Modular construction is becoming an increasingly popular alternative to conventionally built structures. Modular units offer consumers numerous benefits over their traditional stick-framed counterparts: cost savings, eco-friendliness, and a distinctive aesthetic appearance.
Modular construction is a great option for restaurants, diners, and other commercial applications. By choosing to house your business within a modular unit, you can complete your build faster while equipping yourself with a modern, comfortable, and fully customized facility.
Shipping Container Restaurants
At BMarko Structures, we specialize in a wide range of commercial modular buildings, including modular restaurant construction. We fulfill orders to our customers’ unique specifications — we can help you assess your needs and develop the perfect modular design for your restaurant.
Let’s examine a few facets of the modular design and construction process and consider how utilizing a modular unit for your restaurant would make a great choice.
Modular Restaurant Design Process
Each of our modular restaurant components starts with a re-purposed shipping container. Shipping containers are available in a wide range of sizes, but we use a 20’ or 40’ long unit for most commercial applications. Modular units can be stacked on top of one another or placed side by side for additional floor space.
We work with suppliers around the country to find the right containers for your needs and budget. Generally speaking, any unit can be a candidate for converting to a modular restaurant. While newer containers are more expensive, they require less cleanup time to remove dents, rust and other imperfections.
Benefits of Modular Restaurant Construction
Cost savings
Modular restaurant buildings are an economical choice. Compared to renting or buying an existing property, you’ll get a fully customized facility that doesn’t require expensive retrofitting to accommodate your needs. In addition, when compared to conventional construction processes, modular construction is less expensive. It requires fewer labor hours and material costs as the frame of the unit arrives intact. In addition, modular construction can be completed faster, which means you can be up and running in less time, allowing you to focus on increasing your sales and building your brand. You won’t have to sacrifice any of the comforts of conventional construction with a modular unit, either. You can still outfit the interiors with drywall, top-of-the-line appliances, and the flooring of your choice. You’ll get a restaurant that embodies your unique vision of an excellent dining experience.
Energy efficiency
In a busy restaurant, utility bills make up a large portion of your overhead costs. Any improvements in efficiency translate to considerable savings on a month-to-month basis. With a modular restaurant construction, it’s easy to include high-efficiency appliances, solar panels, insulation and other green technologies. In addition, your choice of a modular unit is an investment in an emerging green building technology: the repurposing of building materials. Choosing to house your restaurant in a modular space keeps perfectly usable material out of landfills and helps encourage consumers to re-use materials in a creative and innovative manner.
Workflow
Modular restaurant construction gives you free reign to design the best kitchen area and front-of-house for your team. Rather than forcing you to use a set floor plan, BMarko’s modular restaurant designs are flexible and modifiable in plenty of convenient ways. Modular buildings are also easy to expand when you need to accommodate future growth. Simply stack a modular addition on top of your existing structure or add a couple on to the side for several hundred extra square feet. It’s an easy and cost-effective way to provide new customers and staff with a comfortable space.
Design
Décor and design play a large role in how your restaurant is perceived, and the type of crowd it attracts. While BMarko’s modular construction process gives you plenty of options for creating a comfortable, conventional space both inside and out, many clients find the industrial look of a repurposed shipping container to be one of its key selling points. Choose a modular restaurant to give your eatery the edge it needs in a fiercely competitive culinary landscape.
From giving your team the freedom to move to attracting a hip crowd to your restaurant’s unique look, modular construction is a great choice for your establishment!
Shipping Container Coffee Shops & Bars
Customized shipping containers are excellent choices for new coffee shops and hip bars. A recent study conducted by Ohio State University revealed that 60 percent of restaurants fail in their first year of existence and 80 percent fail within five years. As reported by BusinessInsider.com, Robert Irvine, celebrity chef and star of the hit show, “Restaurant Impossible,” lists the following as the top causes of restaurant failures:
While Carrie Luxem, president and CEO of Restaurant HR Group, agrees with many of the things on Irvine’s list, she considers poor location and overspending to be two of the biggest reasons why restaurants fail. Luxem warns that some of the pitfalls of a bad location include poor visibility, insufficient parking and a lack of foot traffic. When it comes to overspending, Luxem says that some restauranteurs spend too much even before they open their doors on remodeling projects that aren’t always necessary.
Overcoming the reasons Irvine cited as being responsible for failure in the restaurant industry can be done with hands-on training and education. You can get experience by working in someone else’s restaurant before you strike out on your own, for instance, and learn how to prepare food and execute the menu you’re going to offer. You can also learn about the level of service customers expect at the same time, which will help you train your employees to tend to your customers appropriately down the line. You can learn how to manage others by taking a class or consulting with a seasoned mentor. You can also pick up the accounting skills you’ll need to succeed as a business owner by taking a class in a formal setting or online.
Conquering the obstacles to success that Luxem discussed is also within your control. You can research the demographics in a few areas where you’d like to open your restaurant to see which market your establishment will be most likely to succeed in, for example. You can also avoid overspending by identifying the projects that are critical to your success and stay within your budget by not adding unnecessary ones to your to-do list.
Sometimes, no matter how much research you do about the demographics and competition in the area and regardless of how careful you are to stick to your budget, your business may still be literally and figuratively positioned to fail. Often, this is due to a change in the neighborhood, a “jinxed” location that once seemed perfect, or something else. You can avoid pitfalls like these, however, by sidestepping a traditional retail location such as a strip mall and opening your restaurant as a portable pop-up eatery instead.
One of the biggest advantages that pop-up restaurant ideas have over conventional brick-and-mortar commercial locations is that they give you the option of relocating your business if you picked the wrong retail space or the consumer market around your restaurant changes. Another benefit is that a mobile pop-up is normally less expensive to customize to your exact standards than it is to build a permanent structure.
