Episode Overview
In this solo episode, André Natera continues his two-part series on opening a restaurant with the practical work that happens in the weeks immediately before the doors open: pre-opening operations, mock service, and staff training. This is the period that determines whether a restaurant opens with confidence or opens in chaos. The decisions made here, how you train your team, how you stress-test your systems, and how you simulate real service before it counts, have a direct impact on the quality of the guest experience from day one.
He covers what a proper pre-opening timeline looks like, how to run effective mock service sessions that expose real problems rather than just confirming what you already know, and what staff training in the final weeks before opening should accomplish and how to know when your team is actually ready. It is a detailed, operationally focused episode for anyone preparing to open or overseeing an opening for the first time.
Topics covered in this episode:
- What the pre-opening period needs to accomplish before a restaurant is ready to serve real guests
- How to build and manage a pre-opening timeline that does not leave critical work for the last minute
- Running effective mock service sessions that expose real operational gaps rather than surface problems
- Staff training in the weeks before opening and how to know when your team is genuinely ready
- The most common pre-opening failures and what they reveal about preparation priorities
- How to manage the pressure and pace of the pre-opening period without burning out your team
- What a restaurant needs to have in place operationally before it opens to the public
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