Most people know someone who has toyed with the romantic idea of running a restaurant. Some go ahead and do it and even with the right combination of skills and resources restaurants fail. John McKenna, food writer at The Irish Times, has probably eaten in more restaurants then the rest of us have had hot dinners and he has written a slim volume, How to Run a Restaurant, about how to succeed in this difficult business.

Published by Estragon Press at £7.99, McKenna's book would be a useful stocking filler for any budding restaurateur. It's different to the usual nuts-and-bolts approach, assuming that the basics are already in place. This is more a book about successfully stage managing the whole show.

"There is no mystery as to why people want to run restaurants and why people want to eat in them," says McKenna. "A restaurant running at full speed, with staff engaged, customers happy, atmosphere bristling, food flowing seamlessly from kitchen to table, is a beautiful sight, a sublime enchantment, for all concerned."