How to become a consultant for restaurants

Becoming a consultant for restaurants is a dynamic and rewarding career path. It requires a blend of creativity, analytical thinking, and a deep understanding of the food and hospitality industry.

This guide will explore how you can establish yourself as a consultant for restaurants, focusing on creating menus, developing business plans, communication strategies, and more. Whether you are a seasoned professional or just starting out, these practical tips will pave the way to success!

The roles of a restaurant consultant

If a restaurateur contacts you for a consulting mission on Sensei, it’s either because they want to open their restaurant or adjust and rework certain aspects of their current offering to revive or energize it.

The first step for the restaurant consultant is to thoroughly analyze the situation of the establishment as well as its context (neighborhood, competition, etc.), in order to propose the most suitable solutions. It’s also essential to capitalize on what is already working in the restaurant, if the restaurateur contacts you for an already active establishment.

Your mission will depend on your expertise and core business. Whether you are a chef, community manager, lawyer, sommelier (etc.), you can leverage your skills and put them at the service of establishments!

Today, more than 1,000 talents are registered on Sensei, which corresponds to over 20 different specialties. A diversity of profiles to be able to respond to all the needs of an establishment!

What Training is Needed to Become a Restaurant Consultant?

There isn’t really a specific training dedicated to the profession of restaurant consultant. A consultant’s expertise is built through the numerous experiences they have had during their career, which is why consultants registered on Sensei have, on average, 7 years of experience in the hospitality and restaurant industry.

Beyond these years of experience, a restaurant consultant still has an interesting theoretical background related to their expertise:

• Hospitality and restaurant school (Chef, maître d’hôtel, etc.)

• Business school (marketing/communication profile)

• Design school (graphic designer)

• Law school (lawyer)

The Required Qualities to Become a Restaurant Consultant 🧐

• Expertise: This is not so much a quality as it is a guarantee of knowledge and experience. To offer advice, you must have lived through both good and bad experiences!

• Staying Calm: As you know, working in the hospitality and restaurant industry requires unflappable composure. However, keeping your cool for your establishment is not quite the same as keeping your cool for your client’s establishment: learn to channel your feelings.

• Building Client Trust: To convince the client to work with you, they must have blind trust in your work. To do this, your experience will undoubtedly work in your favor, but you must still demonstrate that you have optimal working conditions.

• Continuous Training: It’s vital that you continue to educate yourself throughout your consulting missions, as the world of consulting regularly changes, just like that of the restaurant industry.

How Much Does a Restaurant Consultant Earn? 💸

When registering on a consultant networking platform like Sensei, you define your Average Daily Rate (ADR) representing your rate per day of consulting.

To determine the cost of the mission, you will simply need to estimate the time required to complete it and cross-reference it with your Average Daily Rate (ADR).

Based on the averages of all our consultants on Sensei, here are some daily rates for your information:

• Consultant chef: €450

• Consultant bartender: €600

• Consultant maître d’hôtel: €550

• Consultant accountant: €700

• Consultant lawyer: €700

• Consultant architect: €700

• Consultant community manager: €350

It’s important to note that depending on the duration of the mission and your level of experience, this ADR may change.

What Legal Status to Become a Restaurant Consultant? 🙏

Becoming a restaurant consultant means acquiring a specific status in the eyes of the law, and above all, requires the creation of a specific status. When building your structure to become a consultant, several options will be available to you.

First, know that you can indeed become a freelance restaurant consultant while being an employee, provided you follow these rules:

• The employee’s duty of loyalty (so that the consulting mission does not hinder the quality of your work as an employee)

• The non-compete clause is included in the employment contract, if applicable.

• The exclusivity clause is included in the employment contract, if applicable.

Regarding the legal status, several options are available to you:

• Individual Business or Micro-Enterprise: You will not « create » a separate legal entity. To optimize the individual business status, we advise you to position yourself as a micro-entrepreneur.

• Company: If the format of SAS or SARL is more expensive and more binding administratively, you will be more flexible (possibility of association) and enjoy security (liability limited to contributions)

To be registered and receive mission proposals on Sensei, you must have a structure that allows you to invoice. On Sensei, there are both independent consultants and more structured firms.

Becoming a Restaurant Consultant on Sensei

No contractual obligation, no limit of experience or specialty on Sensei: the diversity of talents registered on the platform allows us to meet all the needs of hospitality and restaurant establishments.

Our system relies on a community of independent talents, and as such, the consulting missions offered are very specific and relate to your profession only: who better than you to give advice on your profession?

On Sensei, clients do not (for now) have access to your public profile. It’s the Sensei teams that handle the matching and present your profile. Everything therefore depends on the information you provide in the form when you sign up: profession, skills, seniority, and location. This information allows us to match between client needs and your skills.

To register, it’s very simple, just fill out the dedicated form in under five minutes flat! ⏱

So, are you ready to become a restaurant consultant? 🔥