The arithmetic is the same. Almost nothing else is.
Cash margin, sales mix and plate cost behave identically wherever you trade. What changes is the constraint you are engineering against: a pub kitchen at 900 covers, a Rosette kitchen where the spec cannot move, a college contract priced per head two years ago. Here is how the work differs.
The four sectors
Pubs and gastropubs
High volume, fresh food, a wide menu and a wet trade that hides food problems in the headline GP. Where a point of food cost is worth the most in absolute money.
Ryan ran food across seven pub sites, each over 800 covers a week.
Pub menu engineering 02 / Multi outletHotels and country houses
Several food operations under one roof, each with a different margin profile, and a kitchen brigade whose standards you cannot compromise to save forty pence.
Two spells at The Peacock at Rowsley, a 3 AA Rosette kitchen.
Hotel menu engineering 03 / ConcentratedRestaurants
A shorter menu, so every dish carries more weight and a single badly costed item moves the whole month. Nowhere to hide a dog.
Built The Lilypad's kitchen and menu from scratch.
Restaurant menu engineering 04 / Fixed priceContract and education catering
Fixed price per head, a captive audience and a contract written before the last two years of food inflation. Margin has to come from the specification, not the price.
The Lilypad ran within Chesterfield College Group. Ryan now lectures in professional cookery at the University of Derby.
Catering menu engineeringPrefer to start from the menu rather than the kitchen? See menu profitability by section: breakfast, starters, lunch, mains and desserts.
Not sure which of these you are?
Most multi site operators are two or three of them at once. The first conversation is free and it costs you twenty minutes.