We open, fix and run hospitality businesses

A hospitality consulting company helps owners, operators and investors make better decisions, avoid costly mistakes and build stronger businesses. At Zeora, that can mean developing a new concept, planning an opening, improving an existing operation or managing it directly.

For a new opening, better commercial decisions and planning can offset much or even all of the cost of professional support. For an existing restaurant, the business should perform better because Zeora is involved. Either way, the objective is measurable operational and commercial results that justify our involvement.

Gergely Szabo or Mark Towning. One of them takes your first call and leads your project from start to finish: Gergely leads new openings and market entry, Mark leads work on existing venues, from improving performance to running them day to day. On most projects both founders are involved, with Zeora’s core team and specialists chosen for your project working under their direction. Where a project needs design or fit-out, Zeora runs a competitive tender with partner firms and outside bidders. The founder leading your project stays your main point of contact throughout.

It depends on the work, and you’ll have the fee in writing before anything starts. Defined projects, such as an audit, a feasibility study or an opening, are priced as a project fee. Ongoing support and day-to-day management are priced monthly. There’s no hourly billing, and the first consultation is free. Afterwards, Zeora sets out the scope and, where it helps, options at different levels of involvement, so you can choose what makes commercial sense.

Sometimes you should, and Zeora will tell you. If the operation is stable, the systems work and you have time to oversee a manager yourself, hiring one can be the right call, and Zeora can recruit and train that person for you.

Otherwise, compare like for like. A manager brings one person’s experience, plus visa, medical insurance and end-of-service costs, and when they leave, what they know leaves with them. When Zeora runs your venue, you get two founders overseeing it, a team behind them on finance, recruitment and standards, systems that don’t depend on one person, and regular reporting on sales, costs and margins.

Yes. We work with new concepts from early-stage feasibility and concept development through planning, pre-opening and launch. For existing restaurants and hospitality businesses, we assess what is happening operationally and commercially, identify where performance is being lost and help implement the changes required. This can range from a focused restaurant audit to a wider turnaround or full operational management.

We work across the hospitality and F&B sector, including restaurants, cafés, bars, hospitality groups, hotels, leisure venues, mixed-use developments and other food and beverage concepts. Our clients range from entrepreneurs developing their first concept to established operators, investors and groups looking to improve performance, expand or launch something new. Each engagement is built around the business, market and objectives rather than a fixed consulting formula.

Both. Some clients need Zeora for a specific objective, such as a feasibility study, restaurant audit, concept development, opening or recruitment assignment. Others need longer-term support to improve performance, execute a strategy or manage operations. We structure the engagement around what the business actually requires, with project-based, ongoing and management-led engagements available depending on the situation.

Zeora Hospitality is headquartered in Dubai and works primarily across the UAE and the wider GCC. Our team supports hospitality projects across the region, and selected consulting, development and recruitment assignments extend beyond the GCC to Europe, Asia and Africa. The location matters, but so does local market understanding, so we assess every project individually before determining how and where we can add value.

It usually starts with an initial consultation to understand the business, the challenge and what you want to achieve. From there, we determine what support is actually needed and define the right scope of work. Depending on the project, we may propose different engagement options, from a focused assessment or individual project to a larger development, turnaround or ongoing management assignment. There is no standard package forced onto every client.