Dattatray Consultancy, Hyderabad
Restaurant and hospitality consultants in Hyderabad
Hospitality consulting, from the first idea to a profitable business. Founded in 2021 by Chef Kiran Joshi. Over 200 projects delivered and over 2,000 people trained, across Hyderabad, Telangana and India.
Concept, brand, interiors, kitchen, training, launch, and the profit and loss after it opens.
01Restaurant feasibility and business consulting
We test the business on paper before anyone spends on site.
Does this business pay for itself?
We model the catchment, the covers, the average bill and the rent before the first drawing is made. If the numbers do not work, we say so.
- Catchment and competition study
- Covers, average bill, break even
- Capex and working capital plan
Name it, then decide who it is for
A name, a category position and one line that a guest can repeat to a friend. Everything downstream is built from this.
- Name and origin story
- Guest profile and occasion
- Price band and category
The framework that runs the project
Planning, design, execution, launch. Thirty two steps, each with an owner and a date, reviewed every week until the doors open.
- Phase gates before spend
- One owner per step
- Weekly review with the promoter
02Restaurant branding and menu engineering
The brand is not the logo. It is everything the guest touches.
A system, not a single logo file
Mark, type, colour, packaging and signage built as one kit, with rules so it still looks right two years and forty vendors later.
- Logo, type and colour system
- Packaging and takeaway
- Signage and collateral
The menu is your hardest working page
We engineer it by margin and popularity, then lay it out so the dishes you want to sell are the ones people order.
- Margin and popularity mapping
- Layout, pricing and descriptions
- Print, board and digital versions
The menu sells
The menu is your hardest working page.
- House cocktail star
- High margin and high volume. Protect it, feature it, never discount it.
- Signature biryani star
- The dish people come for and the one that pays. Keep the recipe locked.
- Lamb shank puzzle
- Good margin, few orders. Reposition it on the page or cut it.
- Cheese board puzzle
- Earns well when it sells. Needs a server who recommends it.
- Garlic naan plough horse
- Everyone orders it, it earns little. Re cost it before you re price it.
- Masala fries plough horse
- Volume without margin. Change the portion or the supplier, not the price.
- Soup of the day drop
- Low margin, low demand. It is occupying a line on the page.
- Side salad drop
- Costs prep time and sells nothing. Fold it into another dish.
How the brand lands in the space
Uniforms, tableware, music, lighting, smell and the words your staff use. The room should say the same thing your logo does.
- Uniform and tableware
- Music, light and scent
- Service script and tone
Brand in the room
How the brand lands in the space.
- Signage and door first six seconds
- The guest decides what kind of place this is before anyone greets them.
- Scent what they smell
- Kitchen extraction and the entrance smell are a brand decision, not an afterthought.
- Music and volume what they hear
- A playlist and a decibel level set per service, not left to whoever opens.
- Lighting levels what they see
- Lunch and ten at night are two different rooms. Both need a setting.
- Tableware and menu what they touch
- Weight, finish and condition. Chipped crockery undoes a good fitout.
- Uniform and script who serves them
- What staff wear and the words they use are the brand speaking out loud.
- Packaging what they take home
- Takeaway travels further than your signage ever will.
03Restaurant launch marketing
Demand is built before the doors open, not after.
The 60 days before you open
Construction updates, chef stories, kitchen trials and a waitlist. A room full of people on day one is a marketing outcome, not luck.
- Pre launch content calendar
- Waitlist and invite list
- Influencer and press preview
Short video does the discovery
A repeatable shoot and edit cycle built around the people, the food and the numbers. Not a monthly scramble for ideas.
- Monthly shoot plan
- Hook formats that travel
- Comment and DM handling
Content engine
Short video does the discovery.
- The specific number hook
- Open on a figure, not an adjective. Forty percent of menus lose money.
- Talking head hook
- Chef to camera outperforms anything shot without a face in it.
- Menu teardown format
- Take one real menu apart on screen. Saves climb, and saves are the growth signal.
- Staff and ops format
- What goes wrong in a kitchen at 8pm. People watch this to the end.
- Client story format
- One outlet, the number before and the number after.
- One shoot a month cadence
- A single shoot day feeds four weeks. Scrambling weekly is how it dies.
