I have been accepted to Widener University and I have the option of Hospitality or Business Management. I know I want to work in the restaurant industries, and hopefully open my own restaurant one day. Widener has a fabulous business program. Their hospitality program is good too, they don’t focus on one career though, you have to go through hotel, restaurant, and theme park courses. I am not sure what major to go with. Obviously Business management will open my horizons for other jobs while Hospitality is very restricted. But I feel Hospitality management will better prepare me for a restaurant business. If you have any suggestions please help me out.
Hospitality may prepare you better for that next job that you know you want…but life is long and you would do yourself a favor to prepare more broadly for business - and specialize later. By interning and working in the restaurant business, and taking a hospitality class or two, you will get most of what you need for your immediate goals, and still have that broad business background that applies to anything you decide to do later. Open horizons is a good thing at the age of 18 so you don’t end up, at 28, wondering if you missed something important by specializing too soon. (Spouse and I are MBAs, by the way. We’ve worked in many industries and are glad for the broader, but highly transferable foundation we brought with us.)
Hospitality would be the best major for someone headed into the restaurant business because of the specialized coursework. Those other rotations will be useful for you too. Remember: hotels and theme parks have restaurants. Unless you are already working at a restaurant that you intend to return to after graduation, knowing about other aspects of the hospitality industry will give you more options for your future career.
In this case, I don’t fully agree with @happymomof1, which is rare. Here’s why: post #2 is absolutely correct regarding the OP’s first (few) position(s)in the restaurant industry. However, as noted by @N’s Mom, a career is a marathon not a sprint (and is likely to encompass near 45 years). What happens, to cite only one example, to the OP if he joins a first-rate restaurant chain (for example, Outback), does well, and is moved to a district office or to headquarters . . . but his knowledge/experience in several vital areas (finance, accounting, global marketing, supply chain operations, etc.) is deficient. Yes, he’s a proven and successful “pro” at the individual store level, but an amateur at the top-leadership level. And, not incidentally, those important business skills are also CRUCIAL in managing your own enterprise (restaurants have the highest failure rate of any start-ups, principally due to their owner/manager not doing well with the “larger” issues, particularly financial/tax matters).
Just adding on to what the others have said; if you can, you should try and do a major in business management and a minor in hospitality management because this will most likely give you everything you could want. It’ll give you the specialization and knowledge to run a restaurant as well as the knowledge if you are moved to a district office or to headquarters like TopTier said. Granted if you’re goal is to remain manager of only one or two restaurants and never move up past that then it really doesn’t matter but if you think you may ever want to manage many restaurants or move up to the corporate level, then major in business management.
If you 100% know that you want the restaurant business then hospitality management with a business minor may be the way to go. If you have any doubt and want more options open to you, then I’d go for a business major (perhaps with a minor in hospitality if that is possible).