Operational knowledge for hospitality.
Practical writing on the numbers, standards and people behind independent hotels, restaurants, pubs and bars.
How to calculate restaurant food cost percentage
Most operators know their food cost. Far fewer know which number they are looking at, or how far it sits from the truth.
Read the articleCommercial Performance
What is a healthy restaurant gross profit margin?
Ask ten operators for a healthy margin and you will get ten answers. The better question is what margin your business needs to survive.
6 minute readHow to improve restaurant profitability without discounting
Discounting is the quickest way to fill a quiet Tuesday and the slowest way to build a business. There are better levers, and most of them are already in the building.
7 minute readHow to manage food and beverage profitability in independent hotels
In many independent hotels, food and drink is run as a service to the rooms. That is exactly why its margins are so hard to see.
7 minute read
Food & Menu Engineering
Menu engineering explained for independent restaurants
Your menu is the most important sales document you own. Menu engineering is simply reading it with the numbers switched on.
6 minute readHow to build a profitable drinks menu
The bar is often the most profitable part of a venue and the least controlled. A good drinks list fixes both at once.
6 minute read
People & Culture
How to reduce restaurant labour costs without damaging service
Cutting shifts is easy. Cutting cost without the guest noticing is a craft.
7 minute readWhy hospitality training fails and how to improve it
Hospitality spends a great deal of time training people and surprisingly little checking whether any of it worked.
6 minute read
Operational Standards
Restaurant SOPs: the essential operating standards
Every venue has standards. The question is whether they live in the building or only in the head of the person who wrote them.
6 minute readHow independent pubs can achieve consistent operating standards
A pub can be brilliant at four o’clock and chaotic at eight. Consistency is what turns occasional visits into a regular trade.
6 minute read