Process digitalization
Less manual work on the numbers: the software the business already uses, connected, and people trained to use it.
Go to Process digitalization →
Restaurants and food retail
Consulting and hands-on support for restaurants, chains and food retail
AC Retail Advisory works alongside the people who run a restaurant business. The owner of a single restaurant, the owner of three or ten, the chain preparing new openings, the franchise network.
One site or a hundred.
The numbers have to add up.
With a single restaurant the questions are simple and urgent: how much it has to take to stay afloat, how much food and staff weigh, whether menu prices are right and actually make a profit. With more sites another question joins them: whether the result holds whatever the shift, the season and the person on duty.
Who it is for
A single restaurant
The owner who wants to know how much the restaurant really earns and how much it has to take to stay afloat. And where margin leaks between purchasing, staff and prices.
Three to ten sites
The owner who can no longer be in every site and has no finance director in the business: each site needs its own numbers, and managers who know how to use them.
Chains and franchise networks
Groups preparing new openings, company-owned or franchised. They want the same standard and the same margin in every unit.
For everyone, the first step is the ACRA Diagnosis: five working days over three or four weeks, to know from the numbers where to act.
The problems we get called about
01The restaurant works when the owner is there. When the owner is away, it slips.
What we look at
What works thanks to rules and tools, and what works only thanks to the person who created the restaurant.
How we work
We put the second part in writing, as procedures, roles and tools, so it can be taught.
The decision
What to fix before the next opening, and which openings are better postponed.
02One site makes money, another does not, and nobody is sure why.
What we look at
The P&L of each site and the gap between the best and the worst.
How we work
We work out how much of the gap comes from the location and how much from the way the site is run. The second part is the one that can be changed.
The decision
Which sites to work on, how, and what result to expect.
03Sites multiply, the office stays the same.
What we look at
How many sites one person can really follow, how often they get visited and who in the office does what.
How we work
We design the organization for the sites there will be in two years, and decide what stays at the office and what moves to the sites.
The decision
Which roles are needed, in what order, and at how many sites each one becomes necessary.
04Floor managers leave, and the standard leaves with them.
What we look at
How new joiners are trained, how much time managers spend coaching them, and how much of the standard survives when someone leaves.
How we work
We write down what each role has to be able to do and how to tell who is ready to step up. That way the standard stays when people change.
The decision
Who to promote, who to coach, and how many people have to be ready before opening.
05Takings go up, yet little is left at the end of the month.
What we look at
Food cost budgeted and actual, the weight of labour cost, stock variances, waste, discounts not applied and shared costs charged to each site.
How we work
We rebuild the P&L of each site, down to how much it has to take to stay afloat. Then we separate the margin lost in day-to-day service from the margin lost in the menu and in pricing.
The decision
Where to act on price, where on the recipe, where on the work in the dining room and the kitchen, with the expected effect on each site.
The step to take
In Italian restaurants the average bill is rising while visits stay below pre-pandemic levels. That changes how every site and every new opening should be judged.
The context, in three measures
+10% / −10%spending in European foodservice is at an all-time high while visits stay ten points below pre-pandemic. In Italy visits are at −4%
€10.70the average transaction value in Italian foodservice, +3% in a year, with menu prices at +3.2% and every consumption occasion down except lunch
+2.1% / −0.8%food retail sales grow in value and fall in volume; large-format grocery holds (+2.0%) while small stores retreat (−1.4%)
Sources verified September 2026.
Spending and visits: Circana CREST, June 2019 – June 2025, five European markets · Transaction value, menu prices and occasions: FIPE-Confcommercio, Rapporto Ristorazione 2026, 2025 data · Retail sales: ISTAT, January–November 2025.
Growth is coming from prices while customers remain fewer than before. For a single restaurant every point of margin weighs more. For a chain every new site opens where customers are harder to win, and adds weight to a network that is harder to follow.
Before the next opening, the model has to be copyable, controllable and able to pay back.
From format to replicability
Stage 1FormatConcept, layout and offer
Stage 2StandardsShared procedures and standards
Stage 3EconomicsMargin, break-even, return
Stage 4OrganizationRoles and team structure
Stage 5LeadershipRunning and developing people
Stage 6ControlKPIs, checks, monitoring
Stage 7ReplicabilityProven new openings
Stage 1FormatConcept, layout and offer
Stage 2StandardsShared procedures and standards
Stage 3EconomicsMargin, break-even, return
Stage 4OrganizationRoles and team structure
Stage 5LeadershipRunning and developing people
Stage 6ControlKPIs, checks, monitoring
Stage 7ReplicabilityProven new openings
- KPIs and checks update Standards and Economics
- New openings improve the original Format
Areas of work
The five areas of expertise of AC Retail Advisory, applied to restaurants and retail sites.
01
Strategy and growth
Where to open, in what order, with how much capital and how long each site takes to pay back. Company-owned sites, franchising or a mix of the two. Franchise network development →
02
Operations and organization
Written rules so that every site runs the same way. Shifts and staff cost planned, clear roles at the office and in the sites.
03
Management control and margin
Food cost, staff cost and the P&L of each site, down to how much it has to take to stay afloat. A few numbers, weekly or monthly, to decide on.
04
Business development
What each channel really earns: dining room, delivery, franchising, airports and stations, shopping centres. How to build the menu and prices.
05
Manufacturing operations
Central kitchens and production units supplying the sites: how much they produce, how much is lost in preparation and what each dish really costs.
How we work
We start from the concrete problem, read the numbers and settle with management the decision to be taken. Then we stay alongside the business until the decisions become everyday work.
Cross-cutting enablers
Beyond the five areas, two tools that serve every project.
Training and leadership development
The standard reaches the customer through whoever runs the shift. We train site managers, operations managers and area managers to read the numbers of their own site, to lead people and to follow sites at a distance. It is the step that lets the model work without the person who built it.
Go to Training and leadership development →Cases and results
Projects in restaurants and food retail are collected on the case studies page, each with the starting situation, the work done and what was delivered. Among those run by Andrea Calistri before AC Retail Advisory was founded are the operating manual for the franchisees of Old Wild West and the opening of the first Doppio Malto site, from concept to purchasing.
Who works on the engagement
Andrea Calistri started out running restaurants. He was Restaurant Manager at Fratelli La Bufala across Milan, Rome and Brussels, then Operations Director at Grill Inn Group. As head of the Italian subsidiary of KellyDeli he took the network from zero to ninety-five corners in three years.
Andrea Calistri, founder of AC Retail Advisory, leads the engagement. The team is assembled around the scope and introduced to the client before the work begins.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. The work starts from the restaurant’s P&L: how much it has to take to stay afloat, how much food and staff weigh, whether menu prices are right and actually make a profit.
No. The starting point is the till, purchasing and payroll data the restaurant already produces, in whatever form it exists. Where there is no P&L by site, rebuilding it is the first piece of work.
The ACRA Diagnosis takes five working days spread over three or four weeks. It ends with a written document setting out the priorities and the estimated effect of each.
Written rules, clear roles, a P&L for every site and people able to read it. As long as one of these is missing, every new opening widens the gap between the best site and the worst.
Yes. Standards and controls take a different form when the sites are not company-owned, and this is one of the most frequent situations.
Yes. At that stage the work covers how to make the format repeatable, the numbers of the single site and the organization that has to carry the openings that follow.
