Grow · Ongoing support
Restaurant and bar expansion support
For owners with one venue that works and an eye on the next, and for small groups that need every site to run as well as the best one.
€1,195 a month, plus IVA. Twelve-month minimum.
How do you know if your restaurant is ready to open a second site?
You are ready when the first site no longer needs you. Its numbers hold steady across the year, not just in a good summer; its recipes, specs, and standards are written down; a manager can run it for weeks without calling you; and you have the cash to carry a second site through a slow start without borrowing from the first. Then ask the harder question: if your best site closed tomorrow, would the rest survive?
Grow is how I help you answer that, and then act on it. It is Atelier Sawyer's twelve-month expansion service for independent restaurants, bars, chiringuitos, and cafés in Spain: a stress test of the business you have, then the systems, people, and plan to build the next site without weakening the first.
Does this sound familiar?
- Your first site makes money, and you have been offered a second, or a traspaso down the road.
- The business holds its standards when you are in the building, and slips when you are not.
- Your recipes, specs, and standards live in people's heads rather than on paper.
- You have two or three sites, and each one runs differently.
- A landlord, a bank, or an investor wants a plan you have not written yet.
- You want to step back from the floor, but nobody is ready to step up.
Every one of those is cheaper to fix before you sign the next lease than after.
The mistake I made, so you do not have to
I once ran three pubs in England as a weekly circuit: Fridays on the pass at the Sun Inn in Bethnal Green, Saturdays at the Half Moon in Cuxham, and Sunday roasts at the Dew Drop Inn in Berkshire. Each had its own manager and its own accounts. On paper, they were three businesses.
They were not. The Sun's volume won the supplier terms for all three, and its cash quietly carried the other two. When a lease clause I had signed at 26 cost me the Sun, the credit went, the prices rose, and within a short time I had lost all three. I had built a structure with only one truly load-bearing wall.
That is why Grow starts with a stress test, not a site search. Before you add a second wall, we make sure the first is not holding up the whole roof.
How Grow works
The first three months: the stress test
We look at the business as it really is. The numbers, site by site, season by season, and as a whole. What is written down, and what only exists in someone's head. Who can run what without you. Which supplier terms depend on which site. How long the business would last if its best site stopped trading.
By the end, you have a written assessment and a plan. Sometimes the answer is "go"; sometimes it is "not yet"; occasionally it is "not that site". All three are worth knowing before you sign.
The rest of the year: building the structure
Then we build what a group needs and a single site can do without:
- An operations manual: recipes, specs, standards, and procedures, written with your team, in the languages they work in, so they actually use it
- Managers who can run a site without you, trained and given the authority to do it
- Consistent standards across sites, without losing what made the first one good
- Supplier terms and cash reserves that do not depend on a single site
- The next site watched out of season, and its numbers tested at a realistic level of trade, winter included, before you commit
- The licences for the next site: in Spain they belong to the premises, not the brand, so each new site starts the paperwork again
- A plan a landlord, bank, or investor will take seriously
Once a year: the review in person
Once a year I spend time on site with you, at every venue, to review the whole business as a guest and as an operator. Travel within Málaga province is included; further afield, travel and accommodation are charged at cost, agreed with you before anything is booked.
After twelve months
Grow continues month to month, with 30 days' notice, for as long as it is useful.
What is included
- About two working days a month, on video or in person, in English or Spanish
- A stress test of the business and a written expansion plan in the first three months
- An operations manual and standards documentation, built with your team
- Management development for the people who will run sites without you
- A monthly review of the numbers, site by site and for the business as a whole
- Site assessment, licensing timeline, and opening numbers for your next venue
- An annual review in person, at every site
- WhatsApp and email seven days a week: replies within four hours between 08:00 and 21:00, email the same day, and an urgent call back within two hours
- Templates and checklists that stay with you
Why work with me
I have spent more than 30 years in restaurants, cafés, bars, pubs, and nightclubs, in London and on the Costa del Sol. I have opened seven venues of my own and several more for the people I worked for, and I have run a group of three. I have turned round venues that others had written off, including the Sun Inn, which grew from £10,000 to £800,000 in annual turnover within thirty months.
I have also watched that group fall, and I know exactly why. Plenty of advice on expansion is about how to open the next site. Mine starts with making sure the ones you have can stand on their own.
What Grow costs
€1,195 a month, plus IVA. Twelve-month minimum, then monthly with 30 days' notice.
Why twelve months? Expansion runs on a yearly cycle: the search, the lease, the licences, the fit-out, the opening, and the first season. Twelve months is the shortest honest term for that.
Prices are shown without IVA, which is added at 21%. If your business is registered for IVA, you can normally deduct it on your return.
Grow is not right for everyone
- If your first site is not yet making money consistently, start with Run. In my experience, a second site does not fix the first; it doubles the problem.
- If you have already decided and want someone to agree with you, I am the wrong person. Sometimes the right answer is "not yet", and I will say so.
- If you need someone to raise the money, you need your bank's business team, a broker, or a corporate finance adviser. I can make sure your plan is ready for them; I do not raise funds or give regulated financial advice.
Not sure yet?
Start with a Hospitality Health Check of your best site, or your weakest. It costs €347 and shows you where the money is going, and what to fix first. If you start Grow within 30 days, the €347 comes off your first month.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I have in the bank before opening a second site?
Enough to open it, enough to carry it through a slow start, and enough that the first site never has to lend it money. My own rule, learned the hard way, goes further: the business should survive six months without its best-performing site. On the coast, make sure those six months include a winter. If it cannot, the second site is not extra income; it is extra risk. Grow's stress test works out your number before you sign.
Will my first site suffer when I open the second?
It will, unless you plan for it. Your attention moves to the new site, and the first loses the person who held it together: you. Before the second opens, the first needs a manager who can run it without calling you, written specs and standards, and its own numbers checked every week. I lost three pubs because one carried the other two; Grow makes sure each site can stand on its own.
Should my second site be the same concept as the first?
Not necessarily. A copy is easier to run and to supply; a different concept spreads the risk. But in Spain, the site matters more than the concept. Most towns are far less crowded than London, and even town centres earn the bulk of their year from tourists. Out of season, trade follows local routes: home to work, to the market, to school. Watch the site in February before you choose. Grow tests that with you.
Can you help us raise investment or get a bank loan?
I can help you build a plan that a bank or investor will take seriously, with numbers that hold up to their questions. I do not raise money, and I do not give regulated financial advice; your bank's business team, a broker, or a corporate finance adviser does that. My job is to make sure the plan, and the business behind it, are ready before you meet them.
Talk it through
A free 30-minute call will tell us both whether Grow is the right fit. If it is not, I will say so, and I will tell you what I would do instead.