A whetstone is a type of stone used to sharpen knives. Just like chefs sharpen knives to work more efficiently and safely, we use our experience and knowledge to help “sharpen” your company’s infrastructure and operations to enable more efficient and sustainable growth.
“ Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others? ”
– Voltaire
Use our experience to shorten your learning curve and avoid expensive missteps.
Locating restaurant friendly financing options that allow you to expand in an affordable fashion. Setup of loan packages, including forecasts, and working with financial institutions to obtain optimal results.
Establish financial, operational and HR structure to achieve sustainable growth.
Benchmarking key metrics and optimizing operations for greater profitability.
Guidance for overseas restaurant concepts entering the U.S. market
Deep relationships with top of class restaurant industry professionals including Legal, Marketing, Accounting, and Human Resources
Creation of Investment packages, including projections, content selection and valuation.
A 25-year veteran of the restaurant industry, after starting his career at Deloitte, Yousuf followed his heart and jumped headfirst into the restaurant industry, owning, and operating both fast casual and full-service restaurants before getting into consulting, where he works with restaurant groups as a fractional/acting CEO or CFO.
His experience includes working with some of the largest franchisors in the world, setting up the financial infrastructure to help expand a brand from zero revenue to $150MM over the span of a few years, and guiding restaurant groups to save millions of dollars in both labor and food costs by implementing more effective systems and practices.
Restaurant groups Yousuf has worked with include The Group NYC, Ilis, Death & Co., Icebox Group, Hakkasan, Catch Group (EMM), Garces, Balance Grille, Focus Brands and many others.
Justin Leve is a fractional COO with over 16 years of experience in hospitality and food based CPG clients. He has a broad record of success, including operations, consumer brand management, and business development.
Justin’s strengths lie in strategic revenue growth through licensing and franchise operations, and turn around strategies.
He started his career in restaurants and worked as a chef in Colorado and Alaska before moving to New York. After over a decade of leading international growth operations retail in the Middle East and Asia, he has returned to focus on his first love, restaurants and hospitality
Justin has worked with Martha Stewart, Brooks Brothers, Lululemon, Reef Technology, Fuku, and Joe Fresh, amongst others.
360-degree knowledge of the restaurant industry. Experience overseeing Operations, HR, Finance and Marketing.
Restaurants are now the new hot investment, with “fast casual” becoming the darling of the industry.
Valuations for fast casual groups have been so frothy (Shake Shack is expected to trade at over 200 times earnings for 2015) that there has been talk of a “fast casual bubble”.
Yousuf Hasan
Experience with all formats of the foodservice industry, from fine dining to fast casual