Hospitality Service & Margins
We improve service quality and profit margins for restaurants, bars and hotels that are already running.
We start on the floor: a busy service, then the kitchen, then the paperwork. Floor-first, fixed scope, fixed price, fixed deliverables.
Free first step: three numbers from last month.
About.
We find out where a running venue loses service and margin, and fix it. The work starts during a busy service, not in the spreadsheets.
What we look at, in fix-priority order: standards and leadership, margins and operations, concept and market. The core metric is teho, revenue per labor hour.
Behind the practice is nearly 20 years in hospitality across operations, ownership and consulting. Based in Helsinki, working across Europe.
When good service doesn't turn into good margins, the reasons live on the floor, in the kitchen and in the numbers. That is where we work.
We work with restaurants, bars and hotels that are already running, one site or a group. No startups, no paper concepts: real rooms, real shifts, real numbers.
Good service should turn into good margins.
Method.
- Step 1
The floor
Every engagement starts in a busy service, first as a guest, then as an observer. Standards, leadership and execution show themselves on the floor long before they show up in any report.
- Step 2
The kitchen
The kitchen comes next, during prep and during service: routines, timing, waste and the handover between kitchen and floor. This is where margins are made or lost during the shift.
- Step 3
The numbers
Then the paperwork. One month of your system data, verified: revenue, hours, cost of goods per category, and teho, revenue per labor hour. Every figure carries its basis, so you know which numbers you can trust.
- Step 4
The fix
Findings are reported and approved before anything is changed. Fixes run in the order below, marketing last.
Priorities.
- 1
Leadership and standards
Execution basics come first: who owns what, which standards are written down, and what actually happens during a busy shift. Nothing else holds if this layer is loose.
- 2
Scheduling and productivity
Hours are the biggest cost on the floor. We measure teho, revenue per labor hour, against a target derived from your real cost per hour, and plan shifts against demand instead of habit.
- 3
Inventory and suppliers
Cost of goods per category, built from purchases and stock counts. The difference between theoretical and actual margin is shrinkage, and shrinkage is a finding, not a mystery.
- 4
Menu engineering
Once the basics hold, the menu earns attention: what sells, what carries margin, what does neither. Pricing and placement follow the numbers, not opinion.
- 5
Marketing, last
Marketing is last by design. More guests into a leaking operation means losing money faster. It gets its turn once service and margins hold.
- Throughout
Measured throughout
Every step is checked against the monthly numbers, so a fix that holds can be told apart from one that only looked good for a week.
Results.
One month of data. No accounting access.
Reopening week vs the week before the break. Paying guests alone: +19 %.
Of a month's comps, in one week.
Over plan on paper. Real hours: on plan or under.
Growth in the business nobody was measuring.
What the same target allows at today's wages, roughly.
Your labor target is arithmetic, not tradition. Check it below
One recent case, 2026, from an operations review. The venue is not named.
Start with three numbers.
Is your labor target still right? Three numbers from last month answer it. Nothing you type leaves this page.
Everything on your personnel cost line divided by hours worked: wages, supplements, holiday pay, employer contributions, salaried managers. Our Finland 2026 reference is 32 EUR. Type your own if you know it.
Enter the three numbers above. You get the labor percentage you actually run at, and the gap to your target in euros and hours.
If the two disagree, there is something to look at. One message, free, no data files, no meeting. If they agree, we say so.
Let's talkServices.
Operations review
One-off, fixed scope, fixed price. Complete on its own.
- Floor: one busy service in your venue.
- Kitchen: prep and service.
- Numbers: one month of your system data, verified end to end.
- Findings report: every figure with its basis.
- Walkthrough, line by line.
Nothing is changed without your approval.
The operating system
A monthly rhythm your team runs: every euro and every hour tagged to the business that used it, the month closed by day five, one page per business, targets from your real cost per hour.
What happens after
The review ends with findings. What follows is agreed separately, never included silently: a deeper look where the findings call for it, fixes in the order above, marketing last, until the numbers and the floor agree. Then a monthly rhythm for as long as it earns its place.
How to start
Start with the three numbers above, or tell us what is going on in your venue. The price is fixed and named before we start, from the state of your data.
We take no commission, fee or other benefit from suppliers.
Let's talk