Opening Your Own Bar or Restaurant? 5 Things You Might Have Forgotten

24 October 2016

When you’re setting up a restaurant or a bar, there are a lot of things to consider – from putting together your menu, getting your liquor licence, hiring staff and choosing food and drink suppliers. You’re probably busy making sure that all of these boxes are checked, but there might be a few things that you have forgotten. Here are five important pointers that you should remember when opening your own bar or restaurant in Perth.

1. Have You Organised Private Bin Hire?

A busy bar or restaurant produces A LOT of waste – much more than your local council bin collection will cover. This means that you will need to organise for private bin hire and collection for your business on a weekly or daily basis – depending on your waste volumes.

Waste management is probably a very foreign concept to you – as it would be to most people starting out in business. How often will you need collection? What size bin are you going to need? A good waste management provider (like us here at Instant Waste Management!) will be able to guide you. Front lift bins, for example, are generally the best bins for bars and restaurants. They are large but compact, watertight and rodent and odour resistant. However, you may find you need a larger or smaller bin. Here is a helpful chart that will give you more info about waste disposal and help you determine what type of bin is best for your business.

At Instant Waste Management we offer up to one month free waste collection for new businesses signing up with us (conditions apply) – get in touch with us for further information.

2. Do You Have a Grease Trap for Your Sink?

A grease trap is designed to catch any greases and solids before they enter the wastewater disposal system. Without grease traps, the large amounts of oil from kitchens and restaurants would overwhelm your local sewage treatment facility and can cause blockages in drain pipes – causing possible work outages and even fines for you.

It is important to have a grease trap that is at least the size of your sink, if not double. Also, you will need to arrange for regular grease trap cleaning services so that the grease and solids can be emptied out. A liquid waste tanker will come to your premises and remove the grease from the trap and transport it securely to a licensed disposal facility.

As with bin collection, we also offer up to one month free grease trap services for new businesses signing up with us (conditions apply) – get in touch with us for further information.

3. Have You Registered Your Business?

An important step to take when setting up a restaurant, bar or cafe is to contact your local authority in order to register your business premises. You will need to pay a fee and fill out the required paperwork. There are different rules and regulations depending on where your business is based, so make sure that you check out how things work in your area.

You will need to register either with the Department of Health or your local government, depending on the location of your business and the type of produce that it will be selling. Most of the time, for a typical restaurant the local government will be the enforcement agency for the food business within its district. The Department of Health will be the appropriate agency if the food business is related to dairy production, seafood production, public hospitals or any food business not within a local government area such as sports stadiums. If you have a food business that requires registering with the Department, you will need to fill out and submit this form.

4. Do You Have a Licence for Playing Music?

Playing the right tunes in the background can really set the ambiance for your customers. However, before you put together a great playlist, you will need to apply for the appropriate copyright licence. Any music you play, whether it is a music video or a Spotify playlist, is the intellectual property of its creator and is protected under Australian copyright laws. You will need to have a licence from the copyright owners, which you can apply for online.

You’ll need to submit the details of your business and how you will be using the music. This even applies if you will be playing music for your telephone on-hold system or in areas that are not accessible to the public. Click here for more information about this licence.

5. Do Your Staff Have the Proper Training?

When you hire staff for your restaurant, you will need to make sure that they undergo the proper training for the workplace. In Australia, all employees who handle food are legally required to be trained in food safety. You can find out more information about food safety training courses here.

Make sure that you have these five important points covered before you open up your business so that you won’t run into any problems down the line. Once you have checked all of the boxes and are fully prepared, you will be able to open up your exciting new restaurant, bar or cafe and start welcoming customers.

If you’d like more information about what kinds of waste management services you need for your new business, or for more information on the free month’s bin or grease trap services, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us!