Lessons from a decade in restaurant finance

Adam Coghlan

You’re relaunching Viewpoint. Tell us what's going to be different?

Hussein Ahmad

Viewpoint 2.0 has come about because David Grant who started the company in 2011 is leaving, and taking semi retirement for various reasons, and as part of him leaving, we merged with another firm. This was a strategic plan. So it has come about slightly by necessity. But one of the reasons for merging was we don't offer payroll or complex year-end or tax planning: The other complementary services that in a competitive market allows us to be more competitive and capture more clients. It also means we now view ourselves in a slightly different way. Because we have a separate team that does our bookkeeping, the people that work for Viewpoint, we don't consider ourselves bookkeepers anymore. We are purely business consultants who specialize in hospitality. We are using elements of the bookkeeping, but for the four-weekly or monthly management reports. We're using those management reports as a tool to discuss your business. So I think it's just slightly changing our understanding of ourselves, our perspective and how we want to present to the outside world – as more advisory than bookkeepers. 

Adam

When you're talking about the strategic stuff, you mentioned the word ‘independent’. You’ve always focused on independent restaurants and the Viewpoint brand is synonymous with those places. Is that something that you’re definitely going to maintain and how does the evolution of the company incorporate that?

Hussein

The company is evolving with the market. It's difficult to find sites and open restaurants with that same… casualness is the wrong word… but hope and a dream, DIY. I think you have to be a bit more strategic. I think we're evolving with our client base as it is, who are naturally getting older themselves. 

The clients we work with, especially from opening, they've usually got enough finance in place to make it work. They've had to get quite a large amount of money from investors, even if it is family and friends because everything is so competitive, the economy is not very good, stagnant, and so you have to hit the ground running. You can't really learn from mistakes. The operators can't. Well, they can, but it's more costly, and so you have to play it safer. You know, there's a reason there’s a sharing steak on every menu now – it brings the spend in, it's pleases people in a generally upsetting time. 

Adam

You say ‘comforting’. Do you get into customer psychology with clients? 

Hussein

I think we do. This is where my experience and David's comes in. I think it's hard to teach this to our more junior members of staff, and that's just experience and actually being into restaurants ourselves. One of the reasons we went out a lot was to look at menus, count the number of staff, or see the layout, the number of covers. Are they turning? Are they not? And that's something we talk with the team about a lot. You've got to be observant when you're in a restaurant, or just walking past restaurants, what's busy, what's not busy. So we're not experts in the psychology of customers, but there's observations that we make, and we then try to link those with the financial performance of the business. 

Adam

How do you manage enabling the operator to have their own creativity without running the risk of homogenisation?

Hussein

I would say any of that stuff is quite light touch and often the operators we work with have an idea of what they want, and they're quite headstrong, but they're creative, and it's often their passion project. But increasingly, people talk about wanting to make a profit. That's obviously what everyone wants to do, but there'll be some operators who won’t compromise on certain things, because that's what they believe. So I generally don't think we have much influence on the homogenisation of a sector. I think the homogenization of the sector is the result of the economic conditions and to some extent playing it safe.

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Adam

Let's get into that then, it's a good time to segue. So we're at the start of Q2 in 2026: How would you describe where the London restaurant industry is at?

Hussein 

I think it's weathered many, many storms since Brexit and since Covid, when lots of Europeans went home and haven't come back. And from that point onwards, we’ve had the Ukraine war, cost of living crisis, huge inflation, the Labour government. But there's been nothing positive from changing the government, economically. And I think more sector specific, they've not really done anything to help the hospitality.

Adam

Was there an expectation that they would? 

Hussein

Not from me. I suppose there's a hope that there'd be more stability. I don't want to talk down the government at all. It's not just a UK problem, it's a European and world problem, but I think there was a hope that after the shitshow of the Tories, that people would feel a bit more confident with Labour. And in some respects, there is confidence but now you've got the Iran war and that energy crisis. And how is that going to feed into energy costs, food costs in the UK?

