This is what we would actually do, in what order, and what it costs.
No discovery call is required to see the number.
What we would go looking for
These are patterns that recur in hospitality and food service, written as things to
look for. They are not findings from a named engagement.
Theoretical food cost against actual, with the variance unexplained and unattributed by outlet.
Labor scheduled to a percentage rather than to forecast demand, producing simultaneous over- and under-staffing across dayparts.
Delivery platform and OTA commission absorbed into channel mix without a channel-level contribution view.
Wastage recorded informally, so the number reported is the number someone remembered.
Supplier rebates linked to volumes that are no longer achieved.
The sequence
Five weeks for one operating unit. More units run in parallel rather than in
series, so a group does not take five times as long.
Week 1
Intake and reconciliation7 requests written for hospitality and food service, alongside the 107 covering the operating spine. We tell you which findings the gaps will limit before any fieldwork starts.
Weeks 2–3
Full pass, not a sampleEvery outlet in scope is read rather than sampled.
Week 4
Quantification and challengeEach finding sized, and put to whoever owns it before it is written down.
Week 5
Report and walkthroughThe written report, ranked by annual value and by how hard each finding is to act on.
3 core requests written for hospitality and food service, inside the full intake.
Anything you do not have can be skipped with a reason — skipping narrows what the
review can conclude, and we tell you where before the work starts rather than after.
Revenue by outlet, daypart and channel
Food and beverage cost — Theoretical versus actual, with variance by outlet.
Labor cost as a percentage of revenue — By outlet and daypart.
If any of this is already happening
The review is always worth doing and rarely urgent. It becomes urgent when
something else is happening — and if one of these is, the sequence above compresses
to fit it.
A franchise renewal or a property improvement plan landing with a capital number attached to it
A minimum or tipped wage step, or a predictive scheduling ordinance
A site that lost money for a full year while the group percentage looked normal
A refinancing or a sale-leaseback, where four-wall margin per site is the first request
An aggregator commission change, or a menu re-price nobody modeled through to contribution
A general manager leaving, and the supplier relationships leaving with them
Who needs to be in the room
Signs it: Owner, managing director or group CFO
Will resist it: General managers and head chefs, whose site and outlet numbers become comparable — worth telling them what the
review is for before they hear it from somewhere else.
Has been asking for it: The operations director, who can already name the two sites
What it costs
Priced by operating unit — an entity, a location, or a business the accounts are
kept separately for. The second unit costs less than the first because by then the
intake is built, the chart of accounts is understood and the patterns are known.
Purchase order is the primary route — most
buyers this size raise a PO and pay against an invoice on terms. Card and bank
transfer exist for those who prefer them.