Straight Answers About the
Dubai Restaurant Profit Blueprint
This page gathers the key questions Dubai restaurant owners usually have about fit, workload, process, deliverables, cost, and what happens after the project.
Is this really a fit for our setup?
How much work will this take from me and my chef?
What do we actually get, and how do we use it later?
Fit & Eligibility FAQs
These questions are about whether the Blueprint is the right tool for your restaurant.
The Blueprint is built for independent restaurants and small groups in Dubai that are already trading, typically on one or more delivery apps, and feel “busy but profit isn’t growing.” If you’re very new, have almost no sales history, or don’t yet know your core items, it’s usually better to wait.
Yes. We need item-level sales for at least 8–12 recent weeks to see profit by dish and by channel. That usually means a POS that can export to Excel/CSV with item names, quantities, and net sales. If you can’t export item-level data at all, this particular Blueprint is not a good fit yet.
That’s common in Dubai’s app-heavy market. We group multiple apps into a “Delivery Apps” channel and treat Direct (phone, WhatsApp, QR, basic website) separately from Dine-in. If the way menus and reports line up across apps and POS is too fragmented to trust, we’ll flag that and may recommend fixing those basics before running a Blueprint.
Data & Workload FAQs
These questions are about data, chef effort, and how much time this really takes.
We’ve structured the Blueprint so it typically takes owners or GMs, roughly 4–5 hours over three weeks: a fit call, sending exports, and a 60-minute handover.
Your chef or cost-aware manager fills a simple sheet with best-estimate food costs for your main dishes. Because we only focus on your top sellers, most teams can do this in about 60–90 minutes. We’re using knowledge they already have, not asking for a full recipe-card or inventory project.
Some clean-up is expected. Where we run into serious problems, it’s usually one of:
- No consistent item-level history for the period we agreed
- Large, unexplained gaps between POS revenue and app payouts
- App menus that don’t line up with the POS at all
No. For this Blueprint, we only need best-estimate food cost per plate for your key dishes. We do not require gram-accurate recipe cards, full inventory tracking, or a costing-system rollout inside this project.
Process & Timeline FAQs
These questions are about how the 3-week project runs in practice.
From first call to handover, the Blueprint is typically a three-week project with four main steps:
- Fit check: Short call to confirm your setup, data basics, and whether the Blueprint is a good fit.
- Data & estimates: You send POS/app exports and your chef completes the cost sheet for your main dishes.
- Analysis: We reconcile the data, build the profit model, and prepare findings while you focus on service.
- Debrief & handover: We walk through results, actions, and give you the files so you can keep using them.
Yes. During setup, we choose the 8–12 week period together. If Ramadan, a heavy promo, or a one-off event would make the picture misleading, we can avoid those weeks or choose a window that better reflects “normal” trading.
If we find major issues while reconciling POS and app data, we don’t just push through. We stop, show you the gaps or contradictions, and discuss options. That might mean fixing a few things and continuing, or agreeing that it’s better to pause rather than produce a blueprint we don’t trust.
FAQ
Deliverables & Usability FAQs
These questions are about the files you receive and whether you’ll actually use them.
You receive three core deliverables: a working Excel model showing channel-level profit for your main dishes, a short PDF summary with key numbers and 5–7 recommended moves, and a one-page Wall Card you can pin in the office or kitchen. Together, they give you both the detail and the day-to-day view you need.
No. You only need to be comfortable opening a file, changing a few numbers, and reading rows and columns. We clearly mark the small set of input cells you might touch (volumes, costs, simple assumptions), and the formulas sit underneath. In the handover, we walk you through the views you’ll use most often.
The PDF is a brief overview for owners and managers—it can be read in about 10–15 minutes and highlights the key decisions. The Wall Card is a single A4 page and designed to be printed and pinned near the pass or office so it’s easy to reference during shift briefings.
FAQ
Money, Scope & Boundaries FAQs
These questions are about cost and what the Blueprint does—and doesn’t—cover.
The Blueprint is priced as a fixed project fee, not an open-ended retainer. The fee ranges from AED 4,000–5,500 + VAT, depending on data complexity. We confirm the exact fee after the fit call and before you send detailed data, so you know the number upfront.
No. The Blueprint itself is a defined, one-off project with a clear start and end. You keep the files and can continue using them without any mandatory monthly fee. If you later decide you want follow-on support or a rerun, that would be discussed and scoped separately.
No. The Blueprint is not a tax audit, statutory review, or compliance certificate, and it does not replace your accountant or your full P&L. It sits alongside your formal financials and helps explain why you’re seeing those numbers by showing which dishes and channels are driving or eroding contribution.
No. The Blueprint focuses on your main dishes and uses best-estimate food costs for those. Full-menu recipe costing, inventory systems, or detailed costing software setups are separate types of work. If you ever want to explore those, they would be scoped as their own project.
After the Blueprint FAQs
These questions are about what happens once you have the files in your hands.
To keep the picture current, a quick monthly update is usually enough: paste in new sales volumes for your main dishes and adjust a few food costs if ingredients have moved a lot. Every quarter or so, it helps to take a slightly deeper look at whether your Direct share and contribution on key items are moving in the direction you agreed.
The model is editable. You can rename items, swap out a dish that’s no longer a top seller, and add estimates for new hero dishes. The structure remains useful as a template even as your menu evolves; you don’t have to start again from zero each time you tweak the menu.
Yes, if you decide you want that. Some owners are comfortable using the tools themselves; others may prefer a follow-up project to help implement changes or rerun the analysis in six or twelve months. There is no automatic retainer—any follow-on work would be optional and scoped separately.
Ready to See If It Fits?
It’s normal to have detailed questions before you share data or commit to the project. If this FAQ has answered most of them—but you still want to check how the Blueprint would apply to your specific setup—you can book a short fit call from the main Blueprint page and decide together whether now is the right time to run it.