Before this course: Food Business Growth: menus, costing and kitchen systems (course 2.21.3), which builds on Food Business: food cart, carinderia, restaurant & catering (course 2.21). You should already know standard recipe costing, menu engineering, prime cost, a written food safety plan, SOPs and scheduling, peak planning and a monthly review. This course does not repeat them. It asks how to run many sites, many managers and many jobs at the same standard.
01
The multi-site model and unit economics
In simple words
A band that plays one song well is a good band. A band that plays the same song well in ten different cities, with ten different drummers, needs sheet music, rehearsal and a leader. A food business with many sites needs the same: a written way of doing things, and people trained to follow it.
Key facts
- Site profit and loss (four-wall view): for each site, show sales, food cost, labour, other site costs (rent, utilities, packaging, platform fees) and site profit. It shows how the site performs before shared costs.
- Central costs (owner or operations manager pay, accounting, marketing, central purchasing, the commissary) are shared. Divide them across sites to see what each site must earn to be worth keeping.
- Unit economics: the numbers for one site, repeated. A second or third site should only open if the first site's numbers are stable and the new site's plan clears its own break-even.
- The playbook is the written package that lets a site run without you: recipes and portion cards, SOPs, the safety system, the price list, the brand look, the training plan and the scorecard. It lists what is fixed (recipes, portions, safety limits, prices, look) and what is local (opening hours, local specials, community links) so managers know where they can decide.
- Commissary (central kitchen): one kitchen prepares sauces, stocks, marinades or doughs for all sites. It gives consistency and can save labour, but adds transport, extra handling and a single point of failure. Compare the labour saved with the extra cost.
- Growth can hide problems: a new site takes owner time, cash and attention from the old ones. Many chains see quality drop first at the oldest site.
Example (practice numbers)
| Line | Per month |
|---|---|
| Sales | 120,000 |
| Food cost (33%) | 39,600 |
| Labour (30%) | 36,000 |
| Prime cost | 75,600 (63%) |
| Rent | 12,000 |
| Utilities | 4,000 |
| Packaging | 3,600 |
| Platform fees | 2,000 |
| Site profit before central costs | 22,800 (19%) |
Central costs are 18,000 a month. With three sites, each carries 6,000, so each site's profit after the central share is 16,800. With only one site, the same central costs would take 18,000 of the 22,800. Commissary example: three sites each spend 12 hours a week making sauces and stocks (36 hours). A commissary does it in 20 hours. That saves 16 hours; at 8 an hour, 128 a week. Delivery: three trips at 15 = 45 a week. Net saving: 83 a week, before the commissary's own costs.
Step by step
- Write the site profit and loss for your best site, using real numbers.
- List your central costs for a month and divide by the number of sites you plan to run.
- Compute site profit after the central share. Check that it clears a profit target you set.
- List what is fixed and what is local in your playbook, in two columns.
- List every document the playbook must contain. Mark which exist and which are missing.
- If you plan a commissary, compare hours saved, extra delivery and handling cost, and the risk if it stops.
- Write the rule for opening the next site: for example, "the current sites have met their targets for six months."
- Check: a stranger can read your site profit and loss and your playbook list and tell you why the next site will or will not pay.
Watch on YouTube
Videos by other creators on YouTube, for reference. They are not made by or affiliated with The Future Market.
LESSON 01The multi-site model and unit economics
Read the video script
[Host at a table with three small model restaurants] "One great site is not a chain. A chain is a system."
[Text on screen: Site profit = sales - prime cost - site costs] "First, know each site's profit before shared costs."
[Text on screen: Central costs ÷ number of sites] "Then share the central costs. That is what each site must really earn."
[Text on screen: Fixed vs local] "Write a playbook that says what never changes, and what each manager may decide."
[Host] "Open the next site only when the first ones are stable."
Try it now
Write the site profit and loss for one site, add a fair share of central costs, and compare the result with a target. Draw the fixed/local table for your playbook and list the three documents you must still write.
ClaudeStuck? Copy a ready-made prompt for Claude
Copy this, open Claude, paste it, and Claude will walk you through the lesson step by step.
For a grown-up: Claude is for adults (18+). Copy this, paste it into Claude, and use the answer to explain the lesson to your child.
