Restaurants are a funny business. Notoriously slim margins, long hours, fickle guests — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We talk about all those things at Full Book because we have to. It’s a hospitality publication, after all. You need to know how to cost a drink, what reservation platform suits your concept, and how to train a host who doesn’t ghost after three shifts. But there’s something we haven’t talked enough about: partnerships.
Not every restaurant is a partnership. There are plenty of single-owner spots doing just fine, publicly traded chains reporting to boards, and multigenerational family businesses keeping it all in the bloodline. But partnerships still make up a sizable part of the independent restaurant world. And the way those partnerships are formed, structured, and managed is often what determines whether a place thrives or ends up in a near fistfight in year two.
A lot of partnerships start out as friendships. Two bartenders or cooks with a shared vision decide, “Let’s just open our own place.” They’ve got chemistry, experience, and just enough naivete to believe they can pull it off. Sometimes they can. Other times, that alignment falls apart the moment one of them decides they want to do brunch and the other doesn’t believe in serving Mimosas.
There’s also the more structured version: an owner brings in a GM or a chef and offers them a slice of equity in exchange for sweat. These can work, as long as both sides are clear on what that “partnership” actually is. Saying “you’re a partner” without clearly defining guidelines and duties is a disaster waiting to happen.
Then there’s the “silent partner,” who, truth be told, is rarely silent. Often this an investor or a group of them, they front the capital with a stated intent to stay out of daily operations. And for a little while, they do. But soon enough, there’s a text about how many barbacks are on the schedule, or a forwarded Yelp review about the lighting being too dim. The only thing worse than a silent partner who won’t stay silent is a loud one with no operational experience.
Lastly, you’ve got family. Husband and wife. Siblings. Parent and child. This one is its own beast. When it works, it really works, there’s deep trust, shared sacrifice, and rhythm. But when it doesn’t, the fights spill from the pass to the floor. A disagreement over scheduling becomes a blow-up over who isn’t pulling their weight at home. I’ve seen great restaurants implode because no one could separate business from personal. It can absolutely succeed, but it requires strict boundaries, airtight roles, and an unspoken rule that the staff never gets pulled into the fray.
And that’s the theme here: clarity. The single biggest issue I see in broken partnerships is a lack of clearly defined roles. Everyone’s “doing everything together,” which means no one is truly responsible for anything. Or one person thinks they’re the decision-maker, and the other thinks it’s a collaboration. Or worse, they’re both right and wrong at the same time, depending on the day.
Partnerships aren’t about good vibes or shared playlists. They’re about defined expectations, accountability, and operational control. I’ve opened restaurants with friends and I’ve seen friends try it, too. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But the ones that last all have the same foundation: everyone knew who was doing what.
You can’t both be in charge of payroll. You can’t both be the person who orders glassware. You can’t both be the one answering staff questions about scheduling. Every task needs an owner. And that ownership needs to be agreed upon before anything is signed, much less opened.
Sit down and write it all out. Who’s hiring and firing? Who’s running point on accounts payable? Who does scheduling? Who deals with the liquor rep? What happens when you both staunchly disagree on a course of action — what’s the tiebreaker? If you can’t answer those questions now, I guarantee you’ll be answering them at the worst possible time, mid-crisis.
The best partnerships aren’t between people with the same skill sets, they’re between people who complement each other. Chef and GM. Ops and finance. Vision and execution. Two GMs can make it work, but more often than not, redundancy creates friction. The best-case scenario? You do what I don’t, and vice versa. And we both trust each other to get our part done.
If you don’t define the lanes, someone’s going to cross into the other. Maybe not today. But eventually. And when that happens, it won’t be pretty, there will be bickering, avoiding any but especially tough conversations, and wondering how your passion project turned into a chore.
Your team will feel it. Your guests will feel it. And eventually, your bank statement will show it.
Partnerships don’t fall apart because people don't work hard. They fall apart because people didn’t define the work.
So do yourself a favor. Whether you’re opening next month or you’ve been open for years: get in a room, get honest, and get specific. Write it all down: what the partnership means, who does what, who has final say, and what happens if things go south. All on paper, in an operating agreement.
Because if you don’t, someone else will do it for you — your staff, your investors, your landlord, your accountant. Guaranteed, none of them are going to write the version you want.
And that never ends well.