Why a Pre-Opening Walk-Through Is Essential for Every New Business

While there’s much to be said about the pre-meal or pre-shift meeting — arguably the most important 30 minutes of any restaurant’s service — equally as much could be said of the pre-opening walk-through. For any first-time operator or multi-unit operator opening a new spot, the initial walk-through of a space, from the parking lot to the kitchen, can be just as critical to a business’s success as its food or service. 

Full Book spoke to Christopher Melly, director of operations for The Henry at Fox Restaurant Concepts, about why this step is so essential when opening a new business and how it can benefit any bar or restaurant if done the right way.

(As told to Joanna Sciarrino.)

Fox Restaurant Concepts has nearly 90 restaurants nationwide, but we've opened around 200, so we have openings down to a science. But openings are hard, and if you have a space that doesn't look right or doesn't feel right, it can be so much harder. For many independent operators, the timeline up to opening your doors can be stressful and doesn’t usually leave time for thorough evaluation. Which is why a pre-opening walk-through is often overlooked. But it shouldn’t be. 

The best way to evaluate a new build or a renovation when you're about to open your business, is an initial walk-through. This is your opportunity to check and experience every detail of your space that most people don’t see or wouldn’t notice, before it’s open to the public. This includes things like building facades, bar top seams, table bases, light bulbs, and even stickers on new furniture — all of which might seem trivial, but can make all the difference in how efficiently your business operates and how positively it’s received. 

Here are the most important things to focus on in the pre-opening phase. 

Do a ‘Punch Walk’

Five weeks or so before opening date, we do a “punch walk.” This is an initial construction walk-through, in which you figure out what wasn't finished in construction, what still needs to be done, and what needs to be added. Once you get through your punch walk, you essentially have an actionable list to get through ahead of opening. Usually these are things that weren’t installed correctly: a panel on a ceiling that’s not fitting flush to the grates; a mullion that doesn’t line up perfectly with the glass creating a gap where you’ll lose air conditioning. (If you do this with multiple people, different people will notice different things.) But some might be things you never planned for. We just did a punch walk at our new restaurant in Arcadia and we noticed that the building doesn’t light up enough at night, so we need to add more landscape lighting. We also need to add benches by the front door because there's nowhere to sit, and there's a really big open area where we’re going to add four café tables for additional seating. Once you have that list, the team knows that they have those five weeks, from the punch walk to opening day, to accomplish everything. 

When you're designing a space, that's often years before you actually get to walk in it and you can't really envision exactly what it's going to look like until you physically get into the space. A punch walk can help lock in some of those minor but extremely important details, like additional shelving, adequate storage, appropriate furniture choices, and more. 

Check the Lighting

With every opening we do a full lighting evaluation throughout one day. We set our lighting levels from 10 a.m. all the way through 10 p.m. to make sure that every light is tweaked to the right level, so that we have nice settings going into our dinner service. We make sure all the light bulbs are the right wattage and have the right hue in different areas, depending on what we’re going for. We also check how the lighting affects each individual seat: are any lights off-putting or shining directly in your eyes? These are details that can really influence a guest’s experience.

Make Sure All Equipment Is Working Properly

A week or so before we open the doors and start cooking, we use the equipment. This is especially important for higher capacity kitchens. We call it “burning,” and it’s essentially a phase of getting all of our equipment hot and running. For this, we run a full shift and make sure that everything is operating correctly. We have a checklist that includes every single piece of equipment, and the chefs come in the morning, turn everything on, and don’t turn it off until the end of the day — for us that’s 6 a.m until 10 p.m. We also take temperatures of the walk-in every few hours. We want to make sure everything is actually operating and doesn't fail. And if it does, there’s time to get it fixed or put in a warranty request ahead of opening. 

This process is something that’s often skipped or missed for smaller operators — you just bought a brand new oven, of course it will work — but you actually have to validate that it does work, and if it's tested every single day before you start cooking to make sure that everything's good to go, you likely won’t run into it failing on your first night of service.

Actually Use the Space

A big part of doing pre-opening walk-throughs is living in and using the space while you're getting the restaurant ready to open. Treating your space like it's an open business in the week leading up to the actual opening is a big deal. Every single day, we set the lights and the music at the times that they would be set, even if guests aren't in the building. We put the trash cans where they’re meant to be. And we're fanatical about making sure that the space looks and feels the way that we want it to. I’ll sit in every single seat and make sure it’s comfortable, that it didn’t break in transit or installation, and that the view isn't something we don’t want guests to see. This is when you’ll likely find things that don't work or you want to change that are a lot easier to fix before you open the restaurant up to the public. 

Do Daily Walk-Throughs

A daily walk-through isn’t as thorough as the initial walk-through, but it’s still valuable in making sure everything is the way it’s supposed to be on a regular basis: nothing is broken or damaged; the windows are clean; there’s no debris. Daily walk-throughs might function more like cleanliness audits, but they can also help with functionality. I can't tell you how many different things we have in our restaurants that we’ve used for years only to realize there was a better option out there. Making the time to check on these things regularly can make all the difference in how efficiently your business operates.