I have no expertise in this area so feel free to disregard my opinion, but afaik being self employed in horeca is really hard. I guess it depends what your goal is. 

Do you have a life long dream of owning your own lunchroom or café?  Then it sounds like a decent opportunity. Are you wanting to do it to make money? There's plenty of better and easier investments to make 

What are you actually buying for 125k? Presumably just the assets. Surely they are worth less than that?! Sounds like the only thing that would actually be worth anything is the property but that is rented. Get a list of all of the assets from the makelaar and have a good look at that first.

They will probably suggest that there is so-called goodwill which is the equity in the name you are buying which suggests similar future profits. It’s BS and has near zero valuation unless the place is incredibly famous.

Also make sure you are not buying any open loans registered against the business.

You should get a lawyer to support you if you are really serious about buying.

Sounds like you are buying a job

That lunchroom does not generate money, why would you pay 125k?

Maybe 25k for the machines/inventory is a decent deal.

There must be much better ways to invest 100k than buying barely profitable business you have no experience of running.

I bet owner is happy that someone is willing to offer 100k for it, looks like he never earned that much in a year so will be a good retirement fund for him.

My recommendation would be: do NOT buy it. First of all you won't believe how much time this consumes. That will affect your personal life greatly. I had a partner at the time and we both had to pull 80 to 100h/wk. In this case you won't even be making any money. Maybe get into huge debts. Don't underestimate the monthly costs! Then there are rules, which are always challenging. Finding employees is a nightmare. It's your life, definitely would not recommend.

If you want to do some research on how the equity of a business is calculated, what decent cost are and profit margins, have a look at this crowdfunding site.

https://horecacrowdfunding.nl/

It shows lots of projects (also lunchrooms) that have been financed. You can also of course try and apply for financing through the platform, but by the looks of it you’ll need a bit more research on how to present that, before you apply.

Something to consider is the rent. Do you also take over the existing rental contract? Are there many years left on the contract?

Keep in mind that there is no protection on rent prices after the contract expires. So the owner could double the rent if they wanted to.

The owner salary is very very low. It says part time, but tbh I don’t really buy that. Nobody runs a restaurant in part time. You will have to be there 90% of the time from open to close, which will be 8 hours or more per day unless you have a very good manager. But with only 4 part time employees you certainly have none.

Do not buy it. At $125k, you acquire a lease, used equipment, old furniture, and a break-even operation. Find a business where your sole loss upon failure is your time and effort. While I dislike the hospitality sector (HORECA), calculate the cost of opening a new restaurant to benchmark the difference.

I recently bought a lunchroom/cafe in centrum Rotterdam and turned it into a specialty coffee shop ☕️. It's been running for two weeks. Here are my 3 big advices:

1. Since you are taking over a place and not changing the concept you should consider the asking price based on the profitability of the exisiting lunchroom. It sounds like the place is barely breaking even. That means your asking price should reflect that. I would look that the average income before taxes and depreciation (paper/fake expenses) over the last 2-3 years and then multiple that by 3 or 4 to get a reasonable asking price. Or you could valuate the assets you are obtaining to determine if the asking price is reasonable (there will be goodwill that will feel very high).

2. Understand the existing expenses. In horeca, your food/drink cost should be about 30% of your revenue ex. BTV. You could push that to 40% if you have to but that will eat into your profits. Rent should be about 10% of revenue. Wages should be somewhere around 35%. If the current businesses exenses are more than that then do an analysis of why that is and if you think you can make some changes early on to get into those ranges. (Ex. Raise prices, streamline hours, optimize food purchasing)

3. Systems. Systems. Systems. You don't have to spend your whole life at the shop if you sent up systems like technology, checklists, guidebooks, etc. This will make your staffs lives easier and your life easier. If you put in the work up front and train your staff on your systems, you don't have to work 80/hrs a week.

Bottom line: you can do this! Understand the existing financials and come up with a short term/mid term plan to improve them and have fun with it! My gut tells me 125k is too much to pay for something that's barely breaking even.

Honestly…. Dont do it until you’re fluent enough to at least be able to accurately read customer sentiment.

But mostly dont do it because you will most likely lose your friend over money things or lose employees over percieved preferential treatment

When i look at the numbers your biggest concern is going to be labour cost. You need to bring that down by working alot yourself. In hospitality the holy grail is 25% labour cost, some are also very happy with 30%. So let’s say 25-30% lanour costs. Now the business is above 30% even in the best scenario (350 revenue/120 labour costs)

Same goes when purchasing the goods you need to make your dishes and everything that is needed to present them or take away. We call that ‘inkoop’, has to be between 25-30%.

