Starting a restaurant sounds exciting—until you’re neck-deep in permits, finances, and ten different spreadsheets. A great restaurant business plan template doesn’t just keep you organized—it keeps your business alive.
🔎 Did You Know? 97% of full-service restaurants plan to expand every year. Your business plan needs to outline a clear growth strategy to stay competitive in an industry where nearly everyone is scaling.
With clear sections for your financial projections, market analysis, and sample menu, restaurant business plan templates help you focus on what matters: opening your doors.
Whether you’re launching a fine dining spot or a cozy brunch café, the right structure is your first big win. Let’s explore some exhaustive and free restaurant business plan templates to help you structure your investment plan. ✨
Free Restaurant Business Plan Templates
What Are Restaurant Business Plan Template Templates?
A restaurant business plan template is a pre-structured document that optimizes the process of creating a comprehensive business plan for a new or expanding restaurant venture.
It provides a foundational framework, ensuring all critical aspects of the business are thoughtfully considered and clearly articulated.
The primary objective is to simplify the often-complex planning phase and facilitate a compelling presentation of your concept to potential investors, lenders, or internal stakeholders.
A comprehensive restaurant business plan template typically includes dedicated sections for:
- Executive Summary: A concise overview of your restaurant concept, mission, and key objectives
- Business Model: Details on your restaurant’s format (e.g., casual dining, fine dining, fast-casual), service style, and unique value proposition
- Market Analysis: Research and insights into your target market, industry trends, and competitive landscape
- Target Market: A detailed description of your ideal customer demographics, psychographics, and dining preferences
- Marketing Strategy: Outlines your approach to attracting and retaining customers, including branding, advertising, and promotional activities
- Sample Menu: A representative selection of your proposed dishes and pricing strategy
- Financial Projections: Forecasts for sales, expenses, and profitability over a specific period
- Cash Flow Statements: Projections of your restaurant’s inflow and outflow of cash to ensure financial stability
19 Restaurant Business Plan Templates
A great restaurant business plan template should do more than just organize your ideas—it should help you execute them. These templates bring structure, clarity, and direction to every phase of planning, from strategy to staffing to launch day.
1. Business Plan Template
The Business Plan Template gives you a complete framework to plan, manage, and execute your restaurant idea—from concept to launch. With five custom views, including Timeline, Topics, and Business Plan, switch between high-level planning and detailed task management in seconds.
Track everything from your marketing plan to your staffing plan using statuses like ‘To Do’, ‘In Progress’, and ‘Needs Revision’. This template makes it easy to collaborate with your management team, assign roles, and stay accountable with clear deadlines and priorities.
💜 Why you’ll love this template:
- Create timelines for each section of your business using Gantt charts
- Track every task from draft to done with status boards
- Add Custom Fields to flag key details like approvals or deadlines
- View and organize your new restaurant design, marketing strategy, and target market in a single place
Ideal for: Restaurant owners who want a full-picture planning system with built-in tracking, real-time collaboration, and easy customization.
⭐ Case Study: RevPartners achieved 64% faster service delivery by building client delivery playbooks using Templates, cutting down time spent organizing and operationalizing work across their professional services team.
2. Business Plan Document Template
The Business Plan Document Template is built for clarity and collaboration. Instead of bouncing between apps and Docs, organize everything in one place—your goals, market analysis, financial projections, and team input.
It’s a document-first layout that acts like a workspace, so edit, assign, and update as you go. Think of it as your central planning board, but smarter, faster, and ready to present to investors.
💜 Why you’ll love this template:
- Draft and format your business plan in a live doc that supports collaboration
- Use Custom Fields and statuses to track sections, edits, or approvals
- Link sections like your executive summary, sample menu, and target market directly to tasks
- Review and revise content with your team using built-in comments and reminders
Ideal for: Founders who want a flexible, doc-style format that doubles as a planning and collaboration space for their entire restaurant business.
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3. Lean Business Plan Template
The Lean Business Plan Template is designed for speed and simplicity. If you’re working on a tight timeline or need a high-level overview to share with investors, this template strips away the fluff and focuses on what matters.
It includes views like Plan Summary, Business Model Canvas, and Getting Started Guide, which help cover your business model, budget, and target audience without getting stuck in busywork. Everything stays in sync as you build out your vision with clarity and precision.