- The keyword reply conversion
- A comment word triggers a DM. That is where the audience becomes a list.
The second visit is the cheap one
Capture the guest, know what they ordered, give them a reason to return within three weeks. Repeat business carries the margin.
- Guest data capture
- Offer and occasion calendar
- Review and reputation loop
They come back
The second visit is the cheap one.
- You paid for this one first visit
- Ads, influencers, discounts and a launch budget. The most expensive cover you will ever serve.
- The cheap one second visit
- They already know where you are. A reason to return costs a fraction of finding them.
- Habit forming third visit
- Three visits in six weeks and you are on their list of places, not just a place they tried.
- They bring someone fourth visit
- Repeat guests arrive with company. Your table size goes up without a rupee of spend.
- The margin lives here fifth visit
- No acquisition cost, higher average bill, and they forgive an off night.
04Restaurant interior design and execution
Design that a kitchen can actually run in, drawn and then built.
Layout decides your labour cost
Kitchen to pass to table, staff paths, guest paths, storage and waste. We plan movement before we plan mood.
- Seat count and mix
- Kitchen to table flow
- Service stations and storage
The look, made from real materials
Finishes chosen for wear and cleaning as much as for the photo. Light layered so the room works at lunch and at ten at night.
- Material and finish schedule
- Lighting layers and levels
- Seating comfort and dwell time
Material and light
The look, made from real materials.
- Terrazzo underfoot
- Takes trolley wheels and spilled oil for ten years and still mops clean.
- Solid edge, veneer face at the table
- The edge is what chairs hit. Put the money there, not in the panel.
- Lime plaster on the wall
- Patches invisibly. Paint shows every repair after the first year.
- Unlacquered brass touched daily
- It will patina. That is the point, and it means no refinishing bill.
- Acoustic treatment overhead
- A hard room at full covers is a room people leave early.
- Three light layers all day
- Ambient, task and accent on separate circuits, so lunch and late night are different rooms.
We execute what we draw
Working drawings, vendor tendering, site supervision and snagging. One team is answerable from the render to the handover.
- Drawings and BOQ
- Vendor tender and rates
- Site supervision to handover
Built, not rendered
We execute what we draw.
- Drawings and BOQ stage one
- Every dimension resolved on paper, with a priced bill against it.
- Vendor tendering stage two
- Three quotes a package. Rates agreed before a single vendor starts.
- Site works stage three
- Flooring, plumbing, electrical and exhaust built to the drawing, not to memory.
- Joinery and finishes stage four
- Furniture, lighting and surfaces installed under supervision.
- Snag and sign off stage five
- A written defect list closed out before anyone calls it finished.
05Restaurant, kitchen and licence setup
Restaurants, QSR, kiosks, cloud kitchens, hotels and resorts.
Pick the format the site can carry
A 40 seat dine in, a 300 square foot kiosk and a resort restaurant are three different businesses. The site and the money decide which one you are.
- Dine in, QSR, kiosk, cloud
- Resort and hotel F and B
- Multi outlet planning
Equipment specified to the menu
The menu writes the equipment list. We spec, tender, install and commission, then check the utility load the day before trial service.
- Equipment list and spec
- Procurement and rates
- Installation and commissioning
Kitchen and kit
Every unit specified to the menu.
- Walk in cold room storage
- Sized to two deliveries, not a month of stock. Every extra square foot is power you pay for daily.
- Dry store storage
- Racked off the floor, first in first out, and next to goods in so sacks never cross the kitchen.
- Receiving bench and scale goods in
- Every delivery weighed against its invoice at the door. Short weight is the quietest leak in a kitchen.
- Prep benches prep
- Enough length for two people at peak, or the pass ends up being used as the prep bench.
- Veg and meat sinks prep
- Separate basins for raw meat and produce. It is the first thing a food inspector looks for.
- Stock pot burners bulk cooking
- Gravies and bases cooked low and early, off the main line, so service burners stay free.
- Six burner range hot line
- Burner count comes from the menu count. Spare burners are rent you pay forever.
- Tandoor hot line
- At the end of the line under its own extraction, so its heat does not cook the cook.
- Twin fryer hot line
- Oil volume, recovery time and a filtration plan. The last one is always forgotten.