Rent, gas/electris bill, insurance combined need to be around 10% of revenue.

If you get those 3 things right you’re going to make money and have a decent income yourself.

Edit: at the moment the business is way overpriced at 125k if you ask me.

You are paying a premium for this goodwill. You mentioned that the business makes sales but that’s the only thing going for it. The net income varies greatly and it’s safe to assume that the business loses money as many years as it makes it. The margins seem to be very low and points towards flaws in the operations. This is a lot of work for a massive investment. You’ll end up working close to the number of hours per week that you dread in your first year, as it requires a whole lot revamp and strategical changes.

Do you have any experience in running a food business? Like dealing with suppliers, buying the right stuff, maintaining health & safety regulations? If the answer is no, don't do it.

How long is the rental contract, if it finishes next year and the rent price is doubled. Your investment is gone. If it finishes the year after your investment is still gone.

A few remarks on the financial side. Cost of labor seems a bit high. Usually it's around 30% of revenu

What is the gross margin. Should be at least around 70%. If lower its not very sustainable.

If it makes nothing it’s worth nothing. The value of a business is always some multiple of earnings before tax.

Also. How does 4 15-20 hrs part timers cost you 120140k a year ?

32k per employee so 2.7k incl aangifte. That's 45€ per hour.

Tell me how your lunch shop bangs 50 euro profit per hour ....

You’ll get a better ROI using the 100k to start a market food truck.

As someone who bought a restaurants assets and rental contract in bankruptcy:

You're so dumb already considering this, your business skills will kill this place in 2 years. Seriously , you wanna go allin to earn yourself a minimum wage job? You work there all the time for min wage and won't profit off of it as you're zero profits. Your initial investment will never be recouped!

Just by numbers: that place assets and goodwill is 25k max!!

Let her retire and throw it away as she doesn't find a buyer

This is one of the dumbest buyout proposals I've seen

You can flip brainded burgers at Mc Donald's for the same salary and your 100k in your bank won't make a 20k loss

Fun fact: my restaurant cost 70k more than we planned. My spa did cost 60k more than estimated and in my latest company we're almost 6 digits more currently . Whenever someone tells me they're planning, I'm laughing at estimates. Even experienced people like me get it wrong

I have worked in transaction services where we helped people buy and sell companies. Feel free to DM me if you have questions and are willing to share data.

From what I remember you also need training to get the license to handlefoodsafety etc.. not sure tho.

I would look into that aswell.

Consider this. Everything is ex btw (VAT)

Rent should be 5-10% of revenue to be considered healthy. Staff cost 25-35% is oke, depending on the type of horeca Cost of goods 20-35% depends on type of horeca. Margins can be really though in horeca, need to be on top of it and have a working concept.

I feel like the lunchroom you are looking at is not an healthy business.

Ignore the asking price, holds no value. Asking prices are always wild for horeca, a lot of room to negotiate. You should only pay for the assets that still have some value and for some goodwill. There is basically no buyers for existing horeca. You have a strong position to negotiate, but they will play hard. Just don’t cave in.

Yeah ask this on reddit on the most general sub. Maybe try linkedin instead?

I'm not an expert on restaurants but I do work in PE and value businesses on a daily basis.

Before looking at valuation you need to decide if this is right for you and your partner. Owning a business is not the same as working there. As an example, expect to put 2x the hours of your staff at a minimum for the first few years. Also expect to have to subsidise this business due to cashflow during some of the winter months (ie cash at bank won't pay salaries).

From a valuation perspective, as a gut feeling this is not worth more 50-60k as a cash opportunity. I think the 125 might be what they think it is worth at full potential but as you said it needs renovating, marketing spend, menu changes. You need to think of you spend 100k what do I get out?

From what I can see - min wage + max 10k in profit. At 125k you are better off just putting your 100k into a market tracker investment fund.

I guess the Bear pretty much describes what are you getting into :)

Run as fast as you can, unless you have strong experience with that kind of business from a management perspective (!), or you can partner up with someone who does. Alternatively, you have such a strong financial back that you can endure losses in the hundreds of thousands without a blink of an eye. Real profit in that area in managed through spreadsheets. Too many good restaurants have gone bankrupt because of a lack of true business orientation, and mismanagement where it counts.

Margins are tight, seasons are real, and everything has to be calculated on the eurocent.

It's not to put you down, it's just to highlight the risks associated with one's fantasy for good food and good hospitality, which are only a tiny subset of the overall. From the way you described your figures and good intentions, you're playing with fire.

