Strategy & Consultancy for Hospitality, Food & Drink — The Practitioner’s Playbook.

SectionThe honest reframe most consultancies won't tell you

Generic consultancies sell restaurants, gastropubs, hotels, and B&Bs the same pre-printed strategy deck they sell every other category. Vision, mission, values, four pillars, sixty slides, a target operating model that reads as if it were written by someone who has never stood behind a pass at 8.30pm on a Saturday. Then the operator wonders why margins keep compressing while the OTA commission line creeps up another point and the wet-vs-dry mix drifts further from the model that made the site work in the first place.

Hospitality is not "the restaurant industry" or "the hotel industry" at the strategy level. It is a tight set of margin-engineering decisions that compound or destroy each other quarter by quarter — direct-vs-OTA channel mix where 15-20% Booking.com or OpenTable commission compounds across every cover and every room-night; wet-vs-dry sales mix where drink margin (65-75% GP) subsidises food margin (60-68% GP) and a 5-point shift either way changes the entire P&L; private-hire and events margin contribution that most operators never separate from main-trading; hotel ADR and RevPAR yield management that turns a good week into a great one or a great week into an average one. A strategy deck that does not separate these is a deck that cannot be acted on. A consultant who has not modelled the difference between a £42 GP cover at 70% direct booking and the same cover at 30% direct booking — or the difference between a single-site optimised gross margin and a three-site rollout where overhead doubles before the third site stabilises — is not advising you. They are renting you a logo.

This playbook fixes the structure. Channel-mix economics are the lens. Wet-vs-dry margin engineering is the lever. Yield management, productised packages, and exit-positioning are the compounders. Read it, run it yourself, or have us ship it on retainer.

SectionThe eight-point audit we run on day one

Score your own commercial strategy red / amber / green this week.

1. Direct-vs-OTA channel mix economics — A documented economic model of every booking channel: direct (website, phone, walk-in), OTA (OpenTable, Booking.com, Tripadvisor, ResDiary), aggregator, third-party reservation platform. OTAs typically take 12-20% commission per cover or room-night and that commission compounds across the year. An operator running 60% OTA mix on a £45 average cover is handing over £5.40 per head before food cost, before labour, before rent. Most operators have never modelled the gross-margin lift from a 10-point shift toward direct booking — and the marketing investment that shift would justify.
2. Wet-vs-dry sales mix engineering — A live model of food (dry) vs drink (wet) revenue split per session, per day part, and per site. Drink GP runs 65-75%, food GP runs 58-68%, and the right wet-vs-dry mix is the single biggest lever on site profitability after rent and labour. Most gastropubs we audit are running a wet-vs-dry mix two to four points off the optimum because the menu engineering, the upsell scripting, and the drinks-led promotion calendar were never separated from the food strategy.
3. Private-hire / events / catering margin contribution — A separate P&L for private hire, events, weddings, corporate bookings, off-site catering, and pop-ups. Each carries materially different margin economics: a £4,500 wedding deposit is high-margin trade compared to a £2,200 Tuesday lunch covers session, but most operators treat them as one revenue line and miss both the over-pricing risk on private-hire and the under-pricing risk on weekday trading. Without a separated P&L, no commercial decision on capacity allocation is defensible.
4. Hotel ADR / RevPAR yield management strategy — For hotels, B&Bs, and rooms-led operators, a documented yield-management strategy with seasonal rate cards, length-of-stay rules, midweek-vs-weekend differentials, advance-booking incentives, and last-room availability premiums. ADR (average daily rate) is a vanity metric without occupancy; RevPAR (revenue per available room) is the truth-telling metric. Most independent operators we audit are leaving 8-15% RevPAR on the table because their pricing is static across the calendar and their OTA inventory is opened indiscriminately during peak windows.
5. Multi-site expansion vs single-site optimisation — A clear-eyed decision on whether the next twelve months should be spent rebuilding the unit economics of the current site or rolling out a second/third site. Multi-site rollout doubles overhead before the new site stabilises, splits founder attention, and frequently destroys the margin that made the original site fund the rollout in the first place. Single-site optimisation typically delivers 6-14 points of EBITDA uplift on the existing footprint without the capex risk. Most operators chase site count when site quality would compound faster.
6. Staff economics (tronc / minimum wage / National Living Wage compression) — A modelled labour cost stack that names the impact of National Living Wage upratings, tronc allocation rules, hours-per-cover ratios per site, and the wage-compression effect at the supervisor / sous chef / head chef tier. Every NLW uplift compresses the gap between trainee and senior pay, and most operators absorb it without rebuilding their labour cost model. The result is supervisor pay drift, retention failure, and a labour line that creeps from 28% to 33% inside eighteen months.
7. Productisation of tasting menus / chef's table / packages — A productised set of fixed-price packages: chef's tasting menu, chef's table experiences, set lunch menus, drink-pairing packages, afternoon-tea packages, group-booking packages, hotel-stay-with-dinner packages. Productised offers convert faster, command premium pricing, simplify kitchen mise-en-place, and reduce service-time variance. Most independent operators we audit are running everything à la carte with bespoke pricing on group bookings — leaving 15-25% of potential top-line on the table and absorbing the operational cost of bespoke every night.
8. Exit-positioning + EBITDA multiples — A documented exit-positioning strategy that names the buyer profile (multi-site operator, private equity roll-up, family office, strategic acquirer), the EBITDA multiple range you would target, and the operational and contractual changes that move the multiple from 4-5x toward 7-9x. Independent hospitality operators typically sell at 4.5-6x adjusted EBITDA; the operators who position deliberately, clean up the lease structure, separate the property, and build a documented operating manual sell at 6.5-9x. Most operators do not start the positioning work until twelve months before the conversation, and then it is too late.

