Private Limited vs Partnership vs Proprietership

How do you legally set up your restaurant company? You talk to an accountant and they will advise you - the trouble is that the advice may be more beneficial for the accountant than for you - i.e. they will try and make you set up a Private Limited company (the advice will be that in the long run it will help, especially if you get external investors - what they won't tell you openly is that you can always convert your partnership firm/proprietorship concern to a private limited company quite easily, if and when the need arises, )

For newbies, I would strongly urge you to launch your venture as a partnership firm or as a proprieter concern. Both of these options will cost you less, require very minimal paperwork upfront and more importantly very little compliance/reporting requirements on an ongoing basis. Plus for a restaurant business, there is nothing operationally that you can't do as a partnership firm/proprietership concern. As a private limited company, you will need to file annual returns and audit your finances - all of these cost you money and will require painful documentation effort - while you are focusing on getting customers and your business in order, the last thing you want to is to spend time with documentatiion.