Adam

So six years of strain on industry.

Hussein

There are people who do really well and continue to do really well. The Devonshires of the world… but there are many places treading water. 

I think what was different to the beginning of this year than last year is there's not been massive inflation. Yes, the cost of living crisis is there. But for the customers of the restaurants within our sector, within the industry, we're in a city of eight to 10 million, there are people with money to eat out. And we've got a few clients who are opening sites in central London, and they've managed to get investment to do that. So there are signs of green shoots. Nothing strong.

Adam

There's some data points to suggest that there's movement…

Hussein 

Even government forecasts, which I know they're only forecasts, but there is small growth predicted. So that's what was giving me some hope.

Adam 

What's this central London thing about, do you think? Also, what is central London? 

Hussein Good question. I think it's not a whole area. I think it's pockets within a circumference. So Shoreditch could be described now in central London. Borough is central London. Then you've got Soho, Marylebone, Mayfair. In all of those places, the attraction is tourists, it's footfall and so who's making up that footfall? It's people coming into London for the weekend or for the night from the suburbs. I think it's just accessing as many people as possible.

Adam 

Are the restaurants being incentivised? 

HusseinI think the big landlords within central London, from what I've heard, when they're doing new developments or they're assigning new leases, they are trying to make it attractive to come to those areas. So it's not just chains. They want ‘independence’ as well. So, Carnaby Street’s being redeveloped, Smithfield has been redeveloped with the Museum of London, and there's loads of stuff going in there which is independent of nature. Then the reverse is you're getting a Gail’s in Streatham Hill. Now it feels like a ‘donut.’ So the zone twos are being homogenised; the donut is being homogenised.

Adam

That's such a good line.

Hussein

Beyond Gail’s actually, bakeries are a curious example, they’re a success story outside of central London. They thrive throughout London. And a number of our clients are those places now and they turn over crazy amounts each week if you compare them to a full service restaurant. This is more like consumer psychology: they're offering a luxury product at an affordable price point.

So if you go to Jolene or Layla or Aries Bakehouse – my local one…I've been every weekend with the baby for a walk and spent 10, 15, 20 pounds. So when you add that up, it’s like an 80 quid meal over the course of a month. I'm choosing to spend that over a few weeks in a slightly different way. Aries is open Thursday to Sunday, 9am till 2pm and it sells out every day. They will work hard, but it's easier as an owner to operate if you can get that right: you have to find fewer staff, which is less of a headache. Maybe you have to work weekends, but you get Mondays to Wednesdays off and you get afternoons. You can offer something better.

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Adam 

What's the most important thing you've learned having been in this business for over a decade?

Hussein

If you don't understand your finances, in the good times, it's okay. In the bad times, you'll get unstuck, and there'll always be a bad time or a less good time. 

Adam

What does understanding your finances mean?

Hussein

Having a fairly detailed perspective of weekly KPIs: understanding your food and drink margin, and understanding your staff cost as a ratio of sales. If you don't understand those, you won't be maximizing your profit. You won't be doing yourself justice as a business owner.

Adam

Do the biggest restaurant success stories you've seen over the years share certain traits?

Husein

Yeah, the trait they share above all is they offer their customer value.

Adam

Which is what – what does value mean in that sense?

Hussein

Well, value could be going to The Ritz and spending 500 pounds or going to Jolene and spending five pounds on a cookie, but both times a customer comes away thinking that was worth it, and that was valuable. 

The places that are successful are when you go there, if you like it, you will then talk to your friends and your family as if it was not your own, but as if you were invested in it, like emotionally invested. And so these places get you somehow, through value, through being unique, through a number of things. They get you to feel emotionally invested in. A good example: P. Franco back in the day, I loved it. I loved going there. I loved how it made me feel and then I was evangelical about it within my group, and I’d take people and say how great it was. If a place can make you feel like that, and if they can make enough people feel like that, then they'll be successful.

