What I Have Learnt, Put to Work
There are decisions in hospitality that you only understand properly when you are the person making them. Whether to change the menu, how much runway an opening really needs, when to hold your course, and when to admit that something is not working. After 25 years of opening, running, and working with venues, those are the questions I keep coming back to.
The Shift Up is where I put that experience into books. Practical field guides for the people responsible for the venue, the team, and the numbers. Two books, written for two different stages of the work.
The Shift Up: Insider's Guide 2026
For operators already running a restaurant, bar, hotel, or hospitality venue. The Insider's Guide brings together operations, marketing, commercial strategy, and team management, with the day-to-day decisions at the centre of it. How guests find you, what your menu earns, how you keep a good team, and where the next improvement is actually worth making.
I wrote it for people who need to put the book down and get back to work with something useful to do. The digital edition includes companion worksheets to help turn the guidance into decisions for your own business.
Explore the Insider's Guide 2026 ->
The Shift Up: Open
For anyone preparing to launch a restaurant, bar, or hospitality venue. Open follows the work from the first concept through to the first ninety days of trade: testing the idea, planning the business, raising capital, choosing a location, building the venue, getting the licences, hiring the team, and opening the doors.
An opening is a sequence of connected decisions. A weak assumption about the market can become a problem with the site, the budget, or the team months later