NOVA Restaurant Consulting — built by Axiom Automations

Doha · Qatar · Est. in the Gulf

نصنع مطاعم تُدار بأرقام، لا بالحدس

Restaurants built
on numbers, not instinct.

We take F&B operators in Qatar from a napkin idea to a licensed, staffed, profitable venue — and we fix the ones that opened without a plan. Feasibility, licensing, menu engineering, SOPs and aggregator growth.

Book a free 30-min consult WhatsApp us
No fee for the first call Reply within one working day Arabic & English

We work where Doha eats and orders

What we do — خدماتنا 01 / 06

01 — Feasibility

دراسة الجدوى

Know the answer before you sign the lease.

A build-up P&L from real Doha inputs: rent per m², QAR wage bands with housing and transport, utility loads, aggregator commission, and a break-even cover count you can actually hit.

  • Catchment and footfall study by district
  • Capex schedule, fit-out per m², contingency
  • 3-year P&L, cash flow, break-even and payback
  • Go / no-go memo you can hand to an investor

02 — Concept & Brand

تطوير المفهوم والهوية

A concept the neighbourhood recognises itself in.

Positioning built for a specific Qatari guest — the Thursday family table, the Lusail lunch crowd, the 1am order after a match — not a mood board borrowed from Dubai.

  • Guest segments, occasion mapping, price architecture
  • Name, identity, bilingual tone of voice
  • Family and single sections planned into the floor plate
  • Photography and menu art direction

03 — Licensing & Pre-opening

التراخيص والافتتاح

The paperwork, in the right order.

Commercial registration and trade licence, municipality food-premises approval, Civil Defence sign-off, health cards, and the kitchen layout that passes inspection the first time.

  • MOCI commercial registration & trade licence file
  • Baladiya food premises approval & grease/extract compliance
  • Civil Defence and signage permits
  • HACCP-aligned kitchen flow, Halal supply chain

04 — Menu Engineering

هندسة قائمة الطعام

Fewer dishes. Better margin. Faster tickets.

Every item costed to the gram, scored on popularity against contribution, then re-laid-out so the profitable plates are the ones guests actually see.

  • Recipe costing, yield testing, supplier benchmarking
  • Stars / plough-horses / puzzles / dogs classification
  • Menu layout, pricing psychology, Arabic-English parity
  • Separate delivery menu engineered for travel and commission

05 — Operations & SOPs

التشغيل والإجراءات

A venue that runs when the owner is away.

Written standards, a training path, and a weekly number that tells the manager the truth — food cost, labour percentage, waste, void rate.

  • Opening, closing and service SOPs in Arabic & English
  • Rota modelling against forecast covers
  • Stock counts, par levels, waste and void control
  • Weekly P&L pack and one-page manager dashboard

06 — Delivery & Growth

النمو الرقمي والتوصيل

Win the aggregator, keep the margin.

Listing, imagery, offer structure and ad spend across Snoonu, Talabat, Keeta and Rafeeq — priced so a discount buys a repeat order instead of eating the plate.

  • Listing & photo optimisation, category ranking
  • Offer architecture modelled against contribution margin
  • Aggregator ad spend, ROAS tracking by platform
  • Ramadan, National Day and match-night campaign calendar

The market you're opening into

Qatar's dining room is growing faster than its operators are professionalising.

Three quarters of the market value sits with independent operators — people running on instinct against chains running on systems. That gap is the whole reason we exist.

0.0B Qatar foodservice market, USD, 2025 Mordor Intelligence
0.00B Projected market, USD, 2031 Mordor Intelligence
0.00% Sector CAGR, 2026–2031 Mordor Intelligence
0.0% Cloud kitchen CAGR — the fastest segment Mordor Intelligence
0.0% Of market value held by independent outlets Mordor Intelligence
0M Visitor target by 2030 (5.08M in 2024) Qatar Tourism

Two numbers change how you should plan. Cloud kitchens are compounding at 17.1% a year because the Ministry of Commerce and Industry now turns a cloud-kitchen licence around in one to two days — the cheapest way to test a concept in this market. And dine-in still carries 64.7% of spend, so a delivery-only plan leaves most of the table untouched. We build for both, and we tell you which to lead with.

How an engagement runs

Six stages. Each one ends in a document you own.

Numbered because it genuinely is a sequence — you cannot price a menu before the concept is fixed, and you cannot file for a licence before the kitchen is drawn.

01

Discoveryالاستكشاف

Site visit, owner interview, current numbers if you have them. We come back with what we think the real problem is, which is often not the one you called about. Week 1 · Deliverable: findings memo

02

Feasibilityدراسة الجدوى

Catchment, competitor set, capex and a three-year P&L built from Doha inputs — not a regional template with the currency swapped. Weeks 2–4 · Deliverable: feasibility & financial model

03

Concept lockتثبيت المفهوم

Positioning, menu architecture, price bands, identity and the floor plan that serves them. Nothing moves to build until this is signed. Weeks 4–7 · Deliverable: concept book

04

Build & licenceالتجهيز والترخيص

Kitchen design, contractor tender, equipment schedule, and the approvals file carried through MOCI, the municipality and Civil Defence. Weeks 6–20 · Deliverable: approvals file & snag list

05

Launchالافتتاح

Recruitment, training to written SOPs, soft-opening covers, aggregator onboarding and the first campaign calendar. Weeks 18–24 · Deliverable: trained team & live listings

06

Optimiseالتحسين المستمر

Ninety days of weekly numbers with us in the room: food cost, labour, waste, rating, repeat rate. Then we hand the dashboard over. Months 6–9 · Deliverable: operating dashboard & handover

Ninety days after handover

The difference systems make, measured.

