How to scale down a hospitality business without losing what you built, why doing less can make you more profitable, and the lessons every restaurant owner, bar owner and café owner needs to hear about growth. For anyone running a venue (or thinking about opening one) who thinks bigger is always better.
Scott Imlach moved from Queenstown, New Zealand to London in 1994 — and ended up running 48 venues across the UK as Operations Manager of the Outback Inn Group.
He's been on the Gold Coast for 20 years. At one point he was running 11-12 venues at once. Today he runs three — Bine in Nobby Beach, Hideaway in Broadbeach, and Precinct Brewing in Miami.
And he says it was the best decision he ever made.
In this episode, Scott sits down with Tim to break down everything he's learned over two decades of building, opening, selling and scaling hospitality businesses on the Gold Coast. He's famously never bought an existing business — he takes over closed venues and rebuilds them. He does the numbers before he even visits the site. He campaigned to legislate the Small Bar Licence on the Gold Coast. And he had his second kid at 50, which forced him to confront the cost of carrying everything alone.
This is the conversation for anyone who's chasing growth without asking what it's actually costing them.
You'll hear:
00:00 – From 11 venues down to 3 — and why life got better
01:30 – Why kids at 50 forced the slowdown
01:40 – Why Scott rebuilds closed venues instead of buying running ones
04:50 – How to walk a site (and the second visit that saved him from a bad lease)
06:20 – Why location is community, not foot traffic
07:40 – How community-building beats marketing every time
09:00 – The contrarian rule: do the numbers before you visit the site
11:30 – The break-even point conversation every owner needs to have
12:00 – Why the 30/30/30 rule is dead
13:30 – How your fit-out determines your labour cost
14:30 – When architects and designers ruin a venue
Key takeaways:
- The number of venues you run isn't the measure of success. The life you build alongside them is.
- Never buy a running restaurant. Take over a closed one. You'll save hundreds of thousands.
- Do the numbers before you visit the site. If they don't stack up, the location doesn't matter.
- Your break-even point is the single most important number in your business. If you don't know it, you're not ready.
- The 30/30/30 rule (food/labour/overheads) is dead. Every venue runs different numbers because every venue is different.
- Your fit-out determines your labour cost more than any roster ever will.
- Community beats marketing. Get involved. Sponsor the local team. Be the face. Show up.
If you're carrying too much and wondering whether you should scale back to scale up — book a free Profit Finding Session with the Foodie Coaches team at https://discover.foodiecoaches.com/bac
Follow Scott's venues: @binebeerbar @hideawaykitchenandbar @precinctbrewing
Follow along: @foodie_coaches @tim.kummerfeld
New episodes every Wednesday.
