietnamese people are vegetarians, or like my partner, they follow vegetarian guidelines on certain days of the month.

Items such as eggplant Baba Ghanoush, falafel, couscous and hummus/tahini and grilled vegetables might appeal to those folks.

Also, if you make your own pita bread and it's REALLY delicious and fresh, I think that will be helpful.

Don’t forget the Dolmas and Tabbouleh.

dear ciambella.

possibly it has been covered elsewhere, but for my interest and information and possible future use, what are all the details about 'family business'?

and i would certainly agree with you that Vietnamese, almost w/o exception, are 'risk adverse' and pathologically unwilling to try new 'things' incl food. (and a whole lot of entrenched folklore ideas/habits that they continue to simply accept and never challenge.)

(it seems contradictory that in contrast that they seem keen to constantly open new - and risky - businesses eg do we really need a another budget ca phe?, and somehow fund the start-up costs)

so i understand your thoughts about HCMC, but it is such a huge market and so easy i would think to disappear w/o a trace. Vang Tau IMO offers a kinder easier and less expensive market with expats and the local weekenders from HCM who are prob more sophisticated that usual local residents. as per above, we can agree that local residents anywhere, except segments in HCM, will never go to such a restaurant/cusine.