Most hospitality projects start with a design brief. We think they should start with what the room needs to earn.
Traditional feasibility asks: Can this be built?
We ask: What does this room need to earn and what's stopping it?
Before architecture and interiors move into detailed design, we study your numbers, watch a live service and find what's holding the room back. So the design team starts with a target, not a collection of assumptions.
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What we work out before design begins.
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→ Guest expectations
→ Emotional journey + brand
→ Moments that matter
→ Desired behaviours
→ Decision points + friction
→ Revenue target + baseline
→ Covers, turns + spend
→ Peak capacity
→ Operational flow
→ The constraint
Understand → Model → Observe
→ Diagnose → Performance Brief.
Ask Why
We start with your numbers, not a moodboard: revenue target, spend, food and drink split, peak arrivals. Then the question nobody asks: why 120 covers?
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Turn £ into Covers
We translate your revenue target into what the room must produce at peak: covers, drinks, table turns and stations.
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Where the Money Leaks
We watch a peak and a quiet service, time it, count the steps and hear from your team. No trading history yet? We work from your business plan or comparable benchmarks.
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Find the Constraint
Every venue has one bottleneck that caps its takings. We find it, cost it and set the cover count the whole operation can serve well, not just the most chairs that fit.
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The Performance Brief
Your baseline, your target, the constraint and layouts scored and peak-tested against the numbers, with the guest journey and look and feel tied to your brand story. Every design decision that follows answers to it.
The earlier you answer the right questions,
the cheaper they are to answer.
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Before layouts are fixed →
Test layouts against revenue, capacity and flow at peak.
Before budgets are committed →
Know where design investment will move the numbers.
Before disciplines disappear down separate tracks →
Align operator, developer, architect and design team around one target.
Before you're fixing problems on site →
Resolve assumptions while they're still drawings, conversations and decisions.
What you leave with
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A tested plan →
Layouts scored against your target and stress-tested at peak, with 20% more guests and one team member down.
Clearer investment priorities →
Where your space is losing money now and where design spend will earn it back.
One aligned brief →
Developer, operator, architect and design team working to the same numbers and the same experience.
A baseline to measure against →
The "before" figures, so after opening we can show what the design delivered.
3 - 4 Weeks. Better decisions before bigger investment.
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