I'm learning "Food Enterprise Leader: multi-site, catering and franchising" on The Future Market. Lesson 1: "The multi-site model and unit economics". What the lesson teaches: - Site profit and loss (four-wall view): for each site, show sales, food cost, labour, other site costs (rent, utilities, packaging, platform fees) and site profit. It shows how the site performs before shared costs. - Central costs (owner or operations manager pay, accounting, marketing, central purchasing, the commissary) are shared. Divide them across sites to see what each site must earn to be worth keeping. - Unit economics: the numbers for one site, repeated. A second or third site should only open if the first site's numbers are stable and the new site's plan clears its own break-even. - The playbook is the written package that lets a site run without you: recipes and portion cards, SOPs, the safety system, the price list, the brand look, the training plan and the scorecard. It lists what is fixed (recipes, portions, safety limits, prices, look) and what is local (opening hours, local specials, community links) so managers know where they can decide. - Commissary (central kitchen): one kitchen prepares sauces, stocks, marinades or doughs for all sites. It gives consistency and can save labour, but adds transport, extra handling and a single point of failure. Compare the labour saved with the extra cost. - Growth can hide problems: a new site takes owner time, cash and attention from the old ones. Many chains see quality drop first at the oldest site. The exercise I'm working on: Write the site profit and loss for one site, add a fair share of central costs, and compare the result with a target. Draw the fixed/local table for your playbook and list the three documents you must still write. I'm stuck. Please: 1. Explain the main idea in plain, simple words with one everyday example. 2. Walk me through the exercise one small step at a time. Ask me what I've done so far before giving the next step. 3. Don't just give me the final answer. Help me do it myself, and check my work when I share it.
I'm a parent helping my child (about 8 years old) with a lesson called "The multi-site model and unit economics" from the course "Food Enterprise Leader: multi-site, catering and franchising". Here's what the lesson says: A band that plays one song well is a good band. A band that plays the same song well in ten different cities, with ten different drummers, needs sheet music, rehearsal and a leader. A food business with many sites needs the same: a written way of doing things, and people trained to follow it. The activity: Write the site profit and loss for one site, add a fair share of central costs, and compare the result with a target. Draw the fixed/local table for your playbook and list the three documents you must still write. Please explain this so an 8-year-old understands: short sentences, a fun everyday example, and no hard words. Then give me 3 simple questions I can ask my child to check they understood, and a way to do the activity together, one tiny step at a time.
Sources
- Site profit and loss, central-cost sharing and commissary arithmetic are standard management maths; all numbers are practice numbers.
My notes
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02
Leading managers and a safe workplace
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03
A food safety management system for many sites
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04
Catering and events at scale
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05
Financial controls across sites
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06
Franchising and licensing
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07
Auditing, teaching and professional mastery
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++
Final project
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Quiz
What does a site profit and loss (four-wall view) show?
Sales, food cost, labour and other site costs, and the site's profit before shared central costs.
Why share central costs across sites?
To see what each site must really earn to be worth keeping.
What is a playbook?
The written package (recipes, SOPs, safety system, prices, training, scorecard) that lets a site run to the same standard without the owner.
What is a manager scorecard?
A one-page set of 6 to 8 measures the manager controls, reviewed weekly.
Name the four delegation levels.
Do it for them, do it together, they do it and you review, they own it and report exceptions.
What does "one step back, one step forward" mean in traceability?
Record who supplied an item and where your batches went.
What is a mock recall drill for?
To practise and time how fast you can find all affected stock and sites.
A catering job costs 2,079 and you want 20% profit on the price. What price?
2,079 ÷ 0.8 = about 2,600.
Why is a 30-day payment term on a catering account a cash problem?
You pay for ingredients before you are paid, so you finance the client.
What is actual versus theoretical food cost?
The gap between what you used (opening + purchases - closing) and what the recipes say you should have used.
Why separate ordering, receiving and paying?
So one person cannot do it all alone, which lowers the risk of errors and fraud.
How does a franchisor make money?
From an initial fee and ongoing royalties on franchisee sales, which must also fund the support team.
EX
Final exam
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CE
Certificate
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