Restaurants & food service

Restaurants and food-service businesses operate on some of the thinnest margins in any industry, squeezed between food and labor costs and, increasingly, the fees of delivery platforms that own the digital customer. A single-location operator and a multi-unit group face different versions of the same problem: build reliable demand, protect a fragile margin, and decide how to handle a delivery channel that brings volume and takes a heavy cut.

We help restaurant operators and groups with the demand, brand, and digital strategy that fill seats and build a direct relationship with guests, and with the operating and unit-economics rigor that protects margin. Industry reports commonly put restaurant profit margins at just 3% to 5%, which is why a delivery platform's cut can be the difference between a profitable location and a break-even one. The scale of what's at stake is a matter of public record: the National Restaurant Association's 2020 State of the Restaurant Industry report projected $899 billion in U.S. restaurant sales before the pandemic cut that year short, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted roughly 620,000 eating and drinking places nationwide as of October 2017. The search and local-demand side is home ground for the practice Praxis grew from; the margin and expansion questions are where operating strategy earns its keep.