7 things every restaurant founder needs in their toolkit

Thinking about launching, growing or scaling a restaurant? Here are 7 expert-backed tips we learn’t from CODE Founders Series 2026: The Restaurant Toolkit powered by Toast, that nobody else will tell you.

1. “If you want to set up a business, go and work in a business that you admire and stay there. Don’t just do three months. Do the hard groundwork and you’ll learn so much.”

– James Robson on learning the business

2. “When you’re taking anyone’s money, whether that’s VC, private equity or high net worth individuals, your vision needs to be aligned at the outset”

– Laura Harper-Hinton on investors

3. “Money is probably the bit that everybody focuses on but it’s probably the least important bit. If you’ve got a really good idea and people around you that believe in it, the money will come.”

– James Robson on financing

4. “Knowing your values and speaking about them openly early on helps you attract the right kind of people. Hire for emotional skills, not technical ones.”

– Ravinder Bhogal on recruiting

5. “If you’re going to fall in love with a building, fall in love with a building with a lot of footfall outside it.”

– James Robson on property

6. “Restaurants are like plants; they’re living, breathing things. They will signal to you, if you’re in tune with them, when they’re ready to grow.”

– Nadeem Lalani Nanjuwany on growth

7. “Naivety is really important. Making it up as you go along is an important learning journey. Overthinking everything is unhelpful.”

– Laura Harper-Hinton on starting out

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Toast is the all-in-one POS platform built for hospitality. Trusted by more than 180,000 locations, Toast connects orders, payments and operations in one platform, with reliable technology designed to keep service moving.

Toast is proud to partner with CODE for the third year of the Founders Series, supporting honest conversations and practical advice from the people building and leading hospitality businesses.

Speak to the Toast team to discover how Toast can help power your restaurant.