ForumsStarting a Business

Hi,

I am new to this website, I just need some advice and hopefully someone can answer some of my questions.

I want to open a small family restaurant in Charlotte, N.C. I believe opening a restaurant near Ikea would help business with sales. I use to live in Texas and Ikea is a popular modern furniture store. Business surrounding Ikea was booming because everyone would go shop and then find a place to sit and eat. With Ikea coming to Charlotte, which will be open sometime this year or early next year, I want to start my business around that time. Right now, I am stuck on how to build this restaurant financially. So far, I know where I want the business, what type of business it will be (Thai/Chinese Restaurant), just stumped on the financial part. My family and I have talked about starting up the business. I have my mother-in-law and sister-in-law interested. They are willing to help, but my mother-in-law is 55 years old unemployed and has a pretty good credit history. My sister-in-law and I have bad credit, both working on temporary assignments right now for a staffing company. I assume the only thing we can do at this point would be to pay off our debts then go for a loan? Once we pay our debts does the credit score automatically go up or do we have to wait a few months? I heard that if we have bad credit, small business loan companies might be able to help? Are collaterals always involved in loans? We do not have any houses or cars paid off that would be considered for collateral. Are there any other companies besides banks and small loan offices that would be able to help us get a loan?