Restaurant Market Intelligence
RMI is the independent performance benchmark for restaurants and public houses.
Your sales, covers and spend, measured against anonymised comparable restaurants and public houses. Relative performance in revenue.
Use it to see whether a result reflects your operation or the wider market, where the gap sits, and which question needs attention next.
Illustrative Benchmark
100 = Market
Indices compare a restaurant with an anonymised competitive set of comparable restaurants. Use the three measures together to separate changes in guest volume from changes in spend. Figures shown are illustrative.
We measure performance
against the market.
The gap
Internal reporting tells you what your restaurants did.
RMI tells you what happened around them.
A restaurant down 2% may be performing strongly if its competitive market is down 8%. Growth of 5% may be weak if the market grew 12%.
That distinction changes the response: investigate an internal performance gap, or manage through a market-wide movement with the right context.
Your revenue
−2.0%
Market
−8.1%
RMI Revenue Index
107
100 = Comp Set
Established principle
In other industries, leadership teams routinely assess performance against anonymised competitive sets rather than budget alone. Independent benchmarking became part of how those sectors are financed, valued and managed.
RMI applies the same principle to restaurants, using measures restaurant operators already use — revenue, covers and average spend.
The value is practical: compare like with like, challenge an apparent result and direct management attention to the sites and measures that have moved.
Core measures
STANDARDISED DAILY
Who uses RMI
One benchmark, read at every level of the business. Each role sees the same market, framed around the decisions it owns.
Is the site keeping pace with its local market this week, and is the gap covers or spend?
Which sites and regions are gaining or losing ground against their competitive set.
Internal results set beside market movement, in points, ready for the pack.
Whether the estate is gaining or losing share, on one page.
Food and beverage mix and spend per head against comparable markets.
Food-led public houses benchmarked against comparable high-street and destination sites.
For decision-makers
RMI separates internal performance from market movement so management can see whether market share is being gained or lost. Absolute growth alone does not answer that question — or tell a team where to act.
Growth, but ground lost. Isolate which sites, dayparts or measures explain the gap.
Decline, but share gained. Protect the relative strength while planning for weaker demand.
Restaurants and public houses
A food-led public house is not benchmarked against a fine-dining room. RMI groups each site with comparable businesses by format, spend band and location, on the high street and in destination markets alike.
That gives operators a relevant basis for decisions on covers, spend, trading pattern and daypart — without treating unlike businesses as peers.
Comp-set formats
Measures
Multi-site operators
A national group should not compare Manchester directly with London or Edinburgh. Each restaurant is measured against its own relevant competitive market.
Portfolio reporting then aggregates those results into one view, so leaders can direct attention to the markets losing ground and learn from those gaining it.
RMI Restaurant Market Index
Use the market view to distinguish a local issue from a broader trading pattern, then compare revenue, covers and spend before deciding where intervention is needed.
UK Restaurant Revenue
UK Restaurant Covers
UK Restaurant Spend
London Premium Casual
Sample: 24 restaurants · Confidence High
Manchester Premium Casual
Sample: 42 restaurants · Confidence High
North West Premium Casual
Sample: 63 restaurants · Confidence High
UK Destination Restaurants
Sample: 22 restaurants · Confidence Medium
Confidentiality
RMI never displays an individual restaurant’s performance to another participant. Competitive sets require a minimum number of participating restaurants across multiple ownership groups, and insufficient samples are suppressed.
Operators can therefore use the benchmark in site reviews, trading meetings and board reporting without exposing commercially sensitive restaurant data.
Comp Set Status
Inside the platform
Every chart sits against the 100 line — your movement, the market's, and the gap between them. Illustrative figures.
RMI then turns each signal into a focused management follow-up: where to look, what to compare and which question to take into the next trading meeting.
From signal to action
RMI separates measured evidence from suggested follow-up. It identifies where to look; operators decide what changed and what action is appropriate.
01
Latest gap +4.1pts
Identify which sites and markets are contributing most to the gain.
02
104.0 Revenue Index
Track the next reading before treating normal variation as a change in trend.
03
Covers vs market · £85.4k
Use the bridge to separate market movement from covers and spend before assigning ownership.
04
Edinburgh strongest · Leeds weakest
Compare the sites behind Leeds with the pattern in Edinburgh.
YoY %, lines · variance in points, bars · Illustrative
AnswersAre we gaining or losing ground, and by how many points each month?
Variance = Portfolio YoY − Comp Set YoY
£k · Illustrative
| Component | £k | % of PY |
|---|---|---|
| Prior-year revenue | 1,842.0 | — |
| Market | +36.8 | +2.0% |
| Covers vs market | +85.4 | +4.6% |
| Spend vs market | −9.8 | −0.5% |
| Current revenue | 1,954.4 | +6.1% |
Observation: covers accounted for the larger share of the movement relative to the market. The data does not indicate why.
