50 things to get right before your first service.
A free, practical pre-opening checklist for independent restaurants, bars, and cafés built from thirty years of operational experience across the UK and Spain.
Most of the mistakes that damage a hospitality business in its first year happen before it opens.
Not during service. Not because of a difficult customer, a bad review, or an unexpected cost. They happen earlier, in the planning stage. In the lease negotiation. In the menu costing. In recruitment. In the financial model. In the decisions that feel preliminary but turn out to be foundational.
The problem is that nobody hands you a map when you decide to open a restaurant, a bar, or a café. You find out what you did not know by encountering the consequences of not knowing it.
Sometimes that’s a manageable lesson. Sometimes it is an expensive one.
The Independent Operator’s Pre-Opening Checklist will not replace experience. But it will tell you what questions to ask, what decisions to make, and what to have in place before your first paying guest walks through the door. Ten areas, fifty items, and the full pre-opening journey.
It is designed to work whether you are opening in London or Málaga, a neighbourhood café or a fine dining restaurant, your first venue or your third. And it is free, because the best thing that can happen to an independent hospitality business is that its owner starts with clarity.
What’s covered
01 Concept and positioning
Test the concept against the market. Define your customer. Establish the brand and the story before you open.
02 Legal and business setup
Business structure, registrations, licences and permits, lease legal advice, banking, and accounting.
03 Premises and lease
Neighbourhood research, surveys, the real cost of a premises, lease negotiation, and permitted use.
04 Finance and funding
Financial modelling, cash buffers, pre-opening costs, funding structures, and professional relationships.
05 Menu and product
Menu engineering for profitability and focus, pricing, recipe documentation, and pre-opening trials.
06 Suppliers and procurement
Backup suppliers, credit terms, relationship building, ordering systems, and allergen compliance.
07 Team and staffing
Hiring for attitude, recruitment timelines, onboarding, employment obligations, and management structure.
08 Operations and systems
Service standards, opening and closing procedures, food safety management, layout for flow, and soft opening.
09 Technology
POS, reservations, inventory management, payments, website basics, and Google Business Profile.
10 Marketing and pre-launch
Pre-launch social, email list building, launch strategy, review generation, and planning for quiet periods.
Who this is for
The pre-opening checklist is designed for:
first-time operators in the planning or pre-opening stage
experienced operators opening a new concept or a new site
anyone who wants to pressure-test their preparation before committing serious capital
Already trading?
Start with the free Hospitality Self-Assessment. It is a short diagnostic that you can complete yourself.
If you want an expert review, clear priorities, and a written next-step plan, the paid Hospitality Health Check is the next step.
Built from experience, not theory.
The checklist was developed by Benjamin Sawyer, founder of Atelier Sawyer, a hospitality operator with thirty years of hands-on experience across six venues in the UK and Spain.
The checklist covers what you learn by doing it, including the mistakes.
Let’s start with an honest conversation.
A free 30-minute consultation. No obligation. No pitch.
Just an honest look at where you are, and whether there is something we can genuinely help with.
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