Your second location: what changes for you as the owner

This is part 1 of 7 in our series Running a multi-location restaurant group, for owners who have just opened a second or third location, or are about to.

With one store, you are the system. You know the walk-in is short on oat milk because you saw it this morning. You know the new barista is struggling because you worked next to her on Saturday. Most of what keeps the place running lives in your head, and that works because your head is in the building.

A second store doesn't double your work. It changes it. You stop being the best operator in the building and become the person who builds the operators and the systems they run. Our earlier guide, Opening a second location: what to standardize first, covers the standards list, the licensing and the first four weeks at the new store. This post is about you: your job, your decisions and your week.

Run an absence test first

Before you sign the second lease, or in the first month if you already have, take one full week away from your first store. Stay reachable for emergencies only. Every time someone calls or texts you, write down what they needed.

Each call is a missing system: a decision nobody else is allowed to make, a number nobody else can see, or a task only you know how to do.

Fix the list before the second store opens. If the first store can't run for a week without you, the second store will run on whoever happens to be there.

Systems before people

The usual instinct is to find a great manager for the new store and let them figure it out. A great manager hired into no system builds their own. The new store then runs their way, not yours, and the two stores drift apart from the first week.

A manager hired into a working system runs it, and then improves it. So the order is:

1. Write it down. Checklists, recipes, the cash count, the opening and closing routine, who approves what.
2. Test it at the first store without you. If the opener can run the opening from the checklist alone, the checklist works.
3. Hire or promote into it. The new manager learns the system at the first store before running the second.

Part 2 of this series covers how to keep those standards the same across stores. Part 4 covers hiring and developing the managers who run them.

Your job changes

The hardest change is the first one. Fixing the problem in front of you feels productive. But a store where the owner fixes every problem never learns to fix its own.

Decide which calls are local and which are group-wide

With two stores, every decision falls into one of two kinds:

• Group decisions are made once and apply everywhere: the menu and recipes, prices, the food safety standards, the checklists, pay bands, who approves what, and which vendors you use for your main items.
• Local decisions are made by each store's manager inside those standards: the weekly schedule, who works which station, par levels, small repairs, a local event, how to handle the guest at table six.

Write the two lists down and share them with every manager. Then hold to them yourself. If a manager makes a local call you'd have made differently, coach them on it, but don't overrule it on the floor. If you overrule the manager in front of the team, the team learns to wait for you.

When a store needs to differ from a group standard, the manager asks, you decide, and the difference goes in writing ("South closes at 3 on Sundays"). Our delegation guide has a ladder for handing over the local decisions one at a time.

Your week across two stores

Put your week on the calendar before the second store opens, or the busier store will take all of it. A hypothetical example:

Two traps to avoid:

• Becoming one store's best employee. If you work four shifts a week at the new store, it runs on you and the first store runs on nobody.
• Visiting only when something is wrong. Then a visit from you means trouble. Regular visits at different times show you the store as it really runs.

Protect the first store

When a second store opens, the first store often slips. The owner's attention moves, the best people move with it, and nobody notices until the numbers or the reviews show it.

• Name a manager for the first store before the second one opens. Not "I'll keep an eye on it."
• Lend people for a few weeks, not for good. Plan the borrowed shifts on both schedules. Part 3 of this series covers sharing staff between stores, including how their hours add up for overtime.
• Visit the first store just as often. Use the same visit checklist at both.
• Watch the first store's numbers more closely for three months, not less closely.

Money and structure questions to settle early

• One company or one per store? Some owners run every location under one company; others set up a company for each. The choice affects how hours add up for overtime, insurance, licenses and banking. Decide it with your accountant and an attorney before you hire for the new store, not after.
• A profit and loss for each store. Set up your books so sales and costs are tracked by location (bookkeeping setup). You can't compare stores fairly without it, and part 5 of this series covers how.
• Cash for the ramp-up. A new store usually needs time to reach its sales targets. A 13-week cash flow forecast shows whether the first store's cash can carry it.

Where Mays fits

• Each store is a location with its own address, time zone and license number, added under Locations & Users → Locations → Add Location. See Add and manage locations.
• Managers see their own stores. Each person's Assigned Locations decide what they see: a manager assigned to one store doesn't see the other, and admins see every location. See Location access for managers.
• Both stores on one screen. The Dashboard opens on All Locations, with every checklist running that day, and admins can filter Insights by location. See The operations dashboard.
• One standard for breaks and compliance. On a location's Scheduling tab, Labor & compliance has Copy to other locations…, which copies its saved break settings to the stores you pick. Other settings, such as the time clock rules and the tip pool, are set store by store.
• One bill or one per store. Mays can bill the whole organization on one card or bill each location on its own; Mays support sets which. With per-location billing, a store's managers can pay for their own store. See Billing per location.

What Mays doesn't do: there's no single page with every store's week side by side, so the owner's scorecard still lives in a spreadsheet.

Your second-store checklist

• An absence test done, and every call on the list turned into a system
• Systems written down and tested at the first store before you hire into them
• The group decisions and the local decisions written down and shared
• Your week across both stores on the calendar
• A named manager at the first store, and its numbers watched closely
• The company structure decided with your accountant and an attorney
• Books set up to show each store's profit and loss

Run two stores without being in two places

Add the new store, give each manager their own location, and see both from one dashboard.

Start your free trial: 30 days, every module, no card needed. Or book a walkthrough and we'll set up your second location with you.