Case Study: How we cut costs and opened a restaurant on time for an award-winning North East restaurateur
- Jul 22
- 2 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Client: Jaf Ali, founder of Dabbawal and Khai Khai, Newcastle. Winner of Entrepreneur of the Year at the British Curry Awards, the industry's "Curry Oscars."
Jaf has spent over a decade building some of Newcastle's most recognised independent restaurants, from the UK's first Indian street food concept to a fire-and-smoke Josper kitchen. When you're running a multi-site hospitality group, energy and utilities aren't a footnote, they're one of your biggest controllable overheads. He brought us two very different problems.
Challenge 1: Finding someone to trust with a multi-site energy review
Like most busy operators running multiple sites, Jaf knew his energy costs needed a proper review, but finding someone independent he could actually trust to do it was the problem.
We audited and re-tendered his full portfolio across gas, electricity and water, benchmarking every site against live market rates.
The result: savings of several thousand pounds a year across the group, with zero disruption to service. He didn't switch a single supplier blind. With the help of our in-house energy consultant, Phil Andrew, we laid out every option transparently and he decided.
Challenge 2: A new site that had to open on time
Jaf's newest restaurant had a hard opening date, and the property's energy infrastructure wasn't ready. Time was the enemy. We ran an energy audit to determine exactly what gas supply the site needed, established what was already installed, and confirmed the premises required a larger commercial meter.
Then we project-managed the whole thing end to end: specifying the correct meter, arranging the fitting, and seeing it through to full installation.
The result: the infrastructure was in place in time and the restaurant opened on schedule. No delays, no last-minute scramble.
"I met Phil Andrew from SME Centre of Excellence, he came along and he was just so honest, It was so simple." — Jaf Ali, Dabbawal & Khai Khai
Why this matters
We're independent, and we're not tied to any supplier, so every recommendation is made for the client. Whether it's shaving thousands off an established portfolio or getting a new site connected under deadline, we do the work and you keep control of the decision.
