Opening a Greek restaurant

Starting a restaurant requires MANY formalities to be met, among them:
- An experienced and certified cook (with "Meister" title) must run the kitchen (other helpers can then be without certificate). It takes at least 5 years to get the "Meister" title.
- The kitchen and all facilities that come into contact with food must be checked and certified as free of sanitary concerns. There will be irregular spot checks for this, too.
- All personnell having contact with food must regularly pass health and cleanliness checks.
- You have to register a business with the Gewerbeamt, get a tax number, register with the GST ("MWSt" in German) authority, keep your books properly (according to German regulations), submit tax declarations and pay all dues punctually.
- You also need a location that is approved for a restaurant (with potentially noisy patrons - therefore not likely in a residential area). You also need sufficient car park and appropriate toilets.
- And, last not least (as this can take a few months to get), you need an alcohol license if you intend to serve wine or beer.
In summary, starting a restaurant is not easy and I won't recommend it without very good German language skills and/or a local partner who has done it before. You also probably need to invest in rental deposit, renovation, kitchen refurbish, new furniture, marketing, etc. and still have enough to survive the initial 6-12 months of losses, until you either established a reputation and regular customers or close down again. This will take a few hundred thousand Euro.
Also, there are already plenty of Greek restaurants (although, in my opinion, only few good ones) in Germany. Finding a location far from such competition but with enough potential customers around it will not be easy!