Normally, I would advise for a limited company. But if its a startup and you are not going to have instant turnover, I would advise registering as self-employed. You can, later on, register a company and transfer the ownership to Limited Company depending on how you got on with your forecasts. You need to thoroughly investigate and prepare a business plan which should include statistics of the same kind of business around your area, population analysis i.e., how many working and retired, How many people you expect to walk into the shop on normal working days and on weekends. What additional food and any niech product you can provide. Marketing budget including your website and how you can do local SEO. Then you need to concentrate on figures like sales and expenses. If it's not busy or you tend to believe you will get busy in tree months time its advisable not to hire people in the beginning. The big capital cost other than your shop purchase will be the renovation. Revenue cost will be salaries and advertisement. Most of the food business fail because of two major reasons. They are not well investigated before the start and second, they lose heart in the middle. As you have said in your posts its a front-runner, but I would advise otherwise. Do investigate and write a business plan with a budget and revisit your financials on weekly basis for the first six months to see the variances in your turnover and expenses. By the end of six months, you will come to know the shortfall just by looking at the daily takings.