Luckily, this subreddit is full of successful entrepreneurs giving the best possible financial advice for maybe the most important decision of your life. I don’t think these are any 15 year old teenagers giving you advice

The value of a business can be determined in several ways. Factors that go into it are the profitability, the potential for growth, the value of the assets (book value and economical value), and sometimes the location if it is extremely good and there is a lack of availability of good locations. I’m not sure if that is the case in Nijmegen.

To be honest, I’m not sure if this is a good buy at the price you mention as you’re saying that there is no profit and most of the assets are pretty much already written off.

As you have no previous experience running a business, I would recommend looking at taking over a franchise. You can probably find one with good financials and then you’ll have the benefit of a working business model and support from a franchisor to succeed. A quick search shows that there are several options in Nijmegen: franchises for sale on franchiseplus.nl

As someone who worked for decades in the hospitaltiy: Please don't.

How are you going to pay yourself if it is (at best) a break even place? Do you have a brilliant plan to turn this place more profitable? Because plans usually cost extra money, money you dont have.

My suggestion as someone who did this once is start out with a pop up or food cart at markets/festivals. You’d be surprised how much more you can make and need less staff. And then you can test your concept and decide if it’s something you want to continue to do in a more permanent site.

you're describing a recipe for a disaster if you ask me. I don't think it's a business opportunity sorry. If you like cooking and you think you can make a profit with your skills, try a food truck or a dark kitchen for food delivery. Here the management/business side is smaller (still very important) and you can focus more to drive value based on the skills you have. If you become successful, maybe then you can consider levelling up. Anyway restoration is a very very difficult market, the vast majority of inexperienced people that want to jump on "easy money" bleed to death in less than you think.

the good thing is that it looks like you're cautious enough and you're doing research on it. however, from your post it really shows you don't have a good idea on how a business like that operates.

All I can tell you (my partner used to own a bar) is that hospitality is very hard work for almost no reward.

Who will work for you when you're ill in the winter down time months - if you find someone, how will you pay them with probably sick staff around and limited revenue during that time?

Have you thought about never being able to be away/take time off during holidays when you probably expect high revenue and need to be open? There's no social life, my partner wasn't even able to say his goodbyes to his dying father on the other side of the country, because "work". No time or room to have a family of your own, every burden will be on your partner or will be night work- which will burn you both out.

Costs are never ending and keep popping up. Someone wrecks the bathroomon the weekend? There you are at Praxis on a Sunday morning buying new stuff and having to find and pay someone for a quick fix. Someone breaks in at night and steals supplies /casg from your safe, your problem unless you have paid some outrageous insurance premium.
Don't get long term sickness or disabled, insurance is mad costs.

Everyone will charge you premium for everything because you're a "hospitality" owner. Your business logo on your car? Car maintenance fee suddenly goes x4-5 of what it used to be.

I made him promise to never ever even think about starting any new business ever again

You should run your exact query through one of the AI engines, eg Grok/Gemini/Copilot. Every bit of information to help your decision making will help.

From a financial standpoint, this does not make sense. If you invest in index trackers, you historically average around 8% return per year. Some years are better, some are worse, but average is around there. That is without lifting a finger. It.would also give you an asset you can liquidate on short notice if necessary. That is not possible with a lunch room. The risk involved is also much, much lower, because there is no cost involved that can eat you into bankruptcy. Based on the numbers you provided it would make more sense to invest the money in an index fund and just work a regular job.

Is it located in the lange Hezelstraat? I know that's a busy street during summers, also during winter shopping since it has a lot of small specialised shops.

May I ask what's the reason for the breakeven 6 months part?

Reading your post you are mainly looking at the "positive" site.

You need to really consider the "what if" situations and how are you going to dealing with it.

For example you say that you make a profit for 6 months and break even for 6 months. What happens when you dont make a profit for 6 / 12 / 18 months. Do you have a plan for that?

Also you are presumably renting. What happens when the tent goes up or your lease ends or is terminated?

Restaurant are heavily regulated and the rules change often. What happens when you required equipment doesnt meet those new requirements. Also have you considered that the equipment might be old and need to be replaced soon?

You mention that the interior needs to be adres in the medium term. I would really try to get a more precise with this. For example you need to invest 50k in 5 year time. This gives you clear goals you can estimate if they are realistic or not.

Also considered that owning a business with employees has its own challenges. Have you considered if an employee gets sick for a long time.

I think you should really look at hiring a financial advisor or something similar to adres al these issues.

In summery you need to really consider al the options and how it affects the business and also how the business effect you privitly.

You are buying yourself a full-time job with some upside, not an investment.

Don’t. Just don’t. This will only succeed if you understand every single aspect of a business like this, which I do not think you do, as the rent alone should be enough to get you off of it.

