Food cost you only see at month end
Prices on vendor invoices creep up, portions drift and waste goes unrecorded. When the only food cost number comes from your CPA weeks later, it is too late to act on.
Food, beverage & hospitality
Restaurant & hospitality consulting in Sacramento.
A.D. Consulting is a Sacramento restaurant consultant for owners who need the operation to work better, not a binder of advice. We spend time in your kitchen, on the floor and in the office, find where food, labor and time leak away, and fix it with you, backed by 16 years of hands-on operations experience.
Who it's for
Built for owners who are already stretched.
Most of our restaurant and hospitality work is with independent operators: one to a few locations, an owner who still works shifts, and a back office that runs on whatever time is left over. If you are taking over an existing place, growing to a second location, or watching sales hold steady while profit shrinks, this is for you.
- Independent restaurants
- Bars & taprooms
- Cafés & bakeries
- Catering & food trucks
- Hotels & small inns
- Event & banquet venues
Pinch points we find
The pinch points we look for first.
Every operation is different, but the same leaks show up again and again. These are the places we check before anything else.
Schedules built from habit
Labor gets written the way it was last month, not around the covers you actually serve. We line the schedule up with sales by day and hour.
Ordering by gut feel
Par levels nobody has updated, inventory counted on different days, orders placed from memory. The result is waste on some items and 86'd dishes on others.
Kitchen and service flow
Tickets stall at the same station every Friday, servers take the long way to the same spot, and prep lists do not match what sells.
A point-of-sale set up wrong
Menu items in the wrong categories, comps and voids nobody reviews, and sales reports that do not match the bank deposit.
A back office that runs on spare time
Invoices in a box, tips and payroll pieced together by hand, and books months behind. We clean it up so the numbers are ready when you need them.
What we do
What we do in your restaurant.
We do the work with you and your team, not from a distance. Depending on what the review finds, that can include:
- A simple weekly food and beverage cost check built from your own invoices and sales, so you see the number while you can still change it.
- Par levels, order guides and a count schedule your team can keep up with.
- Labor laid out against sales by day and hour, and a reworked schedule template.
- Time in the kitchen and on the floor during service, fixing the steps that slow tickets down: station setup, prep lists, expo and running.
- Point-of-sale categories, modifiers and reports cleaned up so they tie to your deposits and your books.
- QuickBooks set up or cleaned up, with vendor bills, sales and tips recorded the same way every week.
Every change comes with a written note of what we changed, why, and how to keep it working after we leave.
How an engagement runs
Clear scope, hands-on help.
- 01
Free consultation
A conversation about your concept, your numbers and where the week feels hardest.
- 02
On-site review
We spend time in the operation during prep and service, and read your invoices, sales reports and schedules.
- 03
Written plan and proposal
A ranked list of pinch points, what each one costs you, and a fixed scope, price and timeline to fix them.
- 04
Fix and hand over
We make the changes with your team, then hand over written steps so the fixes hold.
Experience
Experience from inside the business.
We bring 16 years of hands-on operations experience in food and beverage, hospitality and agriculture. We have worked the same kind of shifts your team works, and we know a fix only counts if it still works on a busy Saturday night.
Because bookkeeping is one of our services, we can follow a problem from the floor into the books and back: the invoice that was never entered, the comp that was rung as a sale, the overtime that never showed up in the schedule.
Service area: on-site in Sacramento, Midtown, Elk Grove, Folsom, Davis and Roseville, and across the greater Sacramento area. Remote anywhere, by video call and screen share, inside your own systems.
What does a restaurant consultant actually do?
We look at how your restaurant really runs, from ordering and prep through service and the back office, find where food, labor and time are leaking away, and fix those problems with your team. You get a written plan and the hands-on help to carry it out.
Can you help with our numbers as well as the operation?
Yes. Bookkeeping and QuickBooks are one of our services, so we can connect what happens on the floor to what shows up in your books: food and beverage cost, labor and sales tied to your bank deposits.
Do you come on-site?
Yes. In the greater Sacramento area we work in your restaurant, during prep and service when that is where the problem is. Outside the area we work remotely, by video call and inside your own systems.
What does it cost?
The first consultation is free. After that you get a written proposal with a fixed scope, price and timeline before any work starts, so you know the cost up front.
Find the pinch. Fix it.
Tell us about your restaurant, bar or hotel and where the week feels hardest. We reply within one business day.