What Questions Should I Ask a Restaurant Consultant Before Hiring?
I get calls from restaurant owners across Connecticut who have never worked with a consultant before and are not sure what to ask. That uncertainty is understandable. Hiring a consultant is a real investment of time and money, and making the wrong choice means wasting both. There are two questions that matter more than anything else, and if you ask them clearly and listen carefully to the answers, you will know very quickly whether the consultant in front of you is the right fit for your specific situation.
Question One: What Is Your Background?
This is the most important question you can ask. Not because experience automatically makes someone a good consultant, but because the type of experience matters enormously depending on what you need.
If you are a full service restaurant struggling with front of house service and you hire a consultant who has spent 45 years in fine dining kitchens, you have a mismatch. That consultant may be brilliant in their area of expertise but completely wrong for what you actually need. Ask specifically: have you done what I need? Have you trained servers? Have you built cocktail programs? Have you managed food cost in an operation like mine? Have you hired and terminated staff in a restaurant environment?
At 5 Loaves Restaurant Consulting, our background covers every role in the restaurant from busboy to owner. We have worked every station, built menus from scratch, trained bar staff, hired and fired, managed food cost, run kitchens, and managed dining rooms. That breadth matters because restaurant problems rarely live in just one area of the operation.
Question Two: What Will You Actually Do for Me?
This question separates consultants who advise from consultants who act. There is a real and meaningful difference between a consultant who builds an action plan and then works alongside you to execute it, and one who hands you a document and tells you what to do.
Both models have their place. If you are an experienced operator who just needs a fresh set of eyes and some specific guidance, a more advisory approach might be exactly what you need. If you have limited experience and need someone to actually train your staff, build your systems, and show you how things work in practice, you need a hands-on consultant who will be in your restaurant doing the work with you.
Be honest with yourself about which one you need. If you have no experience training servers and a consultant offers to tell you how to train them but not to actually do the training, that is not the right fit for your situation. You need someone who will stand on your floor and run the training with your actual staff.
Ask the consultant specifically: will you train my staff hands-on, or will you provide guidance for me to train them? Will you build the systems or advise me on what systems to build? The answer tells you everything about whether the engagement will produce real results.
The Follow-Up Questions Worth Asking
Beyond those two primary questions, a few follow-ups are worth asking. How do you measure success? What does a typical engagement look like week to week? Have you worked with restaurants like mine, in markets like mine? Can you give me an example of a specific problem you solved for a previous client?
A consultant who can answer these questions with specific, concrete examples is a consultant who has actually done the work. Vague answers about general philosophy are a warning sign.
At 5 Loaves Restaurant Consulting, we are happy to answer every one of these questions in detail before you commit to anything. The first conversation is free and there is no pressure. We want you to be confident that we are the right fit before we start working together.
Contact us for a free consultation — no commitment, no pressure.
5 Loaves Restaurant Consulting serves Connecticut restaurants including Torrington, Hartford, New Haven, Waterbury, Litchfield County and surrounding areas.
