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RANGE

12

Open strong. Stabilize fast.

A restaurant’s first ninety days set a trajectory that’s expensive to change later. Open clean and the team builds on momentum; open rough and the next year goes to undoing first impressions and bad habits. We have opened restaurants across multiple concepts and markets, from individual full-service units to multi-location rollouts across new cities. We lead pre-opening, soft opening, and the critical stabilization period, covering staffing, training, systems, and the operational cadence that separates a confident opening from a chaotic one. We stay until the operation is running on its own.

Tell us what’s breaking.

Take the Diagnostic

Thirty to forty-five minutes, with the Straight Read back within 48 hours.

Scope of Work

  • Pre-opening project management and timeline
  • Hiring and staffing buildout
  • Training program execution and management coaching
  • Soft opening management and operations calibration
  • Post-opening performance review and adjustment
  • 30 / 60 / 90-day stabilization check-ins

Start with an install

Not ready for the full engagement? A fixed-scope install builds one system into your operation: defined start, defined end, priced up front.

There is no second attempt at an opening.

The opening is the one stretch you don’t get to run twice. The pressure is highest exactly when the team is newest, the systems are untested, and the margin for error is smallest. And it arrives all at once (hiring, training, inspections, the punch list, opening night), landing on the same few people inside the same few weeks.

Six weeks out is where openings are won or lost. The countdown sequences hiring, training, and systems so the team isn’t still being trained during the first real weekend; ramps the soft opening deliberately instead of throwing the doors open to a full room on day one; and installs pre-shift and line-check systems before the first guest, not in week three.

Through the 30/60/90-day stabilization arc we track the ramp against a realistic curve (stabilized volume typically arrives twelve to eighteen months in, not in the opening quarter), so early swings get read correctly instead of triggering panic or a premature high-five.

The record is on Selected Outcomes.

How it works

StepWhat happens
01Sequence hiring and training ahead of the doors
02Install pre-shift and line-check routines before guest one
03Ramp the soft opening deliberately, not all at once
04Review 30/60/90 numbers against a realistic curve
05Leave when the team runs it without us

Before

The team is still learning its own systems the week the doors open, and the first quarter is spent recovering from decisions made under opening pressure.

After

A sequenced critical-path and a calibrated soft opening mean the systems are proven before the crowd shows up, and stabilization is spent refining, not firefighting.

Common Questions

Why do restaurant openings go wrong?

Most opening problems trace to the things under-resourced in the rush: training compressed, staffing thin, systems untested, and no real soft-opening calibration. The result is a chaotic first quarter the team spends months digging out of. A structured pre-opening and a real stabilization plan prevent most of it.

How long do you stay after we open?

Through stabilization, not just opening day. We lead pre-opening and soft opening, then stay through the early period, typically a 30/60/90-day arc, reviewing performance and adjusting while the operation finds its feet. We leave when it’s running on its own, with your team owning it.

What do you need access to for an opening engagement?

The construction and hiring timeline, the training materials and menu as they currently stand, and direct access to the opening management team well before doors open. The earlier we’re inside the plan, the more of the predictable opening mistakes we prevent instead of clean up.

We open in six weeks. Is it too late to bring you in?

No. Six weeks out is exactly where the countdown is designed to start, and even later there’s real work to do. With less runway, the sequence gets triaged to the highest-risk items first: training that can’t compress, the soft-opening calibration, and the pre-shift and line-check systems that have to exist before guest one. What’s genuinely too late is week two after opening, when you’re rebuilding habits instead of installing them.

Our GM has opened restaurants before. Do we still need opening support?

An experienced opening GM is an asset, not a substitute. During an opening, that GM is running the building, and someone still has to run the countdown. We hold the critical path, the calibration plan, and the 30/60/90 review so the GM’s attention stays on the team and the floor. The engagement also turns their experience into a documented opening playbook, so the next unit doesn’t depend on the same person being available.