If it's this hard with five sites, what's it going to be like with twenty?
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.
I've seen plenty of businesses grow quickly off the back of a strong concept and strong team. Sites are busy, revenue is healthy, and everyone's working hard.
That kind of success can hide structural problems for a long time.
At five sites, it's still possible to run things informally. Each site operates like its own business unit. Spreadsheets live in different folders. Teams find their own way of doing things.
It works because you're busy, and there's no time to think about it anyway.
Duplication becomes the norm, with three people handling parts of the same job, and data gets lost between systems.
As soon as you start thinking about scale, especially across markets, that approach can fall apart quickly.
I often hear "we don't want to be too corporate" at this stage.
But having one person instead of three isn't corporate, it's effective.
A clear structure allows site teams to focus on service, food and guest experience rather than admin, workarounds and duplication of effort.
The earlier you can pause to redesign how the operation runs, the easier growth becomes.
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.