Adam 

When you meet a client for the first time. What's the best piece of advice you can give them?

Hussein

Do you know what your profitability is? Do you know what those KPIs are? And if they don't, they need to find out.

Adam

Is it common?

Hussein

Yeah, it's common that they're not measured. It's about measuring. If you're not measuring how you're doing, then how do you know how you're doing?

Adam

I’d guess a lot of independent restaurant operators are kind of creative people…

Hussein

Yeah, absolutely. And what I've thought about this quite a lot. What other industry could someone raise just a couple of million pounds?

What other industry could you go in where you need no formal qualification, nor gone to school and done X, Y and Z. There's not many other industries that you can start generating hundreds of 1000s of pounds a month without those formal credentials. I'm not putting anyone down, but you're right – there's a lot of the people that we work with because they're creatives and they've only worked in kitchens or front of house. That's their career. So we're filling in the gap. 

Adam 

Are there any red flags for you? When a client comes to you, like, what are you looking at?

Hussein 

I think the red flag is: if you're not open to advice, or know that they need this service just to be compliant, but then are not actually interested in what we produce, because they think they know better, then it won’t work. 

Adam

What are the biggest mistakes you see operators making?

Hussein

So the biggest mistake would be opening a restaurant without enough working capital. 

Adam 

Which means what? 

Hussein 

So you've either underestimated or overestimated how quickly the business would be a success. Or you've underestimated all the costs you're going to incur before opening. You know, delays happen – every opening has a delay. And you haven't factored in that you need to pay a month's wages beforehand if you're training everyone. And so you start feeling stretched. 

I think that the biggest deception in a business sense for restaurant owners is when you get your sales immediately, but you will normally have credit terms with your suppliers, so you can have money in the bank, and it looks good because you're making sales every day, but you're still being invoiced by suppliers. Those payments aren't being made because they're you know, 30 days after the invoice date, and if you're not careful, and you're not trading as you think you're trading, or you haven't worked out your margins, and you're actually over ordering, or you're giving staff too many hours and the payrolls at the end of the month, you soon end up in like a negative cash position.

It can be seductive, in that way, when all this money's coming in – you might be doing great sales, thinking ‘this is fantastic’, but you haven't had to pay your costs yet and when you do, it can be bad. Have you put enough money aside for VAT? And then the quarter ends, you need to pay HMRC, and you can't, so you don't pay them, or you put a payment plan in and it can snowball quite quickly.

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Adam

Let's just finish up by asking: How would you sum up what direction the industry is traveling and where are the opportunities for businesses?

Hussein

I think the industry is consolidating into the stronger operators, the stronger areas of London, the ones that are proven, which is going to make it more difficult for new entrants who aren't a family run restaurant. If you're trying to be the next Primeur or Westerns Laundry, it's going to be more difficult. 

Adam 

It's harder to take risks?

Hussein

Much harder. 

Adam

And the opportunities?

Hussein

I suppose there's opportunities in Zone Two, if you can devise a business model that doesn't rely too heavily on a lot of staff, and you're quite flexible and agile. 

And there are the opportunities with these large landlords if you’re pitching something slightly different: it's trying to get on their good side and show that you're going to add something new and different to, say, Carnaby Street. So the landlords, as it's always been the case in London, they hold the power. 

Adam

How can restaurants be different – what would you advise them to think about? 

Hussein

Comfort in uncomfortable times. That’s why pubs are so successful, seemingly. The new wave of pubs are so successful because they're offering that nostalgia, that walking back to a maybe slightly easier time. And within that framework there is the opportunity for variety: people serving all sorts of food in surroundings that are nostalgic. So the Plimsoll, the Tamil Prince, or the Devonshire or the Kerfield Arms – they're completely different, yet they offer that comfort. And I think that's where the opportunity is: How can you give comfort and warmth to us?