Hospitality University
Applications · limited each month
Private Client · by application

The two of us, inside your business, for a year

Private Client is the top of the ladder and the smallest room on it. A handful of venues at a time, working directly with Omar and Andrea — not with a coach they trained, and not in a group call with forty other operators.

It exists because some problems do not survive contact with a video lesson. A lease you should not sign. A partner who has stopped pulling. A second site that looks obvious and is not. Those need someone who has read your actual numbers and will say the unpopular thing.

$1,000
per month, billed annually
12
months, one venue or group
6
clients at a time, maximum
Step one
The 60-second application

Applying costs nothing and commits you to nothing. We read every one ourselves and come back within two working days, yes or no, with a reason.

No automated call sequence and no chasing. If we are not the right answer we will say so.

What this actually is

Not a coaching call. A working relationship with your business.

Everything else we make is designed to work without us in the room. Private Client is the opposite: it only works because we are in it.

The Growth Engine hands you the operating system and shows you how to install it. That is the right answer for most operators, and we say so on the pricing page. But a program cannot look at your roster and tell you that the problem is not the roster — it is the person writing it. It cannot read your lease. It cannot sit with you at eleven at night in week three of a bad month and work out whether you are having a cash problem or a business problem, because those look identical from the inside and are not remotely the same thing.

Private Client starts where the program stops. We take your real numbers — twelve months of P&L, your costings, your roster, your booking and review data — and we go through them the way Omar goes through his own on a Sunday. Then we build a plan for the year with you: what changes, in what order, who owns each piece, and what you are choosing not to do, which is usually the more valuable half of the document.

After that it is monthly. One long call with both of us against the plan — what moved, what did not, what the numbers say rather than what the week felt like. Between calls you have a direct line: a message thread with two people who have run the shift you are describing. Most of what happens there is not strategy. It is a supplier quote you want a second opinion on, a chef you are about to lose, a fit-out number that has grown by forty per cent, a decision you would otherwise make alone at midnight.

Andrea works the other side of the business in parallel: the guest engine, the listing, the review machine, the direct bookings you are currently renting from a platform, the content system that means your venue has a face. Omar works the floor and the P&L. You get both halves from the two people who each own one, rather than one generalist with an opinion about both.

We hold six of these at a time, and that number is not a scarcity device — it is arithmetic. Both of us still run venues and still film. Beyond six, the thing we are selling stops being true.

What we will not do is promise you a number. We do not know your market, your rent or your team, and any consultant who quotes you a margin before reading your P&L is selling you a feeling. What we will do is put two operators with venues of their own on the same side of the table as you, every month, for a year.

What is included

Everything below the line, plus the two of us.

Private Client contains The Growth Engine and The Campus in full. You are not choosing between them.

The opening audit

Month one. Twelve months of P&L, food cost, roster, menu, listing, reviews and booking flow, read by both of us, ending in a ranked plan for the year with an owner and a date against every line.

Monthly 1:1, both of us

Ninety minutes against the plan, with Omar on the numbers and operations and Andrea on the guest engine. Recorded, with a written summary and next actions in your hands the same day.

A direct line between calls

A private thread with both of us for the decisions that will not wait for the monthly. We answer inside a working day, and we tell you when the honest answer is “we do not know, here is who does”.

The Growth Engine, in full

All six modules, the sixty-plus lessons and all twenty-four tools in the Vault — for you and for your management team, so the standard is something they can read rather than something they have to guess.

The Campus, twelve months

The weekly live call and the room, including the guest operator masterclasses. Worth $1,188 on its own and included here without being the point.

Your systems, built with you

The tools in the Vault are generic by design. In Private Client we sit in the file with you and make them yours — your suppliers, your dishes, your roster shape, your booking stack.

The shape of a year

Four phases. The order matters more than the list.

Month 1

Read everything

The audit, and an honest baseline. Most operators find out here that the thing keeping them awake is not the thing costing them money.

Months 2–4

Fix the leaks

Costings, menu, prime cost, suppliers, the commission you are paying to be found. The unglamorous work that pays for the year.

Months 5–8

Get you off the floor

SOPs, the shift-leader layer, hiring that holds. The point at which the venue keeps its shape on a night you are not in it.

Months 9–12

Decide what is next

Second site, a raise, a restructure, or a business that simply pays you properly and runs. Modelled on your numbers, not on a template.

Fair warning

Most people who read this page should buy the program instead.

We would rather turn you down now than take twelve thousand dollars for something a $997 program would have done.

Apply if
You own the venue, or you can decide without asking anyone
You are trading now and can hand over twelve months of real numbers
There is a decision this year that is bigger than a course: a site, a partner, a raise, an exit
You want to be told the unpopular thing, in writing, by people who will still be there next month
Do not apply if
You have not opened yet — we are not the right help before you have data
You want someone to run the venue for you. We work with you, not instead of you
Twelve thousand dollars would hurt. Start with the program; come back when it would not
You are looking for a guaranteed return. Nobody can honestly give you one, and we will not pretend to
Who you would be working with

People with their names on the lease.

Omar El Deek

Omar El Deek

Profit, Operations & Scale

Owner-operator of Cosi Bar Ristorante, Cucinetta and Vaporetto. He audits the numbers he runs every single week.

Andrea Abbondanza

Andrea Abbondanza

Marketing, AI & Growth

Fifteen years marketing hospitality across three continents, and creator of Dining Room Stories — 26 episodes, 1.4M people reached.

Before you apply

Straight answers.

What does it cost, exactly?+

$1,000 a month, billed annually — $12,000 for the year, in writing before any call, the same way every other price on this site sits in public. It includes The Growth Engine and twelve months of The Campus, so you are not asked to buy those separately.

Why a year, and not month to month?+

Because the work is sequenced. Costings and menu in the first quarter do not pay off until the roster and the SOPs land in the third, and a second-site decision cannot be modelled on three months of data. A month-to-month version of this would be a call, not a change — and a call is what The Campus is for, at $149.

What do I have to hand over?+

Twelve months of P&L, your current menu with prices, your costings if they exist, a typical roster, and view access to your Google Business Profile and booking system. If half of that does not exist yet, say so on the form — it is information, not a disqualifier, and building it is month one.

Is my P&L safe with you?+

Yes, and we will sign whatever your accountant wants us to sign. Your numbers are never used as an example, in a lesson, on a call, or on this site. If we ever want to tell your story, we ask first and you can say no without it costing you anything.

Do I have to buy The Growth Engine first?+

No — it is inside this. And if you have already bought it, tell us on the form and we take what you paid off the first invoice. You should never pay us twice for the same thing.

Do you work outside Australia?+

Yes. The calls are remote and Andrea has run hospitality marketing across three continents, most recently a hotel pilot at the JW Marriott in Saigon. The numbers work the same everywhere; the local search and licensing detail does not, and we say so when we are outside what we know.

What happens if you say no?+

We tell you inside two working days and we tell you why. Most of the time the honest answer is that The Growth Engine or the free Food Cost Kit gets you the same result for a fraction of the money, and we would rather you heard that from us than found it out in month four.

Six clients at a time

If the decision in front of you is bigger than a course, apply.

It takes about a minute, it costs nothing, and you get a real answer with a reason inside two working days — including, quite often, the answer that you do not need this.