Here’s what Jodi Salice, Creative Director at United Way Suncoast, had to say about using :
💜 Why you’ll love this template:
- Outline your restaurant business strategy using the Lean Canvas format
- Organize by priority to focus on what moves the needle
- Add attachments and notes for quick access to resources or references
- Track tasks and sections with simple Open and Complete statuses
Ideal for: First-time restaurant owners or small teams looking to create a lean, investor-ready plan without overcomplicating the process.
4. Business Launch Template
The Business Launch Template is ideal for restaurants preparing to open their doors for the first time. From branding to operations, this template outlines each phase of the launch journey—including hiring, licensing, vendor coordination, and pre-opening marketing.
It enables restaurateurs to break their vision into actionable steps with built-in timelines, priorities, and ownership fields. The template is especially useful for launch-heavy moments—think grand opening prep, vendor onboarding, or finalizing your marketing plan—keeping all teams aligned and accountable.
💜 Why you’ll love this template:
- Delegate responsibilities for permits, hires, and supplier agreements
- Monitor branding, menu development, and launch marketing initiatives
- Break your launch into manageable tasks with assigned owners and due dates
- Set timelines with Gantt charts and track what’s behind or ahead
Ideal for: Restaurant teams preparing for launch day who need to stay organized, meet deadlines, and collaborate across departments.
💡 Pro Tip: Ditch the chaos of sticky notes and manual logs. Use an order management setup to centralize incoming orders, track fulfillment, and avoid costly mistakes during peak hours.
5. Action Plan Template for Small Business
The Action Plan Template for Small Business helps you transform broad goals into step-by-step tasks with clear timelines, accountability, and impact tracking. Designed for small teams, this template turns goals into measurable milestones.
It is especially useful for mapping out the first year of operations, from budget projections to early promotions.
With customizable fields for tasks, resources, and objectives, this template promotes focused execution while allowing teams to pivot as business dynamics evolve. Whether you’re launching your restaurant, building your menu, or managing your budget, this template ensures everyone is aligned and every task gets completed.
💜 Why you’ll love this template:
- Break down business goals into milestones and assign deadlines
- Track and manage resource needs with Custom Fields like staffing or supplies
- Align team members with real-time task ownership and updates
- Prioritize tasks based on effort vs. impact to focus on what matters
Ideal for: Restaurant owners or small business teams translating high-level goals into a flexible yet focused action plan to stay organized.
⭐ Case Study: Brand Right Marketing cut hours of manual work by automating task handoffs, invoices, and content reviews using .
Task templates alone saved them days—automatically generating 30+ subtasks per project with team assignments and deadlines. With these optimizations, the team now manages 40+ web projects at once, all without drowning in status check-ins or hallway reminders.
6. Strategic Business Roadmap Template
The Strategic Business Roadmap Template maps out your restaurant’s future—clearly, visually, and with an actionable structure. It’s designed to show where your business stands today, where you want to take it, and what steps need to happen to bridge the gap.
Use it to track everything from financial goals and staffing plans to menu rollouts and marketing campaigns. With six different views and built-in tracking tools, it’s excellent for quarterly planning or guiding a restaurant’s multi-location expansion, allowing stakeholders to see progress across different departments while focusing on strategic outcomes.
💜 Why you’ll love this template:
- Align marketing, finance, HR, and operations toward unified objectives
- Use milestones to track expansion phases or rebranding efforts
- Assign tasks and statuses to team members across departments
- Visualize short-term priorities and long-term initiatives side by side
Ideal for: Restaurateurs and executives building scalable, data-informed growth strategies to align short-term tasks with long-term business goals.
7. Action Plan Template
The Action Plan Template is ideal for business development when running a restaurant as it provides a clear framework for turning strategic initiatives into actionable steps. Built for growth-focused businesses, it helps you set goals, break them down into executable tasks, and track progress across departments.
Use this template to explore new market opportunities, partnerships, or menu innovations. Each initiative is tracked by goal, resource allocation, and expected return on investment (ROI), making it easier to validate ideas and adapt based on performance.
💜 Why you’ll love this template:
- Evaluate initiatives like partnerships or off-premise offerings and use task dependencies to maintain progress across teams
- Break complex development plans into manageable checklists and milestones
- Track pilot programs, customer feedback, and financial performance
- Monitor real-time progress with visual dashboards and status updates
Ideal for: Restaurants looking to grow revenue streams through catering, delivery, seasonal offers, or retail products.
