That’s what you’re going to hear when you tell an experienced business person that you’re planning to open a café or a restaurant or whatever kind of store.
This is a tricky subject because sometimes seemingly perfect places may end up being a fatal mistake for your business. A very busy street with lots of potential customers may be the worst place for your café. It’s not always clear why that’s the case.
Sometimes on a street where cloth stores write success history a shoe store may go bankrupt. Another street which is perfect for hardware stores may be the last thing where people want to stick around and have a bite.
What you should do is go and ask the business owners around for their honest opinion; see if there is too much competition for you in that particular area and see if they manage. Are they happy to be located there? Sometimes a street may be full of restaurants and cafés but they could all be doing quite well despite the competition. Visit those places as a customer or just hang around at lunch time or in the early evening when people drop by after work and before they go home.
Also, ask around what kind of busineses had been started and how long they lasted in that particular space you’re planning to rent and start a business. If two or more businesses similar to yours had opened and closed on the same spot, leave it at that; don’t go further unless you love taking huge risks and you have an incredible idea that’s going to revolutionize the business as we know it (!) as Starbucks.
Speaking of Starbucks, do not be fooled by the success of big brands either. Because their name is already built; they may open a store in your mom’s garage and make it work whereas if you tried it on that very spot, even your mom may quit visiting.
Don’t be shy; do your enquirey well and don’t ignore the signs just because you happen to like the particular area so much. You can always come back to hang out there but that doesn’t mean it’s worth losing your savings over it.
Good luck.
