Twelve stages
to your first order.

Feasibility, city & cuisine

Which city, which delivery zone, which cuisines are underserved there, and whether the numbers work at achievable order volumes. Platform coverage and competition mapped before anything else.

Note. Delivery is hyper-local. A cuisine that is saturated in one postcode can be absent three miles away. This is done at postcode level, not city level.

Entity formation

LLC or Corporation in the United States, private limited company in the United Kingdom, with registered agent or office, tax identifiers and constitutional documents.

Note. The company holds the lease or licence, the equipment, the staff contracts and the liability. Food businesses attract liability that should not sit in your personal name.

Menu & brand design

The brand set designed around a single shared prep list, with dishes chosen for margin, consistency in a delivery box, and hold time. Names, identity, photography plan and packaging specification.

Note. This stage determines the equipment, so it happens before the kitchen is specified. Designing the kitchen first and the menu afterwards is the most expensive mistake available here.

Site search & the four checks

Commissary bays or shell units identified, then each tested against permits and use class, the extraction route, utility capacity, and access and lease terms.

Note. All four must clear. More sites are rejected on the extraction route than on rent, and we would rather lose a site than take one that cannot legally do the job.

Permits & registration

Health department permit or food business registration, planning or zoning confirmation, waste and grease trade agreements, and the food safety management documentation the authority expects.

Note. These are physical processes ending in an inspection. Timelines are the authority's, not ours, and no one can guarantee the outcome.

Equipment specification & procurement

The cooking line, refrigeration, prep, sinks, warewashing, interceptor, holding and packing station specified against the menu and procured, new or used as appropriate.

Note. Specified after the menu and before the fit-out, so the utilities can be sized to the actual load rather than to a guess.

Fit-out & installation

Extraction and fire suppression, utility connections and upgrades, drainage and interceptor, then equipment installation, commissioning and gas and electrical certification.

Note. In a commissary bay this is a fraction of the work. In a shell it is the longest and riskiest stage, and the one most likely to slip.

Recruitment & food safety

Head chef or kitchen manager first, then line cooks. Contracts, right-to-work checks, payroll registration, food handler certification, and appointment of the named person responsible for food safety.

Note. The head chef is the most important hire in the venture and the single largest operational risk. We start this early and we hire a deputy from the outset.

Suppliers & procurement

Food suppliers, packaging, cleaning chemicals, linen and waste contracts negotiated, with a second source identified for every critical line.

Note. Packaging is not an afterthought. It determines whether food survives the journey, and it is a permanent per-order cost that is worth negotiating properly.

Platform onboarding

Each brand registered on each delivery platform, menus built, photography shot, descriptions written, pricing set, delivery zones configured, and the order aggregator connected.

Note. Photography drives conversion more than almost anything else on a listing. It is the line in the budget we will argue hardest against cutting.

Documentation & procedures

Recipes and specifications, prep lists, opening and closing checks, temperature and waste logs, allergen matrix, cleaning schedule, incident procedure and the compliance calendar — all handed over in editable form.

Note. Recipes documented properly are what stop the business living inside one chef's head. You own every document at handover.

Soft launch & stabilisation

One brand live first at limited hours to test ticket times and packaging, then the remaining brands added. Thirty days of close monitoring, then transition to the standing platform desk.

Note. Launching all four brands at once into an untested kitchen produces long ticket times and early one-star reviews, which are extremely hard to recover from.