8. Menu Planning Template
The Menu Planning Template is curated specifically for restaurant teams that need to optimize their menu operations. Plan your weekly or seasonal menu, price out ingredients, and coordinate with the kitchen and procurement teams. This menu planning template also allows for versioning, collaboration between chefs, and easy adaptation for dietary preferences, regional variations, or promotions.
With two clear views—Recipe Box and Start Here—you can quickly switch between brainstorming, budgeting, and prep scheduling. It’s more than a menu list—it’s your menu strategy, logistics plan, and inventory check all in one.
💜 Why you’ll love this template:
- Categorize dishes based on popularity, margin, or dietary type
- Link ingredients to kitchen prep, sourcing, and costing tasks
- Assign recipe prep to team members and monitor status with task updates
- Tag items for dietary needs, cooking time, or promotional status
🔑 Ideal for: Restaurant owners, chefs, and kitchen managers who want a visual, collaborative system to streamline menu planning, prep, and purchasing.
9. Restaurant Recipe Costing Template
Developed for financial clarity, the Restaurant Recipe Costing Template allows restaurants to analyze profitability at the dish level. It helps calculate the cost per serving, margins, and vendor pricing, ensuring each item contributes to the bottom line.
The ingredient view, recipe tracking, and built-in guide make it easy to get started—even if you’ve never costed a dish before. The template can also be used to compare ingredient alternatives or price changes across seasons, helping control food costs.
💜 Why you’ll love this template:
- Input ingredients, portion sizes, and vendor pricing for cost control
- Track cost percentage and profit margin for each menu item to flag low-margin items
- Monitor supplier details and unit conversions with Custom Fields
- Adjust pricing strategies based on seasonal or supply fluctuations
Ideal for: Restaurant operators, chefs, or kitchen managers who need a detailed, repeatable system for pricing dishes, managing inventory, and protecting profit margins through granular cost analysis.
10. Milestone Chart Template
The Milestone Chart Template is your go-to tool for breaking complex projects into trackable, visible progress points. This template visualizes progress across major initiatives such as restaurant remodels, new branch openings, or operational upgrades.
It helps teams stay focused by mapping key dates and check-ins for long-term projects. Built with a clean Whiteboard interface and progress tracking tools, it’s great for aligning your team and staying accountable. Consequently, it encourages smoother collaboration between kitchen staff, contractors, designers, and management.
💜 Why you’ll love this template:
- Break your project into manageable milestones and sub-tasks
- Chart project milestones from planning to post-launch reviews
- Color-code phases for better cross-functional clarity
- Keep stakeholders in the loop with progress updates and shared dashboards
Ideal for: Restaurant operators and teams, consultants, or project leads tracking high-impact initiatives that span weeks or months and require milestone-based planning.
💡 Pro Tip: For those seeking to optimize meal preparation and minimize food waste, AI recipe generators offer a compelling solution. These innovative tools analyze available ingredients and swiftly propose meal ideas, thereby saving valuable time and adding an element of enjoyment to the cooking process.
11. Business Continuity Plan Template
The Business Continuity Plan Template prepares restaurants for operational disruptions, be it supply chain issues, staff shortages, or emergency closures. With dedicated views for priorities, workflows, and planning guides, it brings structure to chaos.
Use it to plan for natural disasters, equipment failures, supply chain issues, or health emergencies. You’ll have all the tools to assess risk, outline recovery steps, and communicate across your team. Moreover, the template supports scenario planning and communication workflows, ensuring your team knows how to act quickly during disruptions.
💜 Why you’ll love this template:
- Identify mission-critical operations like staffing, procurement, and POS systems
- Outline contingency strategies while recognizing critical operations that need uninterrupted attention for short- and long-term disruptions
- Document SOPs and vendor contact details for quick action
- Track the status of each step with In Progress, To Do, and Complete markers
🔑 Ideal for: Restaurant owners and small business operators who want to build a reliable plan for staying functional during emergencies or unexpected events.
12. SMART Goal Action Plan Template
The SMART Goal Action Plan Template turns big dreams into achievable steps using the SMART framework—specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. With multiple views like Timeline, Goal Health, and Planning Whiteboard, you’ll have every angle of your strategy covered.
From boosting table turnover to improving guest reviews, every goal is tracked with clarity. Aligning action steps with success metrics creates a culture of accountability, helping teams prioritize more effectively.