0.0ptsTypical food-cost reduction after costing & par levelsNOVA engagement range
0%Faster average ticket time after SOP trainingNOVA engagement range
0.0xAggregator ROAS after offer restructureNOVA engagement range

Ranges from NOVA engagements, not guarantees. Your numbers depend on your starting point.

Selected work

Three kinds of problem we're usually called about.

Names withheld under client NDAs — happy to talk you through the full numbers on a call.

Turnaround · West Bay

A 90-seat grill losing money on a full dining room

Covers were healthy, margin wasn't. Recipe costing found 14 dishes selling below contribution, and a rota built on habit rather than forecast. Menu cut from 68 items to 41, rota rebuilt against covers.

−7.1ptsFood cost
−4.3ptsLabour
5 moTo positive

Launch · Lusail

Family-format café from lease signature to opening

Feasibility said the original 220 m² unit could not carry its rent at the intended price point. We re-sited to a smaller shell nearby, redrew the kitchen and carried the approvals file end to end.

19 wkLease to open
1stInspection pass
11 moPayback

Delivery · Doha-wide

A QSR discounting itself into a loss on aggregators

Blanket 30% offers were buying volume at negative contribution. We rebuilt the offer ladder around basket thresholds, split the delivery menu from dine-in and re-shot the top 20 items.

2.6xROAS
+18%Avg basket
+9%Repeat rate

What owners say — آراء عملائنا

We're judged on the P&L, not the deck.

4.9
Average across 27 completed engagements
Talk to a consultant
They told us not to take the unit we had already fallen in love with. It stung, and it saved the business. The second site opened on budget.
M
Managing PartnerCasual dining group, Lusail
Our SOPs used to live in my head. Now they live in two languages on the wall, and the kitchen runs the same whether I'm in Doha or not.
A
OwnerGrill house, Al Wakrah
The delivery work paid for the whole engagement in the first quarter. We stopped discounting blindly and the basket went up anyway.
S
FounderQSR chain, 4 branches

Insights — مقالات

What we've learned opening restaurants in this market.

Written for owners, not for search engines — though the search engines seem to like them too.

Feasibility

What it actually costs to open a 120-seat restaurant in Lusail

Line by line: shell rent per m², fit-out, kitchen equipment, licensing fees, pre-opening payroll and the contingency nobody budgets.

Read the breakdown

Delivery

Snoonu, Talabat, Keeta or Rafeeq — which mix works for a Doha QSR

Commission bands, delivery radius, customer demographics and where the same dish earns you the most per order.

Compare the platforms

Licensing

The approvals file: everything you need before you can legally trade

Commercial registration, trade licence, municipality food-premises approval, Civil Defence, signage and health cards — in the order that avoids rework.

See the checklist
All insights — كل المقالات

الضيافة عندنا عادة، وإدارتها مهنة

Hospitality here is a custom. Running it well is a profession.

Start here — ابدأ من هنا

Tell us about the venue.

Thirty minutes, no charge, no deck. You'll leave the call with our honest read on whether the numbers work — even if that read is "don't do it".

Reply within one working daySunday to Thursday, Doha hours.
Your numbers stay yoursNDA signed before we look at a single P&L.
Arabic & EnglishDocuments and training delivered in both.
NOVA Business & Restaurant Consulting
Doha, Qatar
Sun–Thu 09:00–18:00 AST

Typical reply time: under one working day. نرد خلال يوم عمل واحد

Received — وصلنا طلبك

We'll come back to you within one working day. If it's urgent, message us on WhatsApp and mention your venue name.

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Common questions — أسئلة شائعة

Before you book the call.

How much does a restaurant feasibility study cost in Qatar?
Scope drives the fee. A single-site feasibility with catchment analysis, capex schedule and a three-year model typically runs as a fixed fee agreed before we start — never an open-ended hourly count. We quote after the free consult, once we know the site, the format and whether you already hold a lease.
How long does it take to license a restaurant in Doha?
For a conventional dine-in venue, plan on months rather than weeks once the fit-out schedule, municipality food-premises approval and Civil Defence sign-off are sequenced properly. Cloud kitchens are the outlier — the Ministry of Commerce and Industry now issues cloud-kitchen licences in one to two days, which is why we often recommend testing a concept that way first.
Do you work with existing restaurants, or only new openings?
Both, and turnarounds are roughly half our work. If you're trading and losing money, the fastest wins are usually recipe costing, menu size, rota modelling and your aggregator offer structure — in that order.
Can you handle the whole project, or do we still need other suppliers?
We run the project and hold the plan. Contractors, kitchen suppliers, designers and recruiters are tendered and managed by us against your budget, so you have one number to look at and one person to ask.
Do you work in Arabic?
Yes. Consults, SOPs, training material and the operating dashboard are delivered in Arabic and English, because that is how kitchens in Doha actually run.
What happens on the free consult?
Thirty minutes. You describe the venue or the idea; we ask about rent, covers, average spend and food cost. You get our honest read on whether the numbers work and what we'd do first. No slide deck, no obligation.
WhatsApp Free consult
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