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.
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.
Good service should turn into good margins. When it doesn't, 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. No startups, no paper concepts: real rooms, real shifts, real numbers.
Good service should turn into good margins.
PlaceholderUnsplash, Madeline Liu. Shot brief: the pass during a busy service, hands and plates only, no faces, no logos or signage, landscape, darkened under the line.
Venues.
- 01Restaurants
- 02Bistros and casual dining
- 03Prep and catering kitchens
- 04Restaurant groups
- 05Bars
- 06Hotels
Method.
PlaceholderUnsplash, Martin Baron. Shot brief: your room minutes before a busy service, wide, tables set, no guests, no faces, no signage or anything that names the venue.
- 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 a set order: leadership and execution basics, scheduling and productivity, inventory and supplier discipline, then menu engineering. 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.
On the front page, +19 % in paid demand. The rest was the house account. Year on year.
Of comped covers fell in one week.
Approximate labor cost at current wages, from a target set when it meant 37.5 %.
Hours overrun that dissolved once another site's work came off the unit.
In the half of the business nobody measured.
Ratios from one recent case, one month, 2026. The venue is not named.
Start with three numbers.
Free, no data files, no meeting, no form in front of the answer.
Assumes a fully loaded cost of 32 EUR per worked hour, the Finland 2026 base case; your own figure replaces it.
Enter the three numbers above.
If the two numbers disagree, there is a conversation. If they agree, we say so. Let's talk
Services.
Operations review
One-off, fixed scope, fixed price, fixed deliverables. Complete on its own.
- Floor pass: one busy service in your venue, first as a guest, then as an observer.
- Kitchen: prep and service, routines, timing, waste and the handover to the floor.
- Numbers layer: one month of your system data, verified end to end.
- Findings report: what holds, what leaks and what it costs, every figure with its basis.
- Walkthrough: we go through the findings with you, line by line.
- Nothing is changed without your approval: findings first, then the fix.
The operating system
Cost centers and coding rules: every euro and every hour tagged to the business that consumed it.
- A close calendar: the month closed by day five, reviewed by day seven.
- One page per business: revenue, hours, teho, margin by category, open items.
- Targets per business, derived from your real cost per hour. No combined averages.
What happens after
The review ends with findings. What follows is named openly, never included silently.
- Staged fixes in a set order: leadership and execution basics, scheduling and productivity, inventory and suppliers, menu engineering, marketing last.
- Until it holds: the work continues until the numbers and the floor agree.
- A monthly cadence for as long as it earns its place, built so your team takes over.
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, based on the state of your data. It does not move afterward.
We take no commission, fee or other benefit from suppliers. Recommendations rest on your venue's numbers only.