Salary
Average Salary: $46,360
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $1,935,437
When we think about how jobs reward us, we usually reduce the idea to a number. After all, pay is the one thing that you can directly compare between any job in any industry. Sometimes, however, compensation can be a bit more complex. As a managing restaurant owner, you'll need to weigh the benefit of entrepreneurship, self-governance, and freedom against the unpredictable mess that will be your paychecks for the foreseeable future.
A typical restaurant food service manager is making an average of $46,360 a year (source). But if you run your own joint, you can pretty much throw that out the window. When you start a business, you're in it for the long haul. Expect stretches of reduced (or even non-existent) salaries—especially at the beginning. According to a recent survey of restaurant owners, it took an average of eighteen months for their business to turn even a small profit (source). It doesn't take a business major to know that when your business isn't making any money, you aren't either.
An entrepreneur can rarely expect a constant salary unless things are going very, very well. If you do get to that point, statistics say you can expect to be earning anywhere from about $28,000 to $59,000 a year, but, again, take it all with a grain of salt—and as a food service manager, you should have a lot of shakers around from which to choose (source). There's no way a failing restaurant can afford to pay out even $25,000, while there's equally no way that the guy or gal running Tao Asian Bistro in Las Vegas is only making $46,000.