- Combi oven hot line
- One unit that steams, roasts and holds. It replaces two pieces of kit and a cook.
- Under counter chillers cold line
- Sized to one service, not one week. Over buying chillers is the commonest capex leak.
- Hot pass service
- Where food waits. Too short and plates go cold, too long and the kitchen slows.
- Dish and pot wash returns
- Beside the dining door so dirty plates never cross the line. Undersized here and every station stalls.
Paperwork that opens on time
FSSAI, fire, trade, health and liquor where it applies. Tracked on the same plan as the civil work so nothing waits on a signature.
- Licence checklist by state
- Application and follow up
- Audit ready documentation
Licences clear
Paperwork that opens on time.
- Excise licence 90 days or more
- The longest runway on the board. If you want a bar, this one starts first.
- Food licence 45 to 60 days
- Filed against the final kitchen layout. Change the layout and the clock restarts.
- Fire NOC 45 days
- Driven by the drawings, so it has to start during design, not after fitout.
- Trade licence 30 days
- Municipal, and tied to the exact carpet area on your lease.
- Health and sanitation 21 days
- An inspection you pass by building it right, not by preparing for the visit.
- Signage permit 15 days
- Small, forgotten, and the reason facades sit blank on opening week.
06Franchise development
Turning one outlet that works into a model others can run.
First the model, then the map
Unit economics, SOPs and supply chain locked before a single territory is sold. A franchise sold too early costs you the brand.
- Unit economics per format
- SOP and operations manual
- Supply chain and central kitchen
What a franchisee actually signs
Agreement, territory, fee structure, royalty and the support you commit to. Written so both sides know what they bought.
- Agreement and territory map
- Fee, royalty and term
- Support and marketing fund
The pack
What a franchisee actually signs.
- Territory and radius clause one
- What they own and how close the next outlet can open. Get this wrong once and you cannot fix it.
- Fee, royalty, term clause two
- The upfront, the percentage and how many years. Priced off real unit economics.
- Operating standards clause three
- Menu, suppliers, recipes and service. The part that keeps your brand yours.
- What you commit to clause four
- Training, launch support and audits, written as obligations rather than promises.
- Transfer and exit clause five
- How they leave, who they can sell to, and what happens to the site.
Support does not end at handover
Training before opening, a team on site for launch week, then quarterly audits on food, service and the books.
- Franchisee and staff training
- Opening week support
- Quarterly operations audit
Open, then audit
Support does not end at handover.
- Franchisee training before opening
- The owner learns the business before the staff do. Two weeks, on a live floor.
- Outlet team training before opening
- The new outlet team trained to the same SOPs as the parent outlet, and tested before day one.
- Opening support week one
- Our team on the floor for the first seven days, not on a call.
- First P and L month one
- Read line by line together, so the owner learns to read it themselves.
- Operations audit quarterly
- Food, service and books checked against the standard, with a written action list.
- Supply and menu ongoing
- Central rates and menu updates flow out, so every outlet stays the same brand.
07Hospitality team training and SOPs
Over 2,000 people trained. Service is a system, not a personality.
Design the team around the covers
Org structure, roles, staff to cover ratios and shift patterns, planned against your projected sales so labour cost lands where the model said it would.
- Org structure and ratios
- Role descriptions and skill matrix
- Shift and roster design
Everyone runs the same play
Kitchen, service, hygiene and cash handling taught from written SOPs, then tested. Someone who starts in month nine is trained exactly like someone who started in week one.
- Kitchen and service SOPs
- Hygiene and safety training
- Train the trainer programme
Trained to sop
Everyone runs the same play.
- Kitchen SOPs written, then tested
- Prep quantities, hold times and plate specs, so the dish is the same on a Tuesday.
- Service SOPs written, then tested
- Greeting, order, timing and the close. A sequence, not a personality.
- Hygiene and safety written, then tested
- Temperature logs, cleaning rota and what to do when something is dropped.
- Cash and billing written, then tested
- Who voids, who discounts, who reconciles. Most leakage starts here.
- Open and close written, then tested
- A checklist each end of the day that one person signs their name against.
