People & careers
10 Books Every Restaurant Founder Should Read
Ten real books for people opening a restaurant, chosen by the question each one answers, with what it is good for and where it falls short.
Posts about business plans
10 posts.
Starting a restaurant
How to Open a Restaurant in 2026: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide
Opening goes faster when you order the work by lead time, not by tidiness. Ten steps, four decision gates and the paperwork to start first.
Starting a restaurant
Restaurant Business Plan: What Investors Actually Read
A restaurant business plan is read by people with a short list of questions. Lead with the answers: what you are asking for, what it buys, who runs it and how it survives a bad year.
Starting a restaurant
Restaurant Concept Development: 7 Questions Before You Sign a Lease
A restaurant concept is a set of promises that the room, the menu, the price and the team all have to keep. Seven questions to test them before a lease makes them expensive.
Hotels & lodging
How to Start a Boutique Hotel: A Practical Guide for First-Time Owners
Most guides start with the building. Start with the maths of a small room count and the question of who will run the hotel, then let the design follow.
Hotels & lodging
Hotel, Hostel or Serviced Apartment: Which Model Fits Your Capital?
Hotels, hostels and serviced apartments each ask for a different kind of capital: labour, volume or construction. Match the model to what you can actually fund.
Hotels & lodging
Independent Hotel or Franchise? How to Choose a Brand Affiliation
A brand is worth what your hotel earns with it, minus what it earns without it, minus the fees. Here is how to put numbers on that before you sign.
Hotels & lodging
Is a Bed and Breakfast Still Worth It? A Small-Property Business Plan
A B&B can still work, but only if the lodging business pays you a fair wage on its own. Here is a plan built around two plain tests.
New formats
Pop-Ups, Residencies and Supper Clubs: A Low-Risk Way to Test a Concept
A restaurant pop-up is cheap to run and easy to misread. Decide what result would stop you before the first service, and you will learn something real.
Menu, food & drink
Coffee Shop Business Model: The Unit Economics of a Specialty Café
Coffee is cheap to make and expensive to serve. A coffee shop business plan should model the barista's minutes, not the beans. Here is the arithmetic behind a specialty café.