Will the cost of renting restaurant equipment save you money in the long run? The facts
One of the more complex yet common types of businesses to run is a restaurant, simply because the entire cycle of the restaurant demands different factors to please a customer. First off, you’ve got your service factor, which starts when they walk in the door and see the interior and ends when the hostess wishes them a good day when they leave.
Then, you’ve got different parts like cleanliness, appearance, variety in service, and more. However, a restaurant more or less always comes down to what is offered, how good the food is that is offered, and how fast it is brought out, and this all ties into having the best setup possible for your restaurant. If your dishes aren’t being done fast, then tables can’t be bussed properly.
If you don’t have enough equipment in the kitchen, the food cannot come out fast or be the best offered. A meal is only as good as the equipment used to make it and the chef who prepared it and giving that chef the advantage of good hardware gives your business the advantage of good service, bringing more customers to you.
That’s why examining the cost of renting restaurant equipment may be beneficial for you in the sense that purchasing equipment can lead you down some bad roads, especially if you’re a new business.
What is Leasing?
Leasing involves a contract that states that, for a set period of time, you pay flat monthly fees and you get all the equipment loaned to you for that period of time. Once the lease is up, you get options in the sense of whether you want to return the equipment, keep leasing it with an upgrade, or buy the equipment at a haggled price.
Leasing has quite a few advantages: it is a loan to you, but you don’t just pay it all off with an interest rate later. Instead, you get an easy, low payment plan, so you don’t have to deal with the stress of having debt pile on, you still get your equipment, and you pay it all slowly but surely in a way your business can easily handle, making the cost of renting restaurant equipment a low monthly rate.
In addition, you get tax deductibles for leasing equipment, putting money in your pocket every year, as well as the ability to upgrade your hardware over time. If you purchased the equipment, you’d have to deal with the inevitable fact that all equipment either becomes outdated or breaks to the point of beyond repair within a few years.
With leasing, you have incentive to take care of your equipment, but the hardware breaking isn’t as devastating as it is with purchasing, because if you purchased the equipment, all of your hard-earned money was spent for a short period of time. Purchasing does have its advantages as well; you get to claim equipment you buy as a business asset, giving you money towards the equipment, and there is no better feeling for a business owner than knowing they own all of the equipment.
Still, the likeliness of being forced to get a bank loan, the leap of faith you have to take that your equipment won’t become worthless that fast, and more just make it not worth the buy.
Examining the Cost of Renting Restaurant Equipment
Getting into the details of leasing, there are quite a few advantages to leasing, but there are disadvantages, and smart business owners need to know that some leases out there are not suitable for their business, and others aren’t suitable for any business. If you were shopping around for a particular product, you wouldn’t just settle on the first one you saw; you’d do some research to see what you want, make sure you’re not getting overcharged, and go with the best option.
The same is true with leasing, because too many business owners just go with the first lease and they find that the cost of renting restaurant equipment is too high in the long run and some of the parts of the contract were not satisfactory to them.
Before even looking for a lease, you should have a ballpark idea of what you want to pay, how long you want the lease to be, and what fringe benefits you’re hoping to get, and then don’t settle until you find the one you want.
After all, it is your restaurant; you only get to start it once, and you want to do so to the best of your ability, and a good lease accomplishes this. To learn more about the cost of renting restaurant equipment, click here.