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Open a Restaurant in 100 Days: 1 Task a Day

No concept, no site, no company number, no funding, no team. Today you start. Every day you get one task — and only that one.

Start with day 1 See the eight phases
  • 100days
  • 1task a day
  • 8phases, in order
Every square is one day
Thibault Van de Sompele
Thibault Van de Sompele Founder of HappyChef

Why I wrote these 100 days out for you

I am going to make you a big promise, and I mean it. If you do these hundred days — do them, not read them — you will be standing in a restaurant of your own on day 100. Not because there is a secret in here that nobody else knows, but because the reason people never open their place is almost never talent or money. It is that they do not know what today's next step is, and so today they do nothing.

That is why this checklist gives you exactly one task a day. One. Not a chapter, not a list of fourteen things to consider, but one task with three steps and the reason it lands on precisely this day. Some days will cost you twenty minutes. Others — your financial plan, your lease negotiation, the decision about whether you belong in your own kitchen — are heavy, and that is deliberate. This is not a course where you spend a day making one Instagram post and congratulate yourself. These are the things you would keep postponing without a guide, in the order they need each other.

So start today with something small. Put the hundred days in your calendar, pick someone who will ask you every month how it is going, and tick day 1 off. That green check looks like nothing and it is exactly what works: after a week you have seven of them and you do not want to break the run. Momentum matters more than motivation in this trade, because motivation is not there on the day your bank says no, and momentum is.

And when you get stuck — you will get stuck — every day has an AI coach standing next to it that knows that day's task. It opens with a question, and it is usually not the question you wanted. Use it precisely then: on the day you are torn between two sites, the day you cannot bring yourself to admit you need a chef, the day you have recalculated your numbers three times hoping for a different answer. Talk it through, decide, tick it off. A hundred times. Then the doors open.

Good luck. I mean it.

The eight phases of your hundred days

The order is half the work. You cannot sign a lease before you know your rent ceiling, and you cannot price a menu before you know your food cost.

Days 1–7 Commit Nothing exists yet. This week you make the next ninety-nine days unavoidable, and get honest about what you can and cannot do yourself.
  1. 1Put the 100 days in your calendar
  2. 2Pick your mentor
  3. 3Make this checklist unavoidable
  4. 4Write down on one page why you are doing this
  5. 5Take an honest inventory of what you can actually do
  6. 6Decide the most you are willing to lose
  7. 7Say it out loud to five people
Days 8–20 Concept Who is this place for — and, far harder, who is it not for? Every vague answer here becomes an expensive mistake later.
  1. 8Name your one guest — and four you will not serve
  2. 9Choose the format in three words
  3. 10Write your concept in one sentence
  4. 11Set your average spend per guest
  5. 12Go and eat at three competitors
  6. 13Choose the dish everything else stands next to
  7. 14Choose your service model
  8. 15Decide your services and your closing days
  9. 16Write down what you will NOT do
  10. 17Work out your room on paper
  11. 18Choose the name and check it is free
  12. 19Secure the domain and the handles
  13. 20Test the concept on ten strangers
Days 21–32 The numbers Whether this business can work at all is arithmetic. It is far cheaper to find that out now than after a lease is signed.
  1. 21Set your average spend excluding VAT
  2. 22Estimate your covers per service, honestly
  3. 23Build your revenue model for one normal week
  4. 24Set your food cost target and test your menu against it
  5. 25Build your staff plan and cost it
  6. 26Set your maximum rent
  7. 27List every euro of investment
  8. 28Add what the first months will lose
  9. 29Calculate your break-even in covers a day
  10. 30Stress-test at seventy per cent
  11. 31Decide your margin and your own wage
  12. 32Write out your financial plan
Days 33–45 Money and paperwork Turning a plan into a file a bank takes seriously, a company, a number, and permission to trade.
  1. 33Count your own equity exactly
  2. 34Choose your funding mix
  3. 35Get your bank file ready
  4. 36Go to your first lender
  5. 37Investigate the alternatives
  6. 38Write the business plan yourself
  7. 39Choose your company form
  8. 40Register and get your company and VAT numbers
  9. 41Open your business account and payment setup
  10. 42Arrange your insurance
  11. 43Put every permit on one timeline
  12. 44Understand your VAT and till obligations
  13. 45Choose your accountant and agree how you work
Days 46–60 Site and build The most irreversible decisions in the whole project. A lease is signed for years and a kitchen layout for a decade.
  1. 46Write your location brief
  2. 47Build your longlist of sites
  3. 48Count the footfall yourself
  4. 49Check use class, permit history and extraction
  5. 50Score your three sites and rank them
  6. 51Learn what a commercial lease actually says
  7. 52Negotiate what really matters
  8. 53Get the property technically surveyed
  9. 54Sign the lease
  10. 55Draw the kitchen: the flow first, the equipment second
  11. 56Draw your room and fix your seat count
  12. 57Make your equipment list and get three quotes
  13. 58Get three contractor quotes with a real programme
  14. 59Decide what you buy new, buy used, and lease
  15. 60Fix the build budget with fifteen per cent contingency and start
Days 61–72 Menu and buying What the guest actually buys, priced so it pays for the building it is served in.
  1. 61Write out the full menu
  2. 62Cost every dish
  3. 63Price your menu against your food cost target
  4. 64Cut a third of your menu
  5. 65Cook your whole menu once, against the clock
  6. 66Choose your suppliers and negotiate your terms
  7. 67Build your drinks list and check its margins separately
  8. 68Decide your wine and beer strategy
  9. 69Build your allergen chart
  10. 70Write the recipes and kitchen cards
  11. 71Design the physical menu card
  12. 72Set your par levels and place the first order
Days 73–86 Team and systems An owner who has not written down how the place runs is the only person who knows — and can never take a week off.
  1. 73Decide which jobs you will NOT do yourself
  2. 74Decide whether you need a professional chef
  3. 75Draw your team chart and your shift pattern
  4. 76Write your job ads
  5. 77Post your ads where the trade actually looks
  6. 78Run structured interviews
  7. 79Run paid trial shifts and decide
  8. 80Get contracts, payroll and time registration right
  9. 81Write your staff handbook
  10. 82Write your opening and closing procedures
  11. 83Write your service standard
  12. 84Choose your POS and payment setup
  13. 85Choose your reservation system and build your table plan
  14. 86Set your incentives and the five weekly numbers
Days 87–100 Market and opening Building an audience before there is anything to sell, then opening in a controlled way instead of a hopeful one.
  1. 87Build your brand basics
  2. 88Build your website with the booking button at the top
  3. 89Claim and complete your Google Business Profile
  4. 90Open your WhatsApp community and get the first fifty in
  5. 91Start posting the build
  6. 92Write to the local press
  7. 93Set up your review engine before you open
  8. 94Plan your opening week and your first orders
  9. 95Run your friends-and-family night
  10. 96Run your soft opening at reduced capacity
  11. 97Train your team through two full services
  12. 98Do the final legal, fire, safety and HACCP walk-through
  13. 99Open
  14. 100Run the day-101 review

