Many people here saying something to the effect: "What a fool, going into this sort of thing without knowing much about the industry."
What would be the best way for someone to learn about the restaurant industry and gain the experience needed to open a restaurant without quitting a (non-restaurant) day job? [to work more hours at restaurants, etc]
There is no way to learn without actually doing it.
If you want to experince it, sign up as a dish washer, evening shifts. They start after day shift work hours, and while you will get wet and sweaty, you will see what goes on in a kitchen.
It wont give you the experience to purchase a restaurant, but it will give you an inside.
If you want to go further, after a few weeks, tell the chef's you want to learn to cook. Ask about prep specificly, you will hopefully get a few shifts to prep vegetables before the dish shift.
Why prep and not cooking? Because you can't cook without knowing the basics of the produce. Give it a few months and you will hopefully be able to cook on quiet days.
Now this may all sound dismissive, but I don't mean it to be. I have trained up one of my kitchen hands (fancy for dish washer), from there to the point where I took him on as an apprentice and he was able to proove competency to finish his first two years in as many months.
What would be the best way for someone to learn about the restaurant industry and gain the experience needed to open a restaurant without quitting a (non-restaurant) day job? [to work more hours at restaurants, etc]