Typically I was sent to one office which then sent me to another. Take a ticket and wait. After a 15-minute wait my number came up, I went in, and I was told to go to a completely different department. That department's door was locked but an atypically friendly woman (she doesn't normally deal with the scum who are forced to visit the KVR directly) brought me to a room next to the room which was locked. In it a friendly blind guy who started 'splainin stuff to me that I already knew.
I was able to save him a few breaths and within 20 minutes had the basic information I needed.
How to start a restaurant in
1) If you plan to serve alcohol, you need a Gaststättenerlaubnis (Public House Permission) which can only be issued to a specific person and specific bar at a specific location. No booze, no worries... but no booze, no chance. I need this one.
2) Even if you're taking over a place which already serves booze, you gots to get the permission slip.
3) Put up a new building and you're in a world of hurt, especially since you must provide at least one parking spot for each 10m² of space you have including storage rooms, kitchen, bar, bathrooms, basement... all of it gets added up. This is an 850-year-old city. There are no existing places to put cars let alone new places.
4) You have to go to the police and pay €10 or so for a damned print-out to prove you're not a bad boy, or that if you are a bad boy, you're no longer bad enough that the police are terribly interested in you. I was able to stop the blind guy's spiel here with a brief comment and cut him off a second time telling him, "not even a single point on my driver's license". Despite being unable to see my Sideshow Bob hairstyle he sounded surprised.
5) If you're serving alcohol you have to go to the IHK and take a full-day "running a restaurant" course. The IHK is more or less the Chamber of Commerce. The content of they "teach" is the reasons that 80% of restaurants fail. Perhaps not the content but the fact that people actually listen to their barely post-mercantilist bullshit which includes advice to jack up the price on anything popular and even better advice not to ever comp anything. EVAR!1!!11!1shiftone. Because that's giving profits away.
I know the contents of the "course" -- everything from employment methods to pricing policies -- and they're all fucking wrong. That shit might've worked here 30 years ago but no one who wants to survive in the modern world gouges customers. They still think first in terms of entitlements and the Industrial Revolution-era thinking about "management versus employees", a long-dead mindset in most currently successful businesses. But I'm required to go there and do this.
6) Business license. Fair enough, and the price is only €40 for real humans or €50 for fictional humans (a.k.a., businesses).
7) Are you a forinjer? You have to sort out a load of paperwork in a completely different section of the KVR but I've long since done that.
8) Another class! This one is a 3-hour "course" at the Health Department but worse, it has to have been completed it within 90 days prior to the application for everything else. Apparently it's so stupid that on day 91 people have forgotten "Wash your hands", "Don't leave broken eggs and ground beef out overnight" and "Don't smoke in the kitchen."
9) The place must be inspected by a building inspector.
10) The place must be inspected by a health inspector.
11) The place must be inspected by an is-it-safe-to-be-a-bar/restaurant inspector.
12) There's a one-time fee of more than €12/m² of total area (including kitchen, bathrooms, storage, broom closet, etc.) giving the city even more incentive to help businesses in their quests fail.
13) You have to close between 5:00a.m. and 6:00a.m. for "cleaning time" whether or not the damned cleaning woman actually comes at 9:00a.m. when there's no one actually there. I know Burger King has gotten around this one so there have to be exceptions and they're no doubt expensive.
14) New place? Barrier-free. Doesn't matter if no one in a wheelchair would set foot in your place (so to speak). And "barrier-free" rules in Germany are sillier than those in the US.
15) Boys' and Girls' bathrooms and a separate employee toilet. With a sink inside. Hands must be washed before opening the door (never mind that the door handle is the same one the dirty hands touched while going into the room). this one's a no-brainer; I've screamed at idiot personnel for being lazy and walking into customer area cans. It just looks bad.
16) Proof of financial capability
17) Registration with the Chamber of Commerce.
And that's only the start.
This cake needs icing? No problem. It takes at least two weeks to schedule an inspection which can only be done once the lease has already been signed, and gettig a tentative lease with an exit clause should the inspection fail is impossible here. One faces paying at least one month (and more likely two or three) of astronomical rent costs before the doors may be opened to earn the first penny.
What the hell am I thinking?
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