Three or more reds — fix the strategic foundation before any new spend, hiring, or rollout.

SectionSix productised deliverables we ship per cycle

Direct-vs-OTA channel mix economics. A written channel-mix economic model that names every booking channel you operate, the commission cost per cover and per room-night, the marketing cost-per-acquisition required to shift mix toward direct, and a phased plan to lift direct booking share by 8-15 points over twelve months. Includes a scenario table showing the gross-margin uplift at each shift and the marketing investment payback period. Lifts gross profit £30k-£90k per £1m of revenue without a price increase. Time to first signal: 60 days.

Wet-vs-dry margin engineering. A live wet-vs-dry analysis with menu engineering, drinks-list rebuild, upsell scripting, and a session-by-session promotion calendar that targets the optimal mix for the site type. Includes a kitchen-and-bar SOP rebuild, a server upsell training plan, and the GP target per category. Typically lifts blended GP by 2-4 points, which on a £1.2m gastropub is £24k-£48k of EBITDA in-year. Time to first signal: 45 days.

Private-hire / events / catering margin strategy. A separated P&L for every non-main-trading revenue stream, with pricing rebuild, deposit-and-cancellation policy, capacity-allocation rules, and a productised events pack covering weddings, corporate bookings, milestone celebrations, off-site catering, and pop-ups. Identifies the two or three event types where the operator is over-discounting and the two where the operator is under-pricing relative to local-market benchmarks. The strategic shift from accidental events trade to deliberate events trade.

Hotel ADR / RevPAR yield management. A documented yield-management strategy with seasonal rate cards, length-of-stay rules, advance-booking incentives, last-room premiums, OTA inventory release schedules, and a weekly review cadence. Includes a pricing playbook for the front-of-house team and a quarterly competitive-set RevPAR benchmark. Lifts RevPAR 6-12% without capex by repricing the calendar that already exists.

Multi-site vs single-site model. A modelled comparison of the next twelve months under two scenarios: deliberate single-site optimisation (margin rebuild, productisation, channel-mix shift, labour rebuild) vs second-site rollout (capex, ramp curve, overhead absorption, founder-attention split). Names the operational and financial conditions under which rollout makes sense and the conditions under which it destroys value. Most founders we work with discover the optimisation case is worth 18-30 months of runway before rollout becomes the right call.

Productisation of tasting menus / chef's table / hotel-and-dinner packages. A documented set of productised packages with fixed pricing, fixed inclusions, upsell triggers, and the kitchen-and-service SOPs to deliver them. Includes the website page architecture to convert online enquiries, the booking-system configuration, and the marketing calendar. The strategic shift from à la carte everything to productised tiers with bespoke as the exception.

SectionWhat to do this week

Three actions, ranked by leverage.

