Assessment of the Prospects for the Development of a New Format in the Restaurant Business on the St. Petersburg’s Market

The Bachelor Thesis is dedicated to assessing the prospect of opening a new format restaurant with the possibility of placing a restaurant on the St. Petersburg market. The purpose of the work is to analyze the restaurant market of Russia, as well as the city of St. Petersburg, with the subsequent preparation of a financial and marketing plan for the implementation of the above-mentioned project. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of research are used in Thesis. Quantitative method is statistical observation, interviews with the experts; qualitative methods of analysis involve benchmarking of competitors, direct observation, modeling of business situations and content analysis. This work will include macro- and microanalysis, which consists of a general analysis of the competitive environment with the identification of potential competitors of the project being implemented, analysis of external and internal factors that directly affect both the business sector under study and the project under analysis, as well as this research work involves the preparation of a subsequent business plan with the possibility of placing a restaurant in the market of St. Petersburg. The work includes all stages of project planning and implementation, including marketing calculations, financial calculations, the organizational structure of the enterprise, where there is information about staff, equipment, location, product matrix, and so on. As a result of the research, it was proved that the opening of a fast-casual seafood restaurant is promising, both from a marketing point of view and from a financial point of view. At the moment, there is a trend in the fast-casual format in the food market. According to a study by NPD Group since the end of 2017, the segment's share in the restaurant market has increased from 1.5% to almost 5% and will grow more in the coming years. For comparison, in the UK and the USA, where fast casual is developed, its share is already more than 10% [Belih, 2019].