The Minimum Viable Plate: How Vanity Kills Haitian Restaurants Before They Even Open
There is a kind of romance to the idea of owning a Haitian restaurant. The warm glow of bouyon simmering on a back burner, the sharp scent of pikliz hanging in the air, the sounds of kompa drifting through a space that belongs to you. It is a dream soaked in nostalgia, in the ache of home, in the hope that a little storefront tucked between a barbershop and a laundromat can be more than just a place to eat—it can be a monument to culture.
But too often, that dream is not about business—it is about vanity.
Haitian restaurants, more often than not, do not begin as businesses. They begin as projects of pride, as monuments to self-image, as status symbols. We do not start them because we have studied the market, because we have tested the concept, because we have built a following that guarantees demand. No, we start them because we want to be seen. We want to own a restaurant the way some men want to own a Mercedes—as proof that we have made it.
And so, we skip the most basic rule of survival.
In software, the smart builder does not pour everything into a full-scale product on day one. Instead, they start with an MVP—Minimum Viable Product—the smallest, leanest version of their idea, tested in real conditions, refined through real feedback. It is the food truck before the restaurant. The catering service before the lease. The pop-up before the storefront. The MVP is humility made strategy—it acknowledges that success is not about what you want to build, but about what people will actually support.
But Haitian restaurateurs? We do the opposite.
We go straight for the 3,000-square-foot restaurant. We sign expensive leases in places where we haven’t sold a single plate. We buy industrial kitchen equipment before we know if we can sell ten meals a day, let alone a hundred. We spend more time designing menus than studying profit margins. We tell ourselves that if we build it, they will come.
They do not come.
Because a restaurant is not just food—it is economics. It is razor-thin profit margins, high failure rates, and relentless overhead costs. And in Florida, where Haitian restaurants multiply faster than they succeed, the saturation alone ensures that the unprepared will be swallowed whole.
But preparation is not what drives these ventures. Ego is.
Because if it were about success, we would start small. We would start lean. We would test, adapt, and grow. We would sell from home. We would host private, invite-only meals on weekends. We would build a customer base before we built a dining room. We would run an MVP, not a vanity project.
But a catering business does not look as good on Instagram as a ribbon-cutting ceremony. A food truck does not carry the same weight as a grand opening. A weekend lakay dinner does not impress the people we want to impress. And so we skip the step that matters most—proof. Proof that the concept works. Proof that the customers exist. Proof that the dream is sustainable before we pour our life savings into it.
The result? Another Haitian restaurant opens with ceremony and pride. Six months later, it is gone. Not because the food wasn’t good. Not because the people didn’t care. But because the foundation was never built to last.
History does not celebrate vanity. It celebrates survival. And for Haitian restaurants to survive, they must abandon the performance of success and embrace the discipline of strategy. Because the food is already perfect. The business model? That is where we fail.
