Restaurants have more financial data than ever. Most still have no one responsible for it.
That's the belief this company is built on. Independent restaurants now generate POS, invoice, labor, accounting, and channel data every day. Very few have a dedicated person whose job is to turn that information into ongoing profit improvement. Large groups have that person. We are that person for everyone else.
Why Expo
On a busy night the expediter stands at the pass, reads every ticket, catches what's wrong before it goes out, and keeps the line moving. Nobody questions whether that job matters.
Almost no independent restaurant has the same person on the numbers. Invoices, schedules, comps, and payouts go out every day with nobody at the pass. Expo is that job, for the P&L. RPM is what we do: Restaurant Profit Management.
Who you'll work with
Jerell Vincent Puyot spent more than ten years in hospitality, most of it on the line. At twenty he ran a franchised sandwich shop for a quarter as interim GM after the GM left without notice. The only reason it worked was that the GM had seen it coming and taught him the job on the way out. That turned out to be the whole lesson: somebody has to be ready to read the numbers before the day you need them read.
The last five years have been in commercial finance, half of that at a top-ten US bank. Along the way: CRM administration for several organizations and enough time in spreadsheets to know exactly why a restaurant's POS, invoice tool, and accounting system rarely agree with each other. He holds the Certified Lease & Finance Professional (CLFP) designation.
Expo RPM started from a specific observation: operators were buying good cost-tracking systems and then struggling to get them implemented, let alone read. The software was not the problem. Nobody owned the job of turning what it produced into decisions.
Every engagement is led directly by Jerell. The calls with management do not get delegated.
What we combine
The service is practical because it sits at the intersection of things that usually live in different people.
Restaurant operations
We know what a Tuesday close looks like, why the comp happened, and why the schedule template has two closers. The findings have to survive contact with a real kitchen.
Commercial finance
Prime cost, contribution margin, channel economics, vendor terms, merchant pricing. The money side of the business, read the way a lender or a CFO would read it.
Financial analysis
Baselines, variance, annualization, verification. Putting a defensible dollar figure on a change so management can decide whether it's worth chasing.
Systems and data
Years of CRM administration and spreadsheet work. Getting Toast, xtraCHEF, QuickBooks, 7shifts, and the marketplace payouts to agree with each other, and finding the one line in ten thousand that moved.
Management accountability
A finding without an owner and a date is a report. We track who is doing what, follow up, and say plainly whether it worked.
Working in Tampa Bay
Expo RPM is based in the Tampa Bay area and works with independent restaurants across St. Petersburg, Tampa, Clearwater, and the surrounding coast.
Being local matters more than it sounds. Sitting in the office during a Friday close, walking the cooler with a chef, and meeting the vendor rep in person surface things a spreadsheet never will. Local operators get that in-person time as part of the engagement.
The work itself runs on your systems, so restaurants outside the area get the same cadence remotely.
How we work
Say what it's worth.
Every finding carries an annualized dollar value. If we can't quantify it, we say so.
Three things, not thirty.
Management gets the short list. The long list stays with us.
Keep the software you have.
We configure and use your systems. We recommend a new one only when the current one can't do the job.
Separate found from saved.
Identified, approved, implemented, verified. Four numbers, never blended.
Write for operators.
Short sentences. Specific figures. No slides.
Someone should be watching the profit.
If that sounds like the job you've never had time to fill, let's talk.