This week’s Client of the Week is Harbor & Hearth, a 110‑seat full‑service restaurant in Denver.

When they came to us, it looked like this:

• Labor stuck at 38.6%
• Net profit hovering around 1.2%
• Owner on the schedule 6 days a week, bouncing between expo, host, and FOH
• Team complaining they were “always short,” even on soft Mondays

They told us, “If this doesn’t turn around in the next quarter, we’re cutting a day of service.”

What we changed

We installed the People‑Protected Profit System in one location over 90 days.

1. Productivity Benchmarking
2. Capacity & Labor Design
3. Control Center

The 90‑day result

After 12 weeks:

• Labor moved from 38.6% down to 33.9%
• Net profit margin increased from 1.2% to 5.5%
• Sales per labor hour increased 19%
• Owner stepped off the weekly floor schedule entirely and now works on the business three days a week instead of six days in it.

Same menu. Same wage laws. Same building. No pay cuts. Just aligning people with actual demand and giving the GM a clear playbook.

Their GM summed it up like this:

“For the first time I can see the labor problem before it hits the P&L, and I know exactly which shifts to fix.”

If you don’t know your sales per labor hour by daypart, or your managers can’t explain when to add or cut a person in under 30 seconds, you’re making labor decisions on gut feel instead of data. That’s the gap we close every week.

If this hit close to home and you want a second set of eyes on your labor model, just reply in the comments below to grab one of this month's Diagnostic slots. Once they're gone, we'll push new requests to next month. If it's easier, you can also CLICK HERE to get a guide that will walk you through things.

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