Hi Pedro, SBA has resource partners like SCORE, Women’s Business Centers and Small Business Development Centers located across the country that provide free business counseling to individuals looking to start or expand a small business. Visit SBA Direct to find your local SBA resource partners by entering your zip code. Also consider checking out our SBAExpress loan program which gives small business borrowers an accelerated turnaround time for SBA's review. You will receive a response to your application within 36 hours. In addition, lower interest rates are often available to you when you apply through an Express program.   The Patriot Express Pilot Loan Initiative falls under our Express program which is designed for veterans and members of the military community wanting to establish or expand small businesses.

It is always difficult to obtain start up capital. You are a good canidate for an SBA Patriot Express Loan.  You'll need 30% or more to put down, a strong business plan, and someone on your management team that has restaurant experience hopefully at the management level. You'll also need some form of collateral whether it be CD, stocks and bonds, real estate or other. I would be happy to perform a FREE funding analysis to see what kind of funding is available to you.

Hi, Our site has good resources for loan inquiries. Check out this form to find financing for your small business. It provides a guide to programs for which you may be eligible. In addition, the SBA Loan Application Checklist will give you a great idea of what you need for loan applications and what lenders will ask you.         

Banks - even through the SBA loan guarantee programs - want to get repaid.  You have to show them how you are going to repay them.  And, it will not be from what you think you can earn in the future but from cash flow right now. If you don't have the cash flow right now to service a loan, you will have to get your family restaurant to either guarantee the loan, co-sign or put it in their name and let you run it as if it is your own. Or, get your family business to front you the cash and you pay them back from your operations.

If your family is willing to help you significantly, then the best way may be to use the existing family business to help open the new business.  In essence, if you have the 2 basic choices of your opening a new restaurant in a new location, or using the time in business of your family's restaurant, their cash flow, their gross sales, their credit, to help establish the new restaurant, it may be easier, or far easier to use the exising business.  As someone who wants to open their own business, it is not intuitive to do this. After all, a person in your situation may say they "want to get out on their own and run their own business" However, even though you have the ability to run the business and your family will help, etc. if you choose a location that has weak traffic, you may not be able to overcome this, or overcome this in time before funds run dry.      Starting a new restaurant is, in general, very difficult to get financed.    Questions of downpayment money, credit, research, type of restaurant, business plan, etc. will all be asked.    The lenders know the challenges and the success rate of this scenario.  However, if your family uses it's existing business to help you start your business, that is, uses their business name, 40 years ownership in restaurants,  and credit to help you, this may make the difference between getting it done or not.     If your family helped you in this manner, and opened another location, you can write a contract internally with your family to buy them out over a 5 - 10 year period.    If they want more, maybe they can take a precentage of sales for a period of time.  There are a lot of reasons to seriously consider this option.