💜 Why you’ll love this template:
- Break goals into clear, achievable steps with deadlines and owners
- Use Custom Fields to track KPIs and benchmarks, and align team performance with tangible outcomes
- Monitor success indicators with Custom Fields like Outcome and Goal Health
- Update goal statuses as you move from planning to evaluation, and regularly review and recalibrate based on goal progress
Ideal for: Restaurant managers or business owners looking to set and follow through on operational or strategic goals with a structured, measurable system.
💡 Pro Tip: Break your restaurant vision into digestible bites through long-term goal planning: 1 year for survival, 5 years for stability, and 10 years for expansion.
Here’s how Brain can help you generate ideas for your restaurant business expansion:
13. Canva Restaurant Business Plan Template (Terracotta Coral Peach Style)
The Canva Restaurant Business Plan Template is more than just good-looking—it’s designed to help you pitch your restaurant concept clearly and confidently.
With its clean layout, bold colors, and user-friendly design elements, this A4 document template makes your executive summary, sample menu, and financial projections easy to read and visually appealing.
The template comes with editable sections for market research, branding, operations, and financial summaries, all framed within a visually engaging layout. Canva’s drag-and-drop interface means you get to customize everything—from fonts and images to section layouts—without needing a design degree.
✨ Why you’ll love this template:
- Customize fonts, colors, and layout for a branded, investor-ready plan
- Use pre-formatted sections to structure your concept, market analysis, and pricing
- Export in high-quality PDF for presentations, funding decks, or print
- Highlight your unique selling points visually with charts, icons, and photos
Ideal for: Restaurateurs looking to impress investors or partners with a highly visual and easy-to-navigate business plan.
14. Restaurant Business Financial Plan Template by Template.Net
The Restaurant Business Financial Plan Template by Template.Net is a fully structured blueprint designed to help restaurant owners map out the financial side of their operations with clarity and confidence. Detailed sections, such as cash flow management, expense forecasting, and profitability tracking, keep your financial projections grounded in data and growth-ready.
This multi-year plan covers everything from your executive summary to revenue forecasts, cost breakdowns, and risk strategies, making it ideal for investor presentations, loan applications, or internal financial planning.
✨ Why you’ll love this template:
- Project 5-year revenues with built-in growth calculations
- Break down labor, marketing, and capital expenses in an organized format
- Define financial objectives and strategies tailored to your restaurant model
- Use built-in risk assessment sections to show financial foresight to stakeholders
Ideal for: Restaurant owners or managers seeking a comprehensive, editable financial roadmap to support funding, guide growth, and monitor long-term sustainability.
📹 Watch Now:
15. Coffee Shop Business Plan Template by Toast
The Coffee Shop Business Plan Template by Toast is a helpful guide for opening and managing a café or small food service business. It includes tailored prompts for location strategy, staffing, menu design, point-of-sale (POS) integration, and marketing.
While designed with coffee shops in mind, it also works for juice bars, bakeries, or boutique snack concepts looking for a focused, service-driven plan.
✨ Why you’ll love this template:
- Follow industry-specific planning guidance for cafés and beverage shops
- Focus on customer experience, menu rotation, and seasonal promos
- Plan staffing needs and technology integrations upfront
- Access insights from Toast’s extensive restaurant POS experience
Ideal for: Café and coffee shop entrepreneurs building a startup blueprint aligned with industry-specific operations.
16. Restaurant Business Plan for Investors Template by Template.Net
The Restaurant Business Plan for Investors Template by Template.Net is purpose-built for founders pitching their culinary concept to potential investors. This professionally structured plan covers every element an investor wants to see—from market opportunity and brand positioning to financial projections and funding breakdowns.
Tailored for investor pitches, this business plan template includes all the components necessary to showcase growth potential, return on investment (ROI), and operational readiness.
It features sections for executive summary, market positioning, revenue models, and funding requests, allowing you to tell your restaurant’s story with clarity, confidence, and financial transparency.
✨ Why you’ll love this template:
- Present a well-defined concept with clear competitive advantages and market positioning
- Break down start-up costs, revenue projections, and expected return on investment
- Include a detailed marketing and operations strategy tailored to upscale or niche dining
- Customize your pitch for local investors, angel groups, or lending institutions
Ideal for: Restaurant founders seeking capital who need a polished, investor-ready business plan that covers all the essentials—from brand story to financial viability.
🧠 Fun Fact: 95% of restaurants today use AI or automation in their operations. Your operations and staffing functions should reflect modern tools like automation and AI to streamline workflows and cut costs.
