準備中って英語でなんて言うの？

For a restaurant, 'preparation' before opening is extremely important. There are several reasons why the restaurant has to 'get prepared' or 'get ready' before opening. Firstly, the kitchen staff must make the ingredients for the menus readily available. Secondly, the cleaning staff must make sure that the tables are clean and the floor is sparkling clean. Lastly but not least, the cashiers must also make sure that there is change in the tills. So the door sign may read as follows: We are just getting ready, we will be open in 5 minutes. or We are just getting prepared. We will be open at 8.00 AM.

When a restaurant is closed it is common to either see a sign explaining why they are closed. In this example the restaurant is closed because the chefs are preparing the food for service. The second example shows the time of reopening and the reason why the restaurant is closed. Some places may even have the entire weeks opening hours on a small sign in the window. In the UK it is common to have a simple open/closed flip sign in the window and maybe to the side, an opening hours sign.

If there is a restaurant or shop that will be opening for business soon, it has never opened before it is common to see a 'Coming Soon' or 'Opening Soon' sign. This means that the shop is getting ready, having furniture installed and so on and will be open at a later date. If the shop is normally open for business but just not yet on that day, it is normal to see restaurants and shops put their opening or trading hours on the door or window. So, in English you will not often see a sign saying that a restaurant is making the food but not yet open for customers.

This is not common practice where I live, so I think people would be confused by the sign. "We are preparing" makes sense but I think since it is not common people may not understand. "Opening soon" could work also, but normally that means the shop is opening in a few days. I think "About to open" is the best option.

準備 literally means "preparation", and 準備中 means "in the middle of preparing." This, however, doesn't translate well into English, as our typical signs are usually just "open" / "closed" / "be back in ____ mins", etc. A good way to phrase it is "opening soon," which implies that the restaurant staff are preparing to open the restaurant at a later time. "Preparing to open" is another way to say 準備中 but is a bit long for a sign in English.

We have recently bought a restaurant and we have closed for a week to refurbish it and reopen. We have two signs in our window at the moment! Under New Management - we use this because we want everyone to know that there are new owners and therefore it will be better than before. New Store Coming Soon - this tells people that this store is going to offer new products or cuisine. The other most commonly used sign you will see in a closed store is "Opening Soon" - this lets customers know that it wont be long and there will be a fresh new store to visit.