What to Expect When Working With a Restaurant Consultant
I am going to be direct with you about this because I think most consultants sugarcoat it and that sets up a bad dynamic from the start. Here is what you should genuinely expect when you hire a restaurant consultant.
Expect to Be Wrong About Some Things
Not everything. You managed to open a restaurant, hire staff, build a bar, and keep the lights on. You have done a lot right. But some of what you have been doing is wrong, and a good consultant is going to tell you that directly. The most common version of this is the owner who has been working inside the same four walls for so long that they have stopped seeing what guests and outsiders see clearly.
When you are inside an operation every day, you develop blind spots. Things that used to bother you stop registering. The inefficiency in the service flow becomes normal. The menu that has not been updated in two years feels fine because you look at it every day. A consultant walks in with fresh eyes and sees all of it.
Expect Change — A Lot of It
The main thing a consultant brings is change. Not for the sake of change, but because if everything were working correctly, you would not have called. Change is the product. If you hire a consultant hoping they will confirm that everything is fine and just needs a little time, you are going to be disappointed and you are going to waste money.
The owners who get the most out of consulting engagements are the ones who come in genuinely open to change. Who say yes to recommendations and follow through. Who do not pick and choose only the suggestions that feel comfortable and ignore the ones that challenge their assumptions.
Expect the Consultant to Keep Learning Too
One of the things I tell owners that sometimes surprises them is this: after 24 years in the restaurant industry, I still walk into restaurants and see something done so well that I have never thought of it before. Good consultants are always learning. They are in restaurants constantly and they bring observations from other operations into your engagement. That cross-pollination of ideas is part of the value.
A Real Example of What This Looks Like
I worked with an owner recently who had retired from a successful career in another field and opened a restaurant. Smart person, zero restaurant experience. I told him early on that he needed to learn how his bar operated. Not that he needed to become a bartender, but that he needed to understand what was happening behind that bar well enough to manage it.
He said he did not have time for that. What he did not realize is that the bar was responsible for roughly 30% of his revenue, and by declining to learn how it operated, he was essentially putting a blindfold on for nearly a third of his business. If the bartenders I trained left, he would have no ability to train replacements because he had never learned the fundamentals himself.
The lesson: show up ready to learn. The consultant wants to teach you. The more you absorb, the faster the engagement ends and the less you pay in ongoing fees.
At 5 Loaves Restaurant Consulting, we cover staff training, bar programs, food cost, menu design, and everything in between — and we teach as we go.
Contact us for a free consultation.
5 Loaves Restaurant Consulting serves Connecticut restaurants including Torrington, Hartford, New Haven, Waterbury, Litchfield County and surrounding areas.
