GYG

GATED

Rebuilt from named Google Drive sources on 1 Jun 2026 (12 monthly “Notes by Gemini” coaching session records spanning Feb 2025–Jan 2026; the Feb 2025 and Jan 2026 sessions read in full). Content is honest and qualitative — only outcomes explicitly stated in the session notes are included. No revenue figures or financial multiples are asserted, because those were not verified from primary financial records in this rebuild. Sensitive personnel matters have been deliberately excluded. Pending review — approved:false.

Where they started

Simon Baker runs a multi-site Guzman y Gomez (“GYG”) franchise operation in south-east Melbourne, with established restaurants at Pakenham and Fountain Gate and a third site (Officer) in the pipeline. He works alongside his partner Stacy and a 2IC, Kate, leading a layer of restaurant managers, assistant managers and shift leaders.

By the time the coaching cadence captured here was running, this was not a struggling business — it was a strong operator looking to get stronger. Sales were growing well ahead of state and national averages, and the constraint had shifted from “can we sell more” to “can the business run at this scale without depending on Simon being in the room.”

The honest starting picture was an owner still being pulled into operational detail: shift-by-shift forecasting, site-selection frustrations with the franchisor, and a management bench that was deeper at one restaurant than the other.

The real problem

The core challenge was the classic multi-site bottleneck: the business had outgrown the founder’s ability to be everywhere, but the systems and leadership depth needed to replace him weren’t fully built yet.

Concretely, across the sessions this surfaced as:

• Inconsistent leadership depth between sites. One restaurant had historically been stronger at ongoing crew training than the other, creating uneven shift execution and efficiency.
• Decisions still flowing up to the owner. Shift leaders defaulted to “we were busy, we needed more crew” rather than interrogating whether the shift could have been run more efficiently.
• Role and accountability ambiguity. Job descriptions and KPIs for key people weren’t sharp enough, and the bonus structure didn’t yet tie reward tightly to the area each leader actually controlled.
• The owner-in-the-weeds trap. Simon was still spending time on day-to-day operations he wanted to delegate — and a third restaurant opening would only amplify the strain on the existing sites if the systems weren’t ready first.

What we worked on

The coaching ran as a steady monthly rhythm focused on operational excellence, leadership development, and systemising for growth.

• Turning data into a coaching tool for leaders. Rather than telling shift leaders what to do, Simon worked on sitting down one-on-one (and one-on-two) with everyone from shift leader to restaurant manager, using rostering data, spreadsheets and Power BI reporting to help them see for themselves when they genuinely needed more crew versus when the shift needed to be run more efficiently. The deliberate framing — educational, not punitive — pushed accountability back onto the leaders.
• Building a live operating rhythm. The weekly management “work in progress” notes were reformulated into a live Google Doc with tabs for people, inventory, labour and maintenance, plus a “focuses” tab — updated weekly, checked throughout the week, and explicitly keeping the owner accountable to the same standard as the team.
• Targeted crew development. A structured crew-evaluation process (each manager ranking team members, then setting targeted training goals) was used to lift more crew to high-performing “gun” level and close the training gap between sites.
• A formal business plan. Simon built out a company-style business plan with Kate covering guest experience, sales building, food safety, WH&S, people and culture, and reinvestment — then rolled it out to shift leaders so the whole team knew what was being worked on.
• Expanding the bench. Key roles were deliberately grown — for example, expanding Jade’s role from one day a week of recruitment/training admin toward hands-on shift-leader training and future-restaurant recruitment — to build management depth ahead of the next opening.
• Getting the owner out of the day-to-day. A recurring thread: clarifying job descriptions and KPIs, reweighting bonuses toward each leader’s area of responsibility, and steadily removing Simon from operational tasks so he could work on the business (and his broader interests) rather than in it.

Where they are now

Progress is real and ongoing rather than a single dramatic before/after — and the notes support describing it honestly.

• The business has proven resilient under pressure. When a new competitor opened nearby, the established site held up far better than feared (Simon judged “only 5% down” a good outcome in the immediate aftermath), and sales had been running well ahead of state and national franchise averages.
• Leaders are increasingly making decisions from data, not deferring upward — the data-coaching approach is embedded as the standard way training is run.
• The operating cadence is systemised through the live weekly document, screen-based in-restaurant metrics, and a structured crew-development process.
• The bench is deeper, with expanded roles and a clearer plan for who runs what, ahead of the third restaurant (Officer, targeted for late 2025).
• The owner is genuinely stepping back — Simon reported doing less day-to-day, working more on the business and on wider projects, and even planning to apply the same structured-session discipline to working on his and Stacy’s other ventures.

The throughline: this is a strong operator using coaching to convert personal capability into transferable systems and leadership — so the business can keep growing without the founder being the single point of failure.