Thousands of foreigners run successful restaurants in Spain – and every one of them will tell you the same two things: it is absolutely doable, and it is not the same as running one at home. The sunshine is real, the market is real, and so are the paperwork, the labour rules and the cultural […]
Due diligence is the unglamorous fortnight that decides whether your Spanish restaurant purchase becomes a great story or an expensive one. Nothing about it is complicated – it is a list, worked through methodically with a lawyer – yet it is precisely the step that impatient buyers compress, skip or delegate to the seller’s reassurances. […]
The asking price is never the whole price. Between the figure on the listing and the moment you serve your first customer sit taxes, professional fees, deposits, licence costs and the working capital that keeps you alive until the business pays you back. Buyers who budget only for the headline number either abandon deals mid-way […]
On the Costa del Sol, location is not one factor among many – it is the business model. The same tapas concept that thrives beside Estepona’s old town flowers would starve on an urbanisation backstreet, and a beach bar’s August cannot rescue a pitch that sleeps eight months a year. With over 300 days of […]
The moment word gets out that a restaurant is for sale, the business starts to change. Staff quietly update their CVs and the best ones leave first. Suppliers tighten payment terms. Regulars ask awkward questions at the bar. Competitors tell everyone the place is failing – whether it is or not. And nosy “buyers” with […]
In Spain, the licence is the restaurant. A beautiful venue without the right permits cannot legally serve a coffee, put a table on the pavement or play music after midnight – and fixing licence problems after purchase can take months, cost tens of thousands of euros in works, or prove impossible in that building. Yet […]
“What is my restaurant worth?” is the question every seller asks – and “is this price fair?” is the question every buyer should. In Spain the answers confuse newcomers, because two venues of similar size on the same street can be listed at €70,000 and €400,000 and both be correctly priced. The explanation is that […]
Bars are the entry point of the Spanish hospitality market: lower traspaso prices than full restaurants, simpler operations, and – on the coast – an endless supply of dreamers ready to buy one. That last part is the problem. Because demand from first-time foreign buyers is constant, the bar market attracts more optimistic pricing, more […]
Browse restaurants for sale in Spain and you will immediately meet a word that has no clean English translation: traspaso. Some listings say “traspaso €90,000”, others “freehold €790,000” – for what can look like similar venues. Understanding the difference is the single most important piece of knowledge for anyone entering the Spanish hospitality market, because […]
Buying a restaurant in Spain is one of the most exciting moves you can make – and one of the easiest to get wrong if you treat it like buying a house back home. The Spanish hospitality market runs on its own logic: most venues change hands as a traspaso (a lease and business transfer) […]
A traspaso is how most restaurants and bars change hands in Spain. Here is what it actually means and what you are paying for when you sign one.