- Train the trainer the standard outlasts us
- We train your trainers, so the standard holds after we leave. Month nine is taught exactly like week one.
Retention is a cost line
Rosters people can live with, incentives tied to what you want sold, and a reason for your team to stay past the first festival season.
- Roster and leave planning
- Incentive structure
- Attrition tracking
They stay
Retention is a cost line.
- A liveable roster lever one
- Published two weeks out, with real days off. The first reason people quit.
- Monthly one to ones lever two
- A short review against the SOPs every month, so feedback is a habit and not a warning.
- Incentives that steer lever three
- Tied to what you want sold, not to turnover. Otherwise you pay for discounting.
- A next step lever four
- A commis who can see the chef de partie job stays through the festival season.
- Attrition tracked lever five
- Measured monthly by role. If you do not count it you will not believe what it costs.
08Launch and profitability management
Go to market, then stay profitable after the launch noise fades.
Trial service, then a real opening
A soft launch to break the kitchen in, a friends and family service to fix the gaps, then an opening week the team can actually deliver.
- Soft launch and trial service
- Opening week plan
- Day one team brief and prep
Four lines run the business
Food cost, labour cost, rent to revenue and prime cost. We set the targets, build the reporting and teach the manager to read it.
- Cost targets per format
- Daily and weekly reporting
- Inventory and wastage control
Numbers that matter
Four lines run the business.
- Food cost target 28 to 32 percent
- What the plate cost. Drift here is usually portioning, not pricing.
- Labour cost target 18 to 24 percent
- Rostered against covers. It is a planning number before it is a payroll number.
- Rent to revenue target under 10 percent
- Decided the day you sign the lease and almost impossible to fix afterwards.
- Prime cost target under 55 percent
- Food plus labour. The one line that tells you if the business works.
Month thirteen is the real test
Menu re engineered on live sales data, vendor rates renegotiated, and a monthly review that catches the slide before it shows in the bank.
- Monthly P and L review
- Menu re engineering
- Vendor and cost audits
Stay profitable
Month thirteen is the real test.
- Opening noise month 1
- Full rooms, thin margins and a team still learning the menu. Nothing here is a trend.
- The first real read month 3
- Launch traffic has gone. What is left is your actual catchment.
- Costs settle month 6
- Wastage, rosters and vendor rates finally hold still long enough to measure.
- Menu re engineering month 9
- Nine months of live sales data is enough to redraw the menu by what actually sells.
- Year one closes month 12
- The anniversary spike flatters the month. Read it against month eleven, not against month one.
- The real test month 13
- No launch budget, no novelty, no anniversary. Month thirteen is the business on its own legs.
- Compounding month 18
- Repeat guests, negotiated rates and a trained team. This is where the money was always going to be.
The 32 step framework
Four phases of eight steps. Every step has an owner and a date, reviewed every week until the doors open.
Planning
- Feasibility study. Catchment, competition and footfall are checked before any money moves.
- Concept definition. The format, the cuisine and the occasion the place is built around.
- Site evaluation. Frontage, access, parking and utilities weighed against the rent.
- Financial model. Capex, working capital, break even and the payback period.
- Name and identity brief. What it is called, and the one line a guest repeats to a friend.
- Menu architecture. Dish count, price band and the kitchen those two decisions imply.
- Licence roadmap. Every approval listed with its lead time, before civil work starts.
- Project plan and budget. An owner and a date against all thirty two steps.
Design
- Space planning. Seat count, seat mix and the path from kitchen to table.
- Kitchen layout. Stations sized to the menu, not to the space left over.
- Equipment schedule. Every machine specified with its load, its footprint and its rate.
- Interior design. Material, colour and light chosen for wear as much as for the photo.
- Services coordination. Power, water, gas, drainage and exhaust resolved on paper first.
- Brand identity. Mark, type, colour, packaging and signage built as one kit.
- Menu engineering. Dishes mapped by margin and popularity, then laid out to sell.
- Working drawings. Tender ready drawings and a priced bill of quantities.
Execution
- Vendor tendering. Three quotes a package, rates negotiated and then locked.
- Civil works. Demolition, flooring, plumbing and electrical built to drawing.
- Kitchen installation. Equipment delivered, installed, commissioned and load tested.
