I ask European brands the same question before they expand internationally: who is sitting at your tables right now?
This piece was originally shared on LinkedIn in response to recurring conversations with founders and leadership teams around this topic.
I’m publishing it here as part of an ongoing body of thinking around restaurant strategy, market entry, and operational decision-making.
Set aside the age brackets and the spend data. What is the occasion they’re actually coming to you for?
Are they celebrating, closing deals, or refuelling during a shopping trip?
Without that clarity, you’re making expansion decisions on the wrong footing.
A lot of brands assume their existing customer base will follow them into a new market. In reality, those guests usually aren’t coming, and the same profile often doesn’t exist at the same scale in the new city.
Who is your customer in that market? Where do they already go? What price point makes sense for the occasion they’re coming for?
The question then evolves from “who are they now?” to “who could they be in the new market?” Date night might not be a big driver at home, but it could be the anchor occasion in the new location.
Understanding this up front saves a lot of costly mistakes later. A kitchen fit-out built for the wrong style of trade. An ad account burning cash on creative that doesn’t match the actual customer. A site that turns out to be three streets too far from the financial district to catch the lunch crowd.
60% of successful international expansion is knowing who your customer is at home.
Since first sharing this, I’ve seen the same issue surface repeatedly — particularly with businesses entering new markets or scaling too quickly. The underlying challenge is rarely strategy itself, but how early decisions constrain execution later.
Andrew Jobes is the founder of Jobes & Co., a Dubai-based advisory working with restaurant and hospitality businesses across the Middle East and international markets.