17. Small Restaurant Business Plan PDF Template by BusinessPlanTemplate.com
The Small Restaurant Business Plan PDF Template by BusinessPlanTemplate.com is a detailed, step-by-step guide crafted for first-time restaurateurs and small business owners.
Written by Dave Lavinsky, a seasoned entrepreneur, this PDF walks you through every section of a professional business plan—from your company overview and target market analysis to financial projections and operations planning. It’s an ideal mix of guidance and structure, helping you create a plan that’s investor-ready.
✨ Why you’ll love this template:
- Define your business structure and location to establish your restaurant’s foundation
- Conduct an industry and customer analysis to align your concept with market needs
- Break down your pricing and marketing strategy to attract and retain diners
- Plan out daily operations, from staffing to supplier relationships
Ideal for: New or small restaurant owners looking for a PDF-format plan template that simplifies the writing process while covering all investor-required sections.
18. Restaurant Business Plan Template by BentoBox
The BentoBox Restaurant Business Plan Template is a ready-to-edit Google Doc designed to walk restaurant founders through every stage of building a serious, investor-facing business plan.
From branding and staffing to tech setup and break-even points, this template goes beyond the basics. It’s packed with helpful notes, optional sections, and examples, making it ideal for both new openings and existing restaurants seeking funding or expansion.
✨ Why you’ll love this template:
- Fill in your executive summary, team bios, and service model to create a compelling business case
- Outline your marketing strategy with optional sections for social media, PR, SEO, and email campaigns
- Access BentoBox’s integrated resources for online ordering and websites
- Customize every page with your branding, team structure, and goals—then delete the guide and export for pitching
Ideal for: Restaurant owners who want a complete, editable business plan document to pitch investors or guide operations, especially those using Google Docs or looking to collaborate online.
19. Restaurant Business Plan Template by TouchBistro
The Restaurant Business Plan Template by TouchBistro is a free, 15-page downloadable document that helps restaurateurs structure their entire business case without starting from scratch.
Built for both new ventures and rebranding efforts, this Word-friendly template includes detailed prompts across all major sections: executive summary, market analysis, marketing, operations, and financials.
✨ Why you’ll love this template:
- Follow section-by-section prompts to describe your concept, mission, and management team
- Use the financial analysis & growth plan to map out startup costs, cash flow, and ROI projections
- Lay out your target market, competitor insights, and branding strategy clearly
- Add sample menus and visuals in the appendix to bring your pitch to life
Ideal for: Restaurateurs building a business plan from scratch who need an easy-to-follow, customizable template designed to impress banks, lenders, or investors.
What Makes a Good Restaurant Business Plan Template?
Now that you’ve explored some great options, how do you pick the right restaurant business plan template?
A good restaurant business plan template serves as more than just a fill-in-the-blanks document; it acts as a strategic roadmap, guiding aspiring and established restaurateurs through the critical considerations necessary for success in reaching the target customers.
Here’s what you should look for in a solid restaurant business plan template:
- Comprehensive structure: Select a template that encompasses all essential sections, from the executive summary and market analysis to detailed financial projections and operational plans, ensuring no critical element is overlooked
- Clear guidance: Look for a restaurant business plan template that offers prompts and guiding questions within each section, facilitating thorough thought processes and ensuring relevant information is captured effectively
- Adaptability: Choose a restaurant business plan template that allows for customization to suit diverse restaurant concepts, cuisines, and target markets, recognizing the unique nuances of each venture
- Financial rigor: Pick restaurant business plan templates where financial projection sections are detailed and logically structured, enabling the creation of realistic sales forecasts, expense budgets, and cash flow statements crucial for securing funding
- Actionable insights: Search for restaurant business plan templates that go beyond data collection and encourage strategic thinking and the development of actionable steps for market research, operations, and management
- Integrated resources: Go for templates that include links to relevant resources or examples, further assisting the user in developing a well-informed and persuasive plan
Build, Fund, and Launch Your Restaurant with
A great restaurant starts with a great plan—and the right restaurant business plan template makes that plan easier to build, fund, and follow.
Whether you’re opening your first bistro or scaling a family-owned favorite, these templates cover every angle—from financial projections to your sample menu.
No more guessing, scrambling, or reinventing the wheel. You’ve got layouts for investors, tools for your team, and plans that keep you on course even when the kitchen gets hot.
Need a place to organize it all? gives you the structure, customization, and collaboration tools all packed into templates to help you go from concept to opening day—stress-free.
Sign up for today and get your restaurant business on the map!
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