How it works

No course, no videos, no modules. One task a day, and the next only once you have ticked today's off.

  1. Lock in the 100 days

    Block half an hour a day in your calendar and pick a mentor who checks in every month.

  2. Do one task a day

    Open today's day, read why it matters, do the three steps and tick it off.

  3. Ask the coach when you stall

    Every day opens with one pointed question from the AI coach; you get ten messages a day.

  4. Build on what is already there

    Each day uses yesterday's decision. Skip nothing — the order is the point.

Start with day 1

How this checklist works

Four principles, and they are built into every single day.

  1. 1

    One task a day, in the right order

    Every day builds on yesterday's decision. Your rent ceiling comes before your first viewing, your dish costings before your prices, your service model before your staff plan. Skip nothing.

  2. 2

    Decide, do not consider

    Every day exists to force one decision. "I am still thinking about it" is the answer that keeps restaurants from ever opening. The coach does not accept it.

  3. 3

    Honest about your limits

    If you have never worked a professional line, you are not going to run a kitchen — you are going to hire a chef. This checklist pushes you towards hiring what you cannot do, not towards attempting it.

  4. 4

    The hard things are in here too

    Your financial plan, your bank meeting, your lease negotiation, your trial shifts, your procedures and your incentives. Those are the days you would skip without a guide, and they are exactly the days that decide it.

Frequently asked questions

Do I really have to do this a hundred days in a row?

No, but it works best if you keep the rhythm. The order matters more than the pace: each day uses the previous day's decision. Miss two days and you simply pick up where you left off — do three days at once and you are making decisions without sleeping on them.

Is it free, and do I need an account?

Completely free and account-free. Your progress, your ticks and your favourites are stored in your own browser and go nowhere else. If you want them on another computer you unfortunately start again there — that is the price of no account.

What if I already have a site or a concept?

Skip the days you have done and tick them off, but do read them. In practice almost everyone finds two or three decisions in the first thirty days they never explicitly made — usually their rent ceiling and who they are deliberately not serving.

How does the AI coach work, and what does it cost?

Every day it opens with one question about that day's task. You get ten messages a day, free, without an account. It knows today's task, it pushes you towards one action you can still do tonight, and it gives no legal or tax advice — for that it sends you to your accountant or your local authority.

Do these hundred days apply outside my country?

Yes. The route itself — concept, numbers, funding, site, menu, team, opening — is the same everywhere, and the page exists in twenty-four languages. What differs per country is VAT, company forms, permits and employment law; on those days you get the questions to ask, and who to ask them of.

Can I print the worksheets?

Yes. Most days come with a worksheet you print or save as a PDF through your browser, carrying that day's task, reason and questions. It is meant to be filled in by hand and kept — you will want that sheet again at your bank meeting and your lease negotiation.

Tools you will need along the way

Restaurant financing plan Revenue simulator Recipe costing Restaurant valuation Hiring board Staff handbook generator