Writing · 15 articles

What I learned running restaurant groups, written down.

Labor, prime cost, the management bench, growth, and the order the work runs in. Every article is on the RANGE site; this page keeps them in one list.

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Articles

Published on rangehospitalityadvisory.com, newest first.

September 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com Managers Own What You Have Said Out Loud Managers do not stop owning things because they stop caring. They stop when the ask is vague, the decision stays open, the hard talk is skipped, a gift card replaces an answer, and the first straight answer costs the person who gave it. Read on the RANGE site →
September 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com The First Ninety Days of a Fractional COO in a Restaurant Group What a fractional COO does in a restaurant group, told in order: the three questions a founder asks before day one, the week that produces a read and not a fix, the month every manager lands on one page, and day ninety. Read on the RANGE site →
September 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com Yesterday’s Guest Is Live Intelligence, Not Paperwork The recovery already happened and the next shift never heard about it. A ten-minute read before the doors open, every name and every open item, is the practice that separates a team that anticipates from one that reacts. Read on the RANGE site →
August 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com The Only Part of the Concept With No Spec Your build has drawings. Your kitchen has recipes. Your books have a chart of accounts. The reason guests come back has none of that, which is why it loses every argument it is ever in, to people who are all behaving reasonably. Read on the RANGE site →
August 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com Fast Growth Copies Everything, Including the Mistake Every new unit is a copy of the last one, and the copy is faithful: the standards you built on purpose and the workaround nobody approved. The groups that grow fast and survive find their mistakes faster than they replicate them. Read on the RANGE site →
August 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com The Best Site Will Take Your Best Operator The rent on an A site is knowable before you sign. What it will cost you in management attention is not on the term sheet, and it is the number that decides whether the location works. Read on the RANGE site →
July 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com The Opening Isn’t the Verdict. The Year Is. Opening numbers are still moving: a new team, a kitchen without its rhythm, a guest base full of first-timers. Log everything for ninety days, change carefully, and hold the verdict on the unit for a full year. Read on the RANGE site →
July 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com Fractional COO vs. Full-Time COO: Which Does Your Restaurant Group Need? The call usually gets made under pressure, after a bad quarter or a resignation. The comparison in one table, the readiness test that decides it, which role you need, what a wrong hire costs, and what the fractional role costs. Read on the RANGE site →
July 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com How to Choose a Restaurant Consultant (and When You Need One) Every consultant will tell you what they’d fix. Almost none will tell you what would have to be true for you not to hire them. A buyer’s guide: when you need one, how the fees work, and the questions salesmen can’t answer. Read on the RANGE site →
June 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com You Can Grind to Five. You Have to Build to Twenty. Five units run on the founder’s attention. Ten can’t. The operators who make it to twenty aren’t tougher than the ones who stall, they built something underneath themselves before they needed it. Read on the RANGE site →
June 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com A Full Room Is Not a Business Filling the room is a demand skill; making the restaurant profitable is an operations one. A full house hides the gap between the two until the P&L shows it. Where the margin leaks, and the weekend diagnostic that finds it. Read on the RANGE site →
June 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com How to Cut Restaurant Labor Cost Without Cutting Service A schedule built on feel does not survive a second location. Tie hours to volume by daypart, put your strongest people on the shifts that earn them, and labor comes down while the guest experience holds. Read on the RANGE site →
June 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com Restaurant Prime Cost: The One Number That Decides Whether You Can Scale Plenty of restaurants look profitable on a good month and fall apart the moment they try to duplicate it. Prime cost is the number that tells you which one you are, and whether the economics survive being copied. Read on the RANGE site →
June 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com Why Restaurant Managers Fail, and How to Build a Bench That Doesn’t The promotion is where most managers get lost. For a multi-unit group, the bench behind the role sets how many restaurants it can run. Read on the RANGE site →
June 2026 · rangehospitalityadvisory.com The RANGE Framework: How We Diagnose and Fix Multi-Unit Restaurant Operations What each of the five steps looks like in an engagement, why the order is fixed, and what goes wrong when one runs out of turn. Read on the RANGE site →

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