New Restaurant Development & Expense Management.

The brand was opening new restaurants faster than its unit-economics model could support. Construction spend ran inconsistent from market to market. Operating expenses crept upward with each new store class. Vendor contracts had grown without renewal discipline. The new-restaurant pipeline was strong — the cost base underneath it was not.

I project-managed the new restaurant opening program and coordinated with Real Estate, Construction, and Finance to align the pipeline with the cost model. I supported the expense management redesign, helped implement the vendor consolidation discipline, and coordinated with Regional Operations so new-store classes met their unit-economics targets from opening day. I supported the weekly cross-functional review that kept development, operations, and finance on the same page.

The unit-economics model was rebuilt from the line item up. Construction spend categories were opened, vendors were consolidated by category, and a market-by-market variance review became standard. I coordinated with Finance on the per-store cost targets that matched the actual operating reality, then coordinated with Real Estate and Construction so the build program hit those targets from day one. Risk management meant flagging a market early when construction costs drifted, not after opening.

The expense management redesign was a parallel effort. Operating expense categories were instrumented, vendor contracts were consolidated on renewal cycles that matched the calendar instead of stale auto-renewals, and a category-owner discipline gave someone clear responsibility for each line. The new restaurant class design pulled both programs together — each opening was checked against the unit-economics model, the construction discipline, and the operating expense baseline before it moved forward. Governance tied the development pipeline to the cost baseline instead of letting them drift apart.

The program delivered $3.1M in expense savings alongside a 16% reduction in unit-economics cost across the new restaurant opening pipeline. New stores opened on a cost basis that the existing P&L could support, and the expense base of the rest of the system tightened underneath them.