Who I help · First-time owners and career changers
Opening your first restaurant, pub, or café
For first-time owners, and for people bringing a career from somewhere else. You have the idea and the drive. I will help you build the business to match, and avoid the mistakes I made.
What do first-time hospitality owners get wrong?
In my experience, the most expensive mistakes happen before opening night. Signing a lease before the numbers work. Budgeting for the fit-out and forgetting the cash needed to survive the first months of trading. Building the menu around what you love rather than what your area will buy, and what your kitchen can cook at speed. Setting an opening date before the licences, the team, and the suppliers are ready. And underestimating the hours, which are long, physical, and mostly at weekends. None of it is fatal if you find it early. All of it is expensive if you find it late.
Atelier Sawyer helps first-time owners across the UK, from a one-off review of the plan to a working partnership all the way to opening night.
What I see in first openings
- The dream lease: a beautiful site, an agent in a hurry, and terms nobody has read with an operator's eye.
- The fit-out budget: carefully planned to the last tile, with nothing left for the first quiet months.
- The menu from the heart: lovely to cook at home, and impossible to cook for sixty on a Saturday.
- Friends on the payroll: great company, and hard to manage when standards slip.
- Pricing from the competition: copying the place down the road, without knowing their costs or yours.
- The owner in every role: chef, manager, accountant, cleaner, and marketing department, from day one.
Coming from another career
Your first career is an asset. Managing people, reading a profit and loss account, negotiating with suppliers, and keeping your head in a crisis all transfer. What does not transfer is the pace: margins measured in pennies, cash that comes in daily and goes out weekly, a team you rely on at eleven o'clock on a Saturday night, and a product that has to be perfect every time and is gone the moment it is eaten.
I will help you use what you already know, and learn the rest before it costs you money.
Buying a business, or starting from scratch?
Buying a going concern can be quicker than starting from nothing, but you are buying its history as well as its fixtures. Before you agree a price, ask:
- Do the accounts match the till, and the till match the bank?
- How long is left on the lease, and will the landlord consent to it being assigned to you?
- What is the premium actually paying for: the lease, the goodwill, or the equipment? And is the equipment owned or leased?
- Who are the staff? When you buy a business as a going concern, its employees usually transfer to you on their existing terms, under the TUPE regulations.
- Why is it for sale?
Your solicitor and accountant handle the legal and financial checks. I will tell you what I see as an operator, and whether the business can make money in your hands.
How I help first-time owners
| If you… | Start with |
|---|---|
| Have an idea, a site, or a signed lease, and want a second opinion | A Pre-Opening Diagnostic, £695 |
| Want a working partner from the first idea to opening night | Plan, £495 a month |
| Are buying an existing business and want an operator's view | A Pre-Opening Diagnostic, £695 |
| Have opened, and want help through the first months | Run, £795 a month |
| Need a website that takes bookings from day one | Websites, from £3,250 |
| Need a till, bookings, and stock system that fits | Digitise, from £2,950 |
My own first time
I have opened seven venues of my own and several more for the people I worked for. I made my share of first-timer mistakes, and the most expensive was a lease clause I signed at 26. Years later it cost me three pubs. I would rather you learned that from me than from your landlord.
Frequently asked questions
Can I open a pub or café with no hospitality experience?
Yes, and plenty of good ones are opened by people from other careers. Usually the idea is sound, the market likes it, the fit-out is beautiful, and the passion is there. Then they meet the reality: the public, the neighbours, the council, the bills, and the hours. None of that can be wished away, but all of it can be planned for. Go in with your eyes open, ideally after a few months working in a busy venue, and with an experienced operator at your side.
Do I need a personal licence to run a pub or bar?
In England and Wales, every premises that sells alcohol needs a designated premises supervisor with a personal licence; you need one only if that person is you. It comes from your council, after an accredited course and a basic DBS check. Scotland has personal licences too, under its own Act, with refresher training every five years. Northern Ireland works differently: the licence is granted by the county court. Plan for it early.
What is a premium when taking on a lease?
A premium is a sum paid to the outgoing tenant when a lease is transferred. It may cover the goodwill of the business, the fixtures and equipment, or simply the lease itself. Know exactly what you are paying for, and whether it is worth it, before you agree a price; a premium on a lease with little time left can be money you never see again.
Talk it through
If you are not sure where to start, a free 30-minute chat will tell us both.