1. Pull last quarter's channel mix and calculate true cost-per-cover. Owner: founder or finance lead. Time: 60 minutes. List every booking channel, the cover count or room-night count, the commission rate, and the £-cost per channel. The number you want is total commission paid divided by total covers — typically £1.80-£4.50 per cover for restaurant operators and £8-£22 per room-night for hotels and B&Bs. If you cannot do this in 60 minutes, you do not have visibility on your single largest hidden cost.
2. Calculate wet-vs-dry mix and GP per category for the last 30 service days. Owner: founder or general manager. Time: 90 minutes. Pull the EPOS export, split revenue into wet and dry, calculate GP per category, and compare against the optimum mix for your site type (gastropub: 55-65% wet; restaurant: 25-40% wet; hotel F&B: variable by service). Any site running more than three points off optimum has a margin engineering problem hiding in plain sight.
3. Decide DIY, DWY or DFY for the next 90 days. Owner: founder. See the three ways.

SectionFive questions hospitality operators ask us about strategy

How much margin do we leave on the table running 50% OTA mix? Roughly 6-9 points of gross margin against a 25-30% OTA mix benchmark, depending on average cover and room-night value. On a £1m restaurant running 50% OTA at 15% commission, that is £37,500 of commission paid; the same business at 30% OTA mix pays £22,500 — a £15,000 in-year gross profit swing without changing a single price. The shift takes nine to twelve months and requires a deliberate marketing investment in direct-booking infrastructure (website rebuild, email capture, SMS, loyalty layer, paid search on brand terms), but the payback is typically inside the first year. Operators who never do this work hand 12-18 points of EBITDA to the OTAs over a five-year cycle.

Wet-vs-dry — what mix should we be running? Site-type dependent, and the right answer is not a fixed number — it is the mix that maximises GP per cover at your operating capacity. Gastropubs typically optimise at 55-65% wet (drink-led, food supports), traditional restaurants at 25-40% wet (food-led, drink supports), hotels with F&B at 30-50% wet depending on whether the bar is a destination or a service amenity. The mistake we see most often is gastropub operators who let dry creep above 45% because the kitchen team got ambitious — and the blended GP drops two points without anyone noticing for six months.

Hotel yield management — is dynamic pricing worth the operational complexity? Yes, in almost every case above 10 rooms. The RevPAR uplift from a documented yield-management strategy is typically 6-12% in year one, which on a 12-room property at £140 ADR and 70% occupancy is £35k-£70k of additional gross revenue with negligible variable cost. The complexity is real but bounded — a weekly review cadence, three rate tiers (low / mid / peak), length-of-stay rules, advance-booking discounts, and last-room premiums. Below 10 rooms the operational overhead can outweigh the gain, and a simpler seasonal rate card with manual peak-window adjustments is usually correct.

What multiple should we be aiming for on exit? Independent hospitality operators typically transact at 4.5-6x adjusted EBITDA in current market conditions. The operators who reach 6.5-9x have done deliberate work twelve to twenty-four months ahead of the conversation: cleaned up the lease structure (separating the property from the trade where possible), documented the operating manual (so the buyer is not buying the founder), proven the model is replicable (or proven that it is a defensible single-site brand), and rebuilt the EBITDA bridge to remove founder-add-back arguments at the diligence stage. The single biggest multiple-mover we see in practice is documentation — buyers pay materially more for a business with a written operating system than for one with the same numbers and no manual.

Can we run this ourselves with the playbook + £750 audit? Yes. Hospitality strategy work is achievable in-house if you have a founder who will own it, a finance lead or accountant who can pull EPOS and PMS data, and the discipline to spend a structured day per quarter on the strategic review. The £750 audit gives you a written red/amber/green of all eight points, a prioritised next-step list with named owners and dates, a copy of the channel-mix and wet-vs-dry templates, and a productised-packages framework you can adapt to your site. Credit toward first cycle if you sign for DWY/DFY within 30 days. NCNDA on request.

SectionWhere to go from here

If you want this shipped end-to-end on a productised retainer, book a 30-minute discovery call.

If you'd rather have a senior practitioner reviewing your team's strategic decisions, the wet-vs-dry mix on a quarterly cadence, and the channel-mix shift quarter by quarter, the coaching plans start at £750/month with rolling cycles and walk-away rights. If you have a hard seasonal deadline — a menu rebrand, a pre-summer launch window, a Christmas-season pricing rebuild, a private-hire pack relaunch, a hotel rate-card rebuild before the peak season — the two-week embedded sprint lands a senior practitioner inside your operations and commercial team for ten working days at £3,000 fixed, sharply scoped to a menu rebrand, a pre-summer launch, or a yield-management rebuild.

Or run it yourself. Eight-point audit + one strategic deliverable per quarter + twice-quarterly office hours.