AnswersHow much of the movement was the market, covers or spend?
PY + Market + Covers + Spend = Current
Mean 103.4 · σ 1.04 · Illustrative
AnswersIs the latest reading a trend or normal variation?
Band = mean ± 1 sample standard deviation
Points gained against comp set · Illustrative
AnswersHow much ground has the estate taken from, or given to, the market this year?
Cumulative = Σ monthly variance, pts
One point per restaurant · sized by revenue · Illustrative
AnswersIs a site winning on footfall, on spend, or both?
Axes cross at 100 = Comp Set
100 = Comp Set · Illustrative
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lunch | 97 | 99 | 100 | 102 | 104 | 101 | 106 |
| Dinner | 95 | 98 | 101 | 103 | 108 | 110 | 99 |
| Combined | 96 | 99 | 101 | 103 | 106 | 106 | 103 |
Weakest cell: Mon dinner (95). Strongest: Sat dinner (110). Cells with fewer than the minimum sample would be suppressed.
AnswersWhich trading patterns are ahead of or behind the market?
Index = own ÷ comp set, matched day and service
Min · Q1 · median · Q3 · max across your restaurants · Illustrative
AnswersIs the gap between our best and weakest site in a market widening?
Box = interquartile range; line = full range
Trailing 7 months · Illustrative
| Market | Rev YoY | Comp Set | Pts | Rev Idx | Cov Idx | Spd Idx | Trend | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edinburgh | +9.4% | +3.0% | +6.4 | 106.2 | 108 | 100 | High | |
| Manchester | +6.8% | +2.6% | +4.2 | 104.1 | 104 | 101 | High | |
| Bristol | +3.1% | +1.3% | +1.8 | 101.8 | 101 | 101 | Medium | |
| London | +1.9% | +2.3% | −0.4 | 99.6 | 99 | 101 | High | |
| Leeds | −0.6% | +3.4% | −4.0 | 96.1 | 97 | 99 | Medium | |
| York | −2.4% | +1.1% | −3.5 | 96.5 | 96 | 98 | Developing |
AnswersWhere in the estate is the movement, and how reliable is the benchmark?
Revenue Index = 100 × (1 + own) ÷ (1 + comp set)
Commercial terms
Every participating restaurant contributes to — and draws from — its competitive market. Subscriptions are therefore per restaurant, with group and institutional terms built around the estate and the data required.
Independent restaurants and small groups
£149
per restaurant, per month (billed annually)
Multi-site restaurant and public house operators
Custom
priced by estate size and reporting requirements
Investors, landlords and market analysts
Custom
priced by coverage and data required
Pricing shown is indicative and confirmed during onboarding. Founding Partners receive preferential commercial terms during the network-building phase. Subscriptions are per restaurant, billed annually; no participant is charged for the data contributed by others.
Questions
If your question is not answered here, the Methodology page covers how comp sets are built and how the indices are calculated, or you can request a call.
RMI benchmarks your restaurants against a defined competitive set. You submit trading data; RMI validates, anonymises and aggregates it, and returns how you performed relative to comparable restaurants in your market on revenue, covers and average spend.
Six fields per trading day per restaurant: trading date, restaurant, net revenue, covers, food revenue and beverage revenue. Most operators begin with a weekly CSV or a simple manual submission — integrations are optional, not a prerequisite.
Nobody outside your organisation. Restaurant-level records are anonymised before aggregation, and only your own performance, aggregated comp-set performance and market indices are ever reported. An individual competitor's performance is never visible to any participant.
Competitive sets are built from geography, format, average spend, cuisine, seats, service style and trading pattern. RMI proposes the classification during onboarding and you confirm it.
Every comp set must meet minimum participation and ownership-diversity thresholds before it produces a benchmark. Where those thresholds are not met, the figure is suppressed rather than published.
An index of 100 means you performed exactly in line with your comp set. Above 100 means outperforming the market, below 100 means underperforming — measured in points of relative performance, not percentages.
Benchmarking is calculated daily. Participants receive a weekly performance report, with monthly, quarterly and annual market reviews produced from the same data.
Operator access is £149 per restaurant per month, with group and institutional access priced on application. Figures are indicative and confirmed during onboarding; Founding Partners receive preferential terms.
Founder's note
Two decades of hard-won operator experience, now in your corner.
Founding Partner Programme
RMI is recruiting the restaurant and public house operators that will provide initial market density, with preferential commercial terms, early access and influence over reporting standards.