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RANGE

For Investors

The deals that disappoint rarely miss on the numbers in the model. They miss on the operation behind them. This is diligence run the way an operator buys: on the asset itself, before you sign.

Operational due diligence is an operator-side assessment of a restaurant investment — the unit economics, the management team, and the execution risk a financial model can’t see — done before the capital commits. The model tells you what the business earned; it can’t tell you whether those numbers are repeatable, whether the team can execute without the founder, or what breaks the first time the operation is stressed. Capital committed without that intelligence is a bet, not a decision.

RANGE assesses restaurant and hospitality targets the way an experienced operator would if they were buying it themselves: on the ground, in the units, looking at what actually produces the results. The output is a clear read on operational risk and upside before you sign, and a roadmap for the value you can create after you close.

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If you are buying, get in touch. That conversation starts with the deal, not a form. If the operation is your own, start with the Diagnostic — the Straight Read comes back within 48 hours.

Who reads the operation

RANGE was founded by Jon Peck, twice a Chief Operating Officer. Most recently at FB Society, and before that at Vandelay Hospitality Group, where a founder-led business became a multi-brand platform: twelve openings across six concepts.

The read you get before close is the same judgment that would run the asset after it. That is the point of an operator-side diligence: the person telling you what is wrong has had to fix it on a Friday night, with the staff that exists and the P&L that exists.

The Record

Outcomes from two decades inside multi-unit restaurant operations. Owned from the operating seat, not advised from outside.

$56M

Revenue under management: 8 high-volume units in three states

8% → <3%

Actual-vs-theoretical variance, trailing twelve months

Selected Outcomes →

What the model can’t show you

A proper operational assessment looks past the model to the things that determine whether the investment performs:

  • Unit economics by cohort: which units actually drive the return, and why, not just the blended average.
  • Management depth and bench: whether the business runs on systems or on a few people who could leave.
  • Operational consistency across units: how far execution drifts from location to location.
  • Labor model scalability: whether the cost structure holds as the business grows.
  • Menu, recipe, and spec integrity: the variance hiding inside food cost.
  • Technology and systems fragility: what’s held together by spreadsheets and memory.

Why operator-side diligence matters

Financial and legal diligence are necessary, and you already have them. What they miss is operational reality: the things only visible to someone who has run the kind of business you’re buying. A model can’t see a management team that’s one departure from chaos, a concept that doesn’t travel past its flagship, or a labor structure that only works at current volume.

We’ve owned the P&L on multi-brand portfolios and built the operations behind them. An operator who has held store-level EBITDA at 22% reads a target’s margin differently than an analyst does, because they know which of those points came from the operation and which came from luck, and which ones survive a change of ownership. The full record is on Selected Outcomes.

That lens matters most where the market itself can mislead a model: Miami’s seasonality, the Strip-versus-Locals split in Las Vegas, or a Tampa growth story priced as if the run-up were permanent.

Three shapes the engagement takes

Operational diligence slots in at three points on a deal, and the deliverable is different at each one. In every shape, the work runs coordinated with your financial and legal workstreams: same data room, same deal calendar, findings cross-referenced against the QofE. Not a silo that surfaces late.

  • Pre-LOI operational scan. A fast, quiet read on the asset before you commit to terms: the units, the public signals, the operating model as it actually presents. The deliverable is a short written read — proceed, proceed with conditions, or walk — with the two or three operational questions your LOI should protect you on.
  • Confirmatory diligence on the deal clock. The full assessment, run inside your exclusivity window alongside the QofE. The deliverable is a written operational read with findings ranked by EBITDA impact and integration risk (the operator’s answer to a QofE), so the operational facts are in the room when price and structure get negotiated, not after.
  • Post-close 100-day plan. The diligence findings converted into a sequenced operating plan for the first hundred days of ownership: what gets fixed first, who owns each number, and where the thesis needs operating hands to become real.

How the assessment is actually done

The read comes from the operation, not the data room alone. The mechanics are an operator’s, and they are deliberately inconvenient for a seller who has staged the tour:

  • Unit sampling by performance: we pick the units, top and bottom performers both, not the flagship the seller wants shown.
  • GM and kitchen-lead interviews: the people who run the buildings tell you what the CIM never will, if you know what to ask.
  • A labor-model stress test: what the P&L does at 110% of current volume, because the thesis usually assumes growth the labor structure hasn’t been asked to hold.
  • Lease escalators crossed against unit economics: which locations quietly stop working in year three of your hold.
  • A deferred R&M walk: the capex hiding in walk-ins, hoods, and HVAC that the model books as maintenance.

After the close

Diligence is the start of the relationship, not the end. The same operating judgment that assessed the asset can execute the value-creation plan after close, embedded as an operating partner, building the systems and the management layer that turn the thesis into performance.

And when that work ends, it ends cleanly: the systems, the operating cadence, and the management bench stay with the business. You bought an operation that runs on systems instead of a handful of people who could walk out the door. Everything we build conveys with it.

Common Questions

What is restaurant operational due diligence?

It’s an operator-side assessment of a restaurant or hospitality target — the unit economics, management bench, operational consistency, labor model, and systems — conducted by someone who has actually run that kind of business. It complements financial and legal diligence by surfacing the operational risks and upside a model can’t see, before you commit capital.

What does a financial model miss in a restaurant acquisition?

The model shows results; it can’t show repeatability. It misses whether the team can execute without the founder, how far execution drifts across units, whether the labor model holds at scale, and how much variance is hiding inside food cost. Those operational realities determine whether the numbers continue after you own it.

How fast can operational diligence run inside an exclusivity window?

It’s built for the deal clock. A pre-LOI scan turns around in days; the full confirmatory assessment is scoped to run inside a standard exclusivity window, in parallel with the QofE, not sequenced after it. We agree on the calendar before the work starts, and the written read lands while you can still act on it: at the table, not at the closing dinner.

How does this fit with the QofE and our financial diligence?

It runs alongside them, coordinated rather than siloed: same data room, same timeline, findings cross-referenced. The QofE tells you whether the earnings are real; the operational read tells you whether they’re repeatable, and what it will take to keep them. Where the two disagree — an EBITDA figure the labor model can’t actually sustain, an addback the operation contradicts — that’s usually where the price conversation should go.

How do you handle confidentiality during a live deal?

The same way your other advisors do: under NDA, inside your deal team, with unit visits structured so nothing signals a transaction to staff or the market. Discretion is an operating skill as much as a legal one; we have been on both sides of a quiet process and know what gives one away.

What does operational due diligence cost?

The fee is set by the scope of the assessment and agreed before the work starts, never by the hour or the day. Weigh it on the deal clock: against the finding you would have missed (the labor model that breaks at the volume the thesis assumes, the capex hiding in deferred maintenance), the fee is a rounding error on the purchase price. The expensive version of this work is not doing it.

Do you support the business after the acquisition?

Yes. The same operating judgment that runs the diligence can execute the plan post-close: embedded as an operating partner, building the systems and management depth that turn the investment thesis into performance. The 100-day plan is designed either way: your team can run it, or we can.

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