The pre-opening budget most first-time operators find out they needed too late.
A four-tab Excel model for opening a bar, restaurant, or music venue. Full pre-opening capital budget, a monthly operating model, and a break-even calculator that tells you how many covers a night you actually need.
Most opening budgets miss the same things: rent during build-out, the cash reserve that funds losses until break-even, and a contingency that survives the first change order. This model puts all three on the page by default, then shows you the covers-per-night the plan implies. It is more useful for telling you a deal does not work than for telling you it does.
Every line it takes to get the doors open, grouped into build-out and construction, kitchen and bar equipment, furniture and tech, licenses and professional fees, pre-opening operating costs, and working capital. Budget against actual with a live variance column and a status field per line.
A monthly P&L driven by covers, average check, and the cost percentages you set once at the top. Prime cost, labor, occupancy, and EBITDA all recalc from the assumption block, so you can test a slower ramp without rebuilding anything.
The number that matters: covers per night to break even, and how far that sits from your plan. Preloaded conservatively on purpose, 149 covers to break even against a 165-cover plan, so the model argues with you rather than flattering you.
A walkthrough of which cells to change first, what the blue inputs mean, and the three assumptions that most often turn a workable plan into a closed room.
Vendor payments, approvals, W-9 collection from every contractor on the build-out, and a QuickBooks sync that keeps your chart of accounts clean from day one instead of a year in.
See Cleo Pay for new venues