The Operations Assessment
It's a contractor's walkthrough of how your business actually runs. What you give, what you get, and what three weeks look like — this is work, not a pitch.
What you give, what you get.
Both sides named up front — and nothing is requested before the engagement letter is signed.
What you give
Twelve to fifteen of your hours
Spread across the three weeks: the walkthrough, interviews, and the readout where the report lands in your hands.
About twenty team hours
Five interviews and time beside your people at the POS, the pass, and the office — scheduled around service, never during a rush.
Your software invoices and credentials
Your software invoices and system access, handed over after signature. The clock starts the day the last credential lands.
What you get
The report
The full read of how the place runs, with a price on every line. The outline is public; it's below.
Two things fixed during field week
Repairs, made on the spot: two problems found in the building get fixed while we're still in it. You'll have seen us work before you decide whether to hire us to build.
Your software bill, priced line by line
Every line — POS, reservations, ordering, scheduling, payroll, accounting: keep it, replace it, or cancel it, with what each one does for the operation next to its cost. Nobody pays us less when it says keep, and nobody pays us more when it says cancel; there is no line on our invoice that a software company pays.
A fixed-price plan you own
The plan is yours. If you want another firm to build it, or your own team, take it. No claw-back, no exclusivity.
What's inside the report.
The method is the product, so the outline is public. Five sections, each one checkable.
- 01
What we watched
Two service observations and five interviews, written as scenes — what actually happened at the pass, on the phone, at the door, read back in your operation's own words.
- 02
The twelve tests
Twelve calls and orders placed against your own business, at the hours guests really call, with what happened written down verbatim. The tests themselves are published — run three tonight and check us.
See the twelve tests - 03
The money math
Every dollar figure labeled Measured, Assumed, or Not measured — with the assumption printed beside the number, so you can change it and watch the number change.
The missed-calls formula, published in full - 04
The software bill
Priced line by line: keep, replace, or cancel, with the seams between systems called out where they're leaking.
- 05
The plan
Phased and fixed-price. No phase longer than five weeks, a written acceptance test before each one, and you can stop after any phase.
The report's own table, with nothing in it.
Every dollar figure you get sits in a row like this — labeled Measured, Assumed, or Not measured, with the assumption printed beside it so you can change it and watch the number change.
| Figure | Measured | Assumed | Not measured | The assumption behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Three weeks, and the clock is honest.
The outside-in tests
Credentials land, the software invoices are in hand, and the twelve tests begin — calls and orders placed the way a guest places them.
Field week
In the building: two service observations, five interviews, the full walkthrough — and two things fixed while we're there.
The math and the readout
The money math gets its labels, the plan gets its prices, and the readout puts the report in your hands.
Three weeks from the day the last credential lands — not the day the deposit clears.
Everything on the list, or you don't pay the balance.
Everything on the list gets delivered — two service observations, five interviews, twelve calls and orders placed against your own business with the results written down, your software invoices priced line by line, two things fixed while we're there, and a fixed-price plan. If any of it isn't in your hands at the readout, you don't pay the balance.
The terms, in writing.
Defined scope means the guarantee's list is what you're buying. The fee attaches to that list, and it doesn't move once you've signed — not even if the walkthrough turns up more than we expected.
One fixed number for a defined scope — spoken at the fit call, in writing before you sign anything.
- Deposit and balance
- 60% books your dated field week. The balance is due at the readout, when the report is in your hands.
- How the fee moves
- The fee is set by how many separate system stacks and sets of books you run — not by how many doors you have. A second room on the same POS, reservation book, and P&L adds field time, not a second engagement.
- The rebuild credit
- Half the assessment fee comes off the first phase of a rebuild that starts within 90 days of the readout.
The fee is one fixed number. We say it out loud at the 30-minute fit call and put it in writing before you sign anything. Fair to ask why it isn't printed here: the fee moves with how many separate system stacks and sets of books you run, so a printed number would be wrong for most readers. The terms and the adder rule are printed instead — so you can see how it moves.
What does a restaurant operations assessment include?
The OpsRefresh Operations Assessment is a three-week, fixed-fee walkthrough of how a restaurant actually runs: the phones, the reservation book, online and third-party ordering, the POS, scheduling, payroll and accounting, and every handoff between them. It includes two service observations, five interviews, twelve outside-in tests placed against your own business, your software bill priced line by line, two things fixed during field week, and a written, phased plan you own. The report's five-section outline is published in full, not summarised.
How the rebuild runs while you stay openDoes the assessment tell you whether to keep or replace the POS?
Yes, line by line. The assessment prices every line of the software bill, POS, reservations, online ordering, delivery portals, scheduling, payroll and accounting, as keep, replace or cancel, with what each line does for the operation printed beside its cost. OpsRefresh argues against replacing a POS unless it is dying or being forced onto a new version, because the trouble usually sits in the handoffs between systems and survives a replacement untouched. Nobody on our side earns more when the answer is replace, and nobody earns less when it is keep.
Keep, replace or cancel: the five questions asked of every lineRead this before you book.
This starts to make sense at around $3M in revenue, or at two locations, or when something specific has changed — a lease signed, a POS dying, a system you bought that didn't work. Under that, here's what I'd do instead.
Run the twelve tests yourself. They're published in full, they're free, and they'll find the worst leak without us in the building. The twelve tests
Who we say no to, in writing
- Single locations under about $1.5M. A responsible rebuild can't be funded at that size, and we won't sell you a diagnosis for work you'll never do.
- $1.5M–$3M, with nothing changed. “Not yet.” Run the published tests, fix what they surface, and call when the volume, the lease, or the trigger arrives.
- Nightlife-primary and club-primary venues. If the room is a bar that serves — a book, a kitchen, a phone that rings for tables — you're a restaurant to us, and the descriptor means you. If the door, the DJ and the bottle list are the business, those are operating problems we haven't walked, and we'd rather say so than learn on your floor.
- Franchisees of major systems, and branded hotels under a corporate technology mandate. The decisions a rebuild would touch are made above your signature. A walkthrough can't change that.
- Ghost-kitchen-only operations and food trucks. Different economics, different fix, honestly not ours.
- Anyone mid-onboarding with a new POS. Let the vendor finish — their onboarding is genuinely good at getting their product live. If the seams still leak in three months, call then.
- Anyone whose real problem is capital, staffing, menu, or marketing. We'll say which one we think it is and point you toward it. We're not marketers, and we'll say that out loud too.
Every other promise on this page is hard for a stranger to verify. Turning money away is the one proof that costs us something — and it answers the question you're actually asking: will these people say anything to close me?
Read the list, and it's still you?
Then the next step is thirty minutes — and it might still end in 'not yet.' That's the point.