From six months out to day ninety, run to one plan.
At twelve weeks out the countdown goes weekly, every task carrying an owner and a department, every hire date worked back from opening day. We run it with your opening team, and we are in the building from the training days through the soft open and the first full weekend.
Tell us what’s next.
Bring the opening date and the plan so far.
Book a call with Jon (opens in a new tab)Start with an install
The install builds the plan and runs the training days, then hands the opening to your team at the doors. This engagement stays on past opening day and coaches the managers through the first quarter.
Nobody should still be learning the systems on the first full weekend.
The hires run in critical-path order: the GM and chef five months out, the managers and sous chefs four months out, a sales manager three months out.
Key handover to opening day is about three weeks: a week to receive, organize and prep, nine days of training, then a five-day soft open with the VIP night inside it.
The countdown also staggers the opening team. The traveling leadership team arrives two to four weeks before the doors open and stays one to two weeks after. The training GM and chef stay three weeks past opening, and the trainers work in two waves, one on each side of opening day, so nobody reaches opening night already spent.
The 30/60/90 read is measured against the twelve-to-eighteen-month climb to mature volume, because early swings get overread in both directions.
Example scope of work
Examples of what the scope can include; yours is written to the problem you bring.
The countdown
- Every opening on one calendar: hiring, key handover, training, soft open and grand opening for each unit, so no leader is booked into two soft opens at once.
- Readiness plan set before the first hire: the weeks-out checklist, the pre-opening budget by line, the staffing matrix, and the unit’s weekly breakeven read against a forecast from comparable units.
- The market’s own lines on the checklist: local liquor rules for friends and family, lodging for the travel team, menu changes and an opening-day charity.
- Opening lessons written into the plan: payroll correct and cash controlled from the first day, and equipment calibrated again after the first week of training.
- Trainer recertification across your units: every trainer tested on one standard before the opening, so nobody arrives teaching their home unit’s version.
- Training days to one written agenda: each day set by the managers and trainers before the team arrives, the team tested on it before the next day begins, and a written knowledge check before the mock service.
- Soft open in steps: friends and family planned by the managers, lunch and dinner opened one at a time, and each step held until it runs clean.
The first ninety days
- New unit read like the others each period: sales and traffic against the breakeven, restaurant-level profit, guest sentiment and turnover by position.
- Manager coaching through the first quarter: on the pre-shift and the numbers, until the opening managers run both without the training team.
- Training after the trainers leave: certified trainers named in the unit, and a training path for every hire made after opening day.
- Opening debrief before the team disperses: this opening’s lessons and its budget against actual folded into the next unit’s countdown.
How it runs: the countdown on a standing call, then on site for the opening itself.
Fees are set by the scope and the value of the outcome, agreed before the work starts, with any time on site built in, never by the hour, the day or the visit.
The order of the work
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 01 | The countdown is built back from the opening date before the first hire is made |
| 02 | The managers train in your existing units before the hourly hiring starts |
| 03 | The first guest meets a team that has passed the knowledge check and the mock service |
| 04 | Each 30/60/90 read is a go or a hold on the next step of the ramp |
| 05 | Done when your director of operations runs the countdown for the next unit |
If this is what’s next, bring it.
The call works out where the work starts.
Book a call with Jon (opens in a new tab)Further reading
Why the verdict on a new unit waits a full yearCommon questions
What do you need access to for an opening engagement?
We open in six weeks. Is it too late to bring you in?
Our GM has opened restaurants before. Do we still need opening support?
Who runs it
RANGE was founded by Jon Peck, who spent twenty years running multi-unit restaurant groups: eight brands built and scaled, twelve openings across six concepts in three years, and more than $100 million of annual P&L owned.