The rent should be max 10-12% of the gross income, and the 12 only if you can increase the prices within 6 months to increase the revenue without killing the business.

If the guy is retiring and there is noone to take over the business, you have your anwer as to why already.

If you really are fixated on taking over this business, talk to the owner, and tell him you will only buy it through an owner-financed loan. Meaning, he will allow you to pay him a monthly fee until the loan is paid off.

Because of his age and nobody taking over, he is forced against the wall, meaning he will probably take it, as there is no other way for him to get any goodwill, which is pretty much all you are paying him, as the place is rented.

No own money, no lending from friends and family (please don’t ever do this for a restaurant or any horeca for that matter).

If you are able to get a seller financed loan, focus on a couple of things; getting the rent down. Talk to the owner of the RE, tell him that the rent currently is unsustainable and you either need a rent-deduction, or you will focus on buying a place. You can use the numbers of the company from the last years for that, or just survive for three years and then go buy a place. Even if he just renewed for 10 years, making clear as to where you stand makes it very important for your future; if you go bankrupt and stop paying rent for the last 4-5 months, your landlord will have a problem as well.

Long story short. Either go work for him, learn the ropes, and get him to ‘finance’ your take-over, or just let it go and look for a decent job.

I ran this through an AI as I thought it was an interesting scenario to test. I copy below the AI results in case it helps you. The text below was drafted by an AI so take it as something that needs factchecking and might be complete BS, still I thought parts of it may be useful to you.

“This is a classic "buying a job" scenario, common in the Dutch hospitality (Horeca) sector. As your analyst, I have looked at these numbers, and I see significant red flags in the valuation versus the financial reality. You are essentially paying €125,000–€150,000 for the privilege of working a job that pays €2,000 a month, with significant downside risk. Here is my breakdown of your three specific areas of concern, followed by a strategic assessment. 1. Margins, Costs, and Sensitivity Analysis In the Dutch lunchroom sector, the "Golden Formula" for a healthy business is generally: 30% COGS / 30% Labor / 30% Fixed Costs & Profit. The Current Reality (Based on your numbers): * Revenue: ~€325,000 (midpoint) * Labor (Staff): €130,000 (40%) \rightarrow High. This is a warning sign. * Rent: €45,000 (13.8%) \rightarrow Healthy. Generally, rent should be <15% of revenue. * COGS (Estimated): Standard lunchroom COGS (Inslag) is 28%–32%. * Result: You are left with very little wiggle room. To answer your specific question on impact: We need to calculate the Operational Leverage. Because your rent and permanent staff contracts are fixed costs, they do not decrease if you sell fewer sandwiches. Let's assume a standard 30% Material Cost. | Scenario | Revenue | Material Costs (30%) | Gross Margin | Fixed Costs (Rent + Staff + Utilities/Misc*) | Net Result (Approx) | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Current | €325,000 | €97,500 | €227,500 | ~€215,000 | +€12,500 | | -25% Drop | €243,750 | €73,125 | €170,625 | ~€215,000 | -€44,375 (Loss) | | +25% Rise | €406,250 | €121,875 | €284,375 | ~€215,000 | +€69,375 (Profit) | *Assumed €40k for utilities, taxes, insurance, and maintenance based on typical overhead.

The Insight: A 25% revenue drop does not simply reduce profit by 25%; it wipes out the business. Conversely, if you can optimize those 6 hours of operation or expand hours, the profit potential is high because your fixed costs are already covered.