- Interior fit out. Joinery, furniture, lighting and finishes executed on site.
- Signage and graphics. Facade, wayfinding, menu boards and collateral produced.
- Licence filing. Applications submitted and followed until each one is issued.
- Team structure. Roles, ratios and shift patterns set against the covers the model projects.
- Snagging. Every defect listed, fixed and signed off before handover.
Launch
- SOP rollout. Kitchen, service, hygiene and cash handling written down.
- Team training. Every role trained against the SOPs, then tested on them.
- Supply chain setup. Vendors, rates, order cycles and storage all in place.
- POS and reporting. Menu loaded, costing set, daily reports configured.
- Trial service. A closed run that breaks the kitchen in and finds the gaps.
- Pre launch marketing. Content, waitlist, press and the influencer preview.
- Opening week. Our team on the floor through the first seven days of trade.
- Post launch review. The first month P and L read line by line, then corrected.
Projects
50 projects across 11 formats.
Fine Dine
- H Palate - Delhi
- Samskruthi South Kitchen - Kondapur
- Swaad - Degloor, Maharashtra
- I'm Lion - Pune, Maharashtra
- Nizami Spice - Kukatpally
- Lagom - Raipur, Chhattisgarh
- Art of Biryani - Chaitanya Puri, Hyderabad
- Kake Di Hatti - Kondapur, Hyderabad
- Tales of Nizam - Channapatna, Mysore
- Fire and Feast - Tirupathi
- Kadali - Jubilee Hills
Kitchen & Bar
- Koliba - Begumpet, Hyderabad
- Nectar - Madhapur, Hyderabad
- Veto - Kondapur, Hyderabad
- Bar project - Begumpet, Hyderabad
- Koi & Co - Sainikpuri, Hyderabad
- Hotel Jaidhan - Nanded, Maharashtra
- Clouds & Spirits - Hyderabad
Café
- Labyrinth - Gandipet, Hyderabad
- Downtown Cafe - Kukatpally
- Smoky Bay - Himayatnagar, Hyderabad
- Via Moka - Nanakramguda
- La Addiction - Solapur, Maharashtra
- Retro Cafe and Bistro - A.S Rao Nagar
- Ganache Cafe - Banjara Hills
- Big Owl Cafe - Sainikpuri, Hyderabad
- Granny Sara - Hayath Nagar, Hyderabad
Cloud Kitchen
- Madhura Jihva - Madhapur, Hyderabad
QSR
- Uttarayan - Kompally, Hyderabad
- Big Bait - Kondapur, Hyderabad
- Rolls of Arabia - Kondapur, Hyderabad
- Coco Village - Madhapur, Hyderabad
- DFine Pizza By NBC - Gachibowli
- Chubby Berry - Nanakramguda
- Bombay Tapri - Nalagandla, Hyderabad
- Burger Bro - Udaipur, Rajasthan
- Fern's Pizzeria - Gachibowli
- Chawrasta - Madinaguda, Hyderabad
Bakery Projects
- Wanderlust Bakes - Manikonda, Hyderabad
- Dessart - Lingampally, Hyderabad
- Granny Sara - Hayath Nagar, Hyderabad
Drive-In
- Eat O'Clock - Kondapur, Hyderabad
- La Fiesta - Pragathi Nagar, Hyderabad
Breakfast
- Alpharam - Latur, Maharashtra
- Padmavathi Tiffins - Kondapur, Hyderabad
- Stories of Dakshin - Financial District
Franchise
- Zomoz - Narsingi, Hyderabad
- Ram ki Bandi - Mozamjahi Market, Hyderabad
Centralized Manufacturing Unit
- UBCL - United Bakers Cooperative Society Limited - Prashanthi Nagar, Kukatpally, Hyderabad
Resort
- Kasol Camp - Himachal Pradesh
Chef Kiran Joshi, founder
Chef Kiran Joshi founded Dattatray Consultancy in Hyderabad in 2021. Over 200 openings. One straight answer.
Contact
Book the free 30 minute readiness call. 50 slots each month.
- WhatsApp and calls: +91 77993 05958
- Email: sales@dattatrayconsultancy.com
- Instagram: @dattatrayconsultancy
- Hyderabad, Telangana, India