Our support,
your restaurant.
A recipe for success!

We have completed several conversions of independent restaurants to Sphinx. The results were consistent every time:

1. Cover count grew. This is driven by brand recognition, strong branding, and systematic promotional activity.
2. Average spend increased. That is how our menu and promotional policy work.
3. Food cost improved.
4. Normative and actual food cost stopped diverging, thanks to the way we organise central purchasing and how we create recipes.
5. Stock management became accurate through our raw material monitoring system.

On top of that, we took many responsibilities off the restaurant owner's plate — such as creating and analysing the menu.

Creating a menu is not just about cooking. The way you think and the discipline you apply are equally important — because ultimately, a menu exists to make money.

We build our offering on several principles:

1. Detach emotion from dishes. We don't get attached. Even if a dish has a "fan club" among the team. If it doesn't earn its place, creates chaos in the kitchen, or causes an ingredient to spoil — it goes.
2. The Pareto principle (80/20). We regularly analyse which dishes actually do the heavy lifting. Typically 20% of items account for 80% of revenue.
3. Impressions must be backed by data. The brain plays tricks. Before we decide something "is selling," we look at the numbers — not our memories.
4. Second-order thinking. We ask: what happens when the kitchen gets 10 of these at once on a Friday at 9pm?
5. Systems thinking. A menu is not a catalogue of dishes. It is a system. Add one dish and you change the whole dynamic.

We summarised our Google Maps ratings from the start of 2025:

• 85% are 5 stars
• 6% are 4 stars
• 3% each for 3, 2, and 1 star

This is a very strong result and a significant improvement — which is encouraging, because Google Maps ratings are a reliable measure of a restaurant's quality and level of hospitality.

Once it was shawarma and beer. Today it's octopus and Old Fashioned. But the vibe at Sphinx? Still the same — relaxed and easy-going, as it always was.

Sphinx has come a long way over the past 30 years. Remember heading out "for a shawarma" after class? Simple menu, familiar atmosphere, a beer on the table and conversations that ran long after the last bite.

Today the menu features steaks, seafood, seasonal ingredients like asparagus, and over 30 cocktails — from classics such as Old Fashioned and Mai Tai to signature creations.

The offering has changed, the standard has risen, but the spirit of the place remains. And shawarma? Still the most popular dish.

At Sphinx, deliveries currently account for around 10% of total sales. In-restaurant sales are significantly more important to us, as they generate a much better margin.

Why is delivery sales less profitable?

• High commissions charged by aggregators (Uber, Glovo, Bolt, Wolt)
• Limited cross-selling — the average spend can be half that of dine-in
• Logistics costs for own delivery

Does delivery make sense then? Absolutely — but you need to understand what role it plays. Delivery drives in-restaurant sales. Customers order at home, discover the taste, and then come to the restaurant in person.

Hospitality is not a strategy — it is a way of thinking.

A restaurant can serve excellent food, have perfectly refined procedures, and a modern management system. But without genuine hospitality, all of that is just mechanics.

At Sphinx, hospitality runs through everything we do. That is why we say "guest," not "customer." Because this is not just someone who pays for food. It is someone we welcome, whose comfort we care about, and who we want to return — because they felt good with us.

Hospitality is harder to scale than a product — and that is one of the greatest challenges in franchising. It cannot be programmed, but it can be developed through training and workplace culture.