Restaurant S-Corp using DBA?

[Nate23]

My wife and I are building a business plan to start a restaurant in Southern California. I've been a restaurant operator my whole life and have the financials of the restaurant business down, excluding a few things like payroll taxes, etc with which I have my hands full with some booklets.

After much research and debate we've decided on an S-Corp however one thing remains uncertain. Should we use a general name for the S-Corp and then a fictitious name for the restaurant or should the restaurant name and the S-Corp name be the same?

For example, if we wanted a sandwich shop named ABC Sandwiches should we just incorporate as ABC Sandwiches? Or would it be better off to incorporate as ABC Restaurant Group and file a fictitious name for ABC Sandwiches.

I guess my main reasoning behind doing the ladder would be that if we wanted to open XYZ Ice Cream Shop we could put it under the same S-Corp.

Is this what restaurant groups normally do? And are most restaurants actually doing business as a fictitious name while operating under some type of incorporation?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Nate

[MyITGuy]

Depends on what your future plans are, and the risk associated with each.

I.E. One Restaurant - Incorporate as the restaurant name since you would only have the one risk based business. I.E. ABC Sandwiches, Inc.
Two or more restaurants - Incorporate a Parent/Holding Company, Then incorporate each restaurant individually with or without a DBA. I.E. Parent Holdings, Inc. would own ABC Sandwiches, Inc. with/without a DBA of DEF Sandwiches and XYZ Ice Cream Shop, Inc. with UVW Ice Cream Shop as a DBA.

My thoughts on a holding company and separate incorporation for each venture would be to reduce your risk. If several customers get sick at ABC Sandwiches and decide to sue, you don't want them to go after assets tied to XYZ Ice Cream Shop.