Smooth Ops Advisory · Los Angeles
Restaurant consulting in Los Angeles, from operators who ran a shop at Universal CityWalk for seven years
We help restaurants, cafes, bakeries, and boba and coffee shops across Los Angeles fix their numbers, open well, and grow. Our advice comes from 15 years running our own shops in Los Angeles, Orange County, Long Beach, Hawaii, and Vietnam, not from a textbook.
Los Angeles neighborhoods we know
Universal City, Burbank, Glendale, and the Valley
We ran a shop at Universal CityWalk from 2017 to 2024, so we know tourist traffic, high rent, and the staffing swings that come with a theme park calendar. Burbank, Glendale, North Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, and Studio City share the studio lunch crowd and the weekend family traffic.
Koreatown, Downtown, Hollywood, and Mid City
Dense, late night, and competitive. Small footprints, delivery heavy sales, and labor that has to flex by the hour.
San Gabriel Valley
Alhambra, San Gabriel, Monterey Park, Arcadia, Temple City, Rosemead, El Monte, West Covina, Rowland Heights, Walnut, and Diamond Bar. Strong Asian food culture and a natural first stop for brands from Asia opening in Los Angeles.
Pasadena and the foothills
Old Pasadena, South Pasadena, Altadena, Monrovia, and Glendora. Daytime traffic, high expectations, and rents that reward a tight menu.
Torrance and the South Bay
Torrance, Gardena, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Carson, Hawthorne, and Inglewood. Japanese and Korean concepts, family traffic, and plaza leases with their own quirks.
Westside
Santa Monica, Culver City, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Venice, Marina del Rey, and Westwood. Higher rents and higher expectations. Menu pricing and labor planning decide whether a good concept makes money here.
Southeast cities and the Gateway
Downey, Whittier, Norwalk, Cerritos, Lakewood, Bellflower, Pico Rivera, Montebello, Compton, South Gate, and Huntington Park. Family run, value driven, and busy on weekends, with Cerritos a growing Asian cafe hub.
Santa Clarita, Antelope Valley, and the east
Santa Clarita, Palmdale, Lancaster, Pomona, Claremont, and Covina. Suburban traffic that follows schools and shopping centers.
Every Los Angeles County city we serve
South of the city, our Orange County and Long Beach page covers Anaheim, Irvine, Huntington Beach, Westminster, and Long Beach.
Cafe and coffee shop consulting in Los Angeles
From Long Beach to seven years at Universal CityWalk, most of our own locations have been cafes and dessert shops. We help Los Angeles cafe, coffee shop, boba, and dessert shop owners with the things that decide whether a cafe makes money.
- Drink and menu costing, so every cup and pastry has a known margin
- A menu board that sells your best margin items first
- Ordering, par levels, and waste for milk, fruit, and baked goods
- Staffing the rush without paying for slow afternoons
- Speed at the bar during peak hours
- Opening a new cafe, with a manager on site for the first weeks
Bringing a cafe or tea brand over from abroad? See how we help international brands open in Southern California.
How we can help
Business Wellness Checkup
1 to 2 days on site during real service. We review labor against hourly sales, cost your top sellers from your invoices, watch the line, talk to your team, and leave a written fix list ranked by what moves your numbers fastest.
Fractional General Manager
One of our long time managers, trained in our systems and processes over many years, guides your team week to week: a regular on site visit, a numbers review, and quick answers in between.
Turnaround or White Glove Launch
A manager on site for 2 to 6 weeks to open a new Los Angeles location or pull a struggling one back into the black.
Every package includes 3 months of the Smooth Ops app free. See all Advisory packages, including Fractional CEO work with our co-founders and the SoCal Launch for international brands.
What seven years at CityWalk taught us
Tourist traffic looks like easy money until you staff for a Tuesday in February the same way you staffed for Spring Break. High rent locations punish a menu that is priced for the suburbs and a schedule that is built by habit. We learned to schedule to the hourly sales curve, to cost every item from real invoices, and to train a crew that turns over faster than anywhere else in the city. Those habits are what we bring into your restaurant, whether it is in Universal City or a strip plaza in the Valley.
Not sure where to start? Our guides to restaurant labor cost percentage and prime cost show the two numbers we look at first.
Los Angeles restaurant consulting, answered
Which parts of Los Angeles do you cover?+
All of Los Angeles County. Most of our work is in Universal City and the Valley, Koreatown, Downtown, the San Gabriel Valley, Torrance and the South Bay, the Westside, and Pasadena, plus Long Beach and Orange County to the south, where we have run our own shops for 15 years.
How much does a restaurant consultant cost in Los Angeles?+
Our Business Wellness Checkup starts at $1,500 for 1 to 2 days on site with a written fix list. A fractional general manager starts at $750 a week. Turnarounds and openings are quoted once we understand the job. Every package includes 3 months of the Smooth Ops app free.
Do you work with international brands opening in LA?+
Yes, it is one of the main reasons we started Advisory. We handle neighborhood research and location scouting, lease guidance from an operator's point of view, US suppliers, menu adaptation, local hiring and training, and on the ground management with weekly plain language reports while your leadership is abroad. We speak English with conversational Vietnamese and Thai.
What makes you different from other LA restaurant consultants?+
We are operators. We built 20+ restaurant, cafe, hospitality, and real estate concepts over 15 years in Southern California, Hawaii, and Vietnam, ran a shop at Universal CityWalk for seven years, ran a full service restaurant for seven years, and grew one brand from a single shop to nine locations. The managers who show up for your engagement have been with us for more than ten years.
Can you help me find a space or review a lease in Los Angeles?+
Yes. We scout locations and share lease guidance from an operator's point of view, based on our own experience signing and operating under commercial leases in Los Angeles and Orange County. We are not attorneys or brokers, and we recommend your own attorney review any lease before you sign.
How do I start?+
Email team@smoothopsapp.com with what is going on in your restaurant. If it looks like a good fit for our team, we set up a 15 minute call and recommend the right package.
Tell us what is going on in your restaurant
One email is enough. If it looks like a good fit, we set up a 15 minute call and recommend where to start.
Email team@smoothopsapp.com