1. Valuation and Negotiation The Asking Price (€150k) is likely inflated. In the Netherlands, small Horeca businesses are typically valued at 3 to 5 times the Annual Normalized Net Profit (plus the value of the inventory/equipment).
   • Current Net Profit: ~€0 to €20k.
   • Valuation based on profit: €0 to €100k (max).
   • Inventory: You stated it is "old." The owner is likely valuing the business based on a percentage of revenue (roughly 50% of revenue) or "Goodwill." This is outdated. You are buying a breakeven business with aging assets. Should you go through the Makelaar?
   • If a Makelaar is listed: You generally must go through them. Going behind their back is a breach of contract for the seller.
   • If no Makelaar: Talk directly to the owner. This builds rapport and allows for creative deal structures (see Section 3). Documents you must request (Due Diligence):
   • Jaarrekeningen (Annual Accounts): Past 3 years. Look specifically at the Resultatenrekening (P&L).
   • Loonstaat (Wage Tax Statement): To verify actual staff costs.
   • Arbeidsovereenkomsten (Employment Contracts): CRITICAL. In NL, when you buy a business, you legally inherit the employees and their tenure (Overgang van Onderneming). You need to know if they are on "vast contract" (indefinite) or temporary. You cannot easily fire them to cut costs.
   • Huurcontract (Lease Agreement): When does it expire? Does it index annually? Is the landlord willing to sign a new 5+5 year lease with you?
   • Inventarislijst: A list of all equipment included.
2. Financing Strategy Do not use a bank loan later. Dutch banks (Rabobank, ING, ABN AMRO) classify Horeca as "High Risk." A startup loan for an unemployed expat buying a breakeven business is nearly impossible to secure. If you use your cash now, you will be liquidity constrained later. The Strategy: Vendor Loan (Achtergestelde lening) Instead of offering €125k cash, structure the deal to de-risk yourself:
   • Offer: €120,000 Total Price.
   • Down payment: €80,000 (from your savings/family).
   • Vendor Loan: €40,000 to be paid to the owner over 3 years at 4-6% interest. Why this works:
   • It keeps €20k of your cash in your pocket for emergencies/renovations.
   • It forces the owner to be honest. If he knows the business is about to collapse, he won't accept a loan because he knows you won't be able to pay him back.
   • It bridges the gap between his asking price and your risk appetite. The "Analyst" Verdict The Opportunity: The 12:00–18:00 opening hours are the "sleeping giant" here. The previous owner was treating this as a semi-retirement hobby. If you open at 10:00 for coffee/pastries or stay open until 20:00 for early dinner, you could drive that +25% revenue scenario. The Risk: You are English-speaking in a customer-facing role in Nijmegen (which is friendly, but Dutch is preferred by locals). You are taking on staff you didn't hire, with machinery that needs replacing, in a business that loses money all winter. My Advice:
   • Do not pay €125k. The business generates no excess cash. The equipment is old. You are essentially paying €125k for the lease contract and the customer base.
   • Audit the Staff Contracts immediately. If those 4 employees have long tenure and indefinite contracts, they are a massive fixed liability.
   • Offer €90k - €100k. Frame it as: "The business is breakeven, I need to invest €30k in renovations immediately, and I need to cover losses this coming winter." Next Step for You: Would you like me to draft a list of specific Due Diligence questions (in Dutch and English) for the owner regarding the staff contracts and the lease, which are your two biggest legal liabilities? “

4000€ a week? I work at a cafe in Nijmegen and we get that in a single day, at least on the weekends. On busy days, easily more. Which lunchroom is it, out of curiosity? Doesn‘t seem like it is well run.

I ran a lunchroom here in the Netherlands before selling it this year. I'm happy to connect if I can help you. I'd say that is way too much given the financials.

Following with interest although I have no idea

Working hard for a net result of like 20k-40k is not worth it. The minimum salary is already like 24k per year netto. You do not OWN the real estate, so as an entrepreneur you do not build wealth there either.

Financially better work for Someone else with these expected results.

No experience in horeca, but business in general: you should only do smt like this if you have a plan on how to add value. Meaning increasing revenue and profits. Then on top of that, i have not seen mentioned the opportunity cost calculation. What if you would invest 100k cash elsewhere, one can assume a 4-7% return on that, meaning around 500/month already. Which then means your not really taking home 2k/month, but 1.5k after subtraction of said opportunity cost.

Same goes for your hours. If you would work elsewhere, what would you make?

With your current plan, it does NOT seem like a good deal.

Best of luck!

Rule number one. Never, ever borrow money from family

This turned into a thread with lots of interesting contributions, thanks for posting!

Honestly, owning a restaurant sounds like a fast way to lose money and get burnt out. Restaurants are usually not great business, low margins, seasonality, high complexity for the business size, etc.

Unless you really know what you are doing (i.e. already have extensive experience in horeca), have the correct business model and means to scale up the business, and have cash to burn, it sounds like a really terrible idea. Doubly so if you have to go in debt before you even start. From what I've read here, it sounds like you are way out of your depth on this one.

So I just went through the process of buying a business and I want to say that ChatGPT was my best friend and advisor. It can help you value a business and understand what a fair multiple would be. You can upload financial statements directly into a chat and ask ai what it thinks. It can debate with you as well. I also spoke with external advisors but it really felt like ai was my secret weapon in quickly understanding the business and what questions I should ask of the owner and what to be aware of. Some additional thoughts: for how long are you locked into a lease (this could be a liability). Do your employees have permanent contracts? Are you insured if they go out on sick leave? Negative cash flows mean you will be covering salaries out of your own pocket - do you have enough financial cushion for that? Good luck whichever way you choose to go!

You seem to have experience in neither business nor horeca. I dont see why you would set yourself up to fail like that.