gastromotivator. Where do you stand? →
30 years on the floor · DACH · NL · BE

Straight talk
from the door. Operation
first, then the plan.

Restaurant and hospitality consulting from someone who has run the shift himself. No model out of a textbook. First we look at what is really going on in your operation.

Start the self-assessment → 30 min straight talk
Self-assessment · Example Week 1 → 9
Kitchen food cost 34.8% → 29.1%
Items on the menu 41 → 24
Kitchen overtime / week 63 h → 18 h
Complaints / 1,000 guests 11 → 3

Illustrative nine-week run. No new software — one workflow, one menu, one purchasing line.

30
Years in the business
3
Languages · DE/NL/EN
5
Countries · DACH + Benelux
13
Chapters · the book
Koch. Denk. Neu.

Three steps.
None of them
a workshop.

A plan is only good if it works not in the workshop but on a Tuesday night at 7:40 in the operation. That is why every step here looks the way it really looks — not the way it sells.

01 · Listen

Everything on the table. Not the pretty version.

Rota, kitchen, menu, purchasing, complaints, team, lease, open invoices, gut feeling. Only once that is on the table does a next step make sense.

First conversation · Notepad
✕The rota hangs on one person. If they drop out, the place drops out.
✕Menu has 41 items. 12 of them sell. The rest sits in the walk-in.
!Purchasing across four suppliers, no price list newer than 14 months.
!New people learn at the pass by watching. Onboarding does not exist.
✓The kitchen team is good. Really good. That is not the problem.
?“We should get some AI.” — Why? No answer came.
02 · Understand

Symptom or cause?

Not every staffing problem is a staff shortage. Not every dip in revenue is marketing. Work on the symptom and you just stay busy.

What gets said
What it usually is
“We can’t find staff”
The shift is built so no one stays
“Revenue is dropping”
The menu is too big, the kitchen too slow
“We should get some AI”
Three spreadsheets nobody maintains
“Food cost is exploding”
Nobody weighs, nobody counts, nobody follows up
03 · Build

The right thing first.

One workflow, one decision, one standard, one opening plan. Not everything at once. The thing that has to hold next.

Pass station · Standard v1A4, laminated
15:30Mise en place pass: 9 items, photo on the boardCDP
17:00Quick sync: menu / 86s / today’s specialKitchen + service
17:45First order run as a test — full workflowAlle
23:00Count, note, order tomorrow. Not the day after.Sous

One sheet. No manual. If you can’t read it in 20 seconds, you never will.

What

Four areas.
One decision.

Consulting gets weak when everything sounds equally urgent. First we sort. Then comes the next sensible step.

A Planning & opening

Before the paint costs more than the plan.

Before you sign: hold concept, location, lease and investment against reality. Then plan kitchen, flow, team and opening.

Location Lease Investment Kitchen layout Opening
Talk it through →
B Operation & kitchen

When everything sticks to you.

Stations, mise en place, standards, onboarding, menu, purchasing, food cost. When the gap keeps coming back, the kitchen needs structure — not a temp chef.

Standards Menu Food cost Onboarding Temp chef
Sort the kitchen →
C AI & automation

No magic. Just less work.

First we look at which work costs you time. Then we decide whether AI helps. Often the answer is: not here, but there.

Reviews Rota Allergens Copy Team knowledge
Use AI where it holds →
D Hospitality B2B sales

Selling without the hard sell.

For suppliers and brands trying to reach restaurants and hotels. Target accounts, approach, CRM, follow-up — conversations that don’t smell like a pitch.

Target accounts Approach CRM Follow-up
See the sales work →
Roelof Hulshof — 30 years in hospitality: stove, pass, F&B, sales
Who

Roelof Hulshof.

Thirty years. Stove, pass, hotel F&B, sales, project builds, supplier side. Restaurants opened, shifts rescued, teams led, numbers seen that looked harmless at first and then hurt. All of it first-hand. Not from a textbook.

What drives me: the person behind the operation. I’m not a consultant who hands over a plan. I work alongside you until something actually changes.

Kitchen
Stove, pass, head chef, restaurant openings
Hotel
F&B responsibility, banquet, operations, team building
Market
Supplier side, sales, B2B project builds
Result

What changes when someone looks first.

Names and numbers stay in the conversation. Discretion is part of the job — no operation is put on display here. What’s below is the kind of change this is about.

Kitchen

When nobody weighs and nobody counts, food cost runs away. The first step isn’t software, it’s counting. It shows in weeks, not months.

Food cost · Menu · Purchasing
Shift

Most staffing problems are rota problems. Build the shift differently and you often don’t need a second cook — you need a better plan.

Staff · Rota · Onboarding
AI

Out of ten AI ideas, usually one actually takes work off your plate. That’s the one we look for. The rest you can skip.

Automation · only where it holds
Free · 23 questions · 12 minutes

Look first. Then decide.

The self-assessment tells you which area you’re really standing in. No sugar-coating. Not even when the answer is: you don’t need me at all.

Start the self-assessment → Or straight to it: 30 min straight talk
A few of the questions
04Would you know today what your food cost was last week?
09What happens on a Friday night when you’re not there?
14How many items on your menu actually sell?
21Which task do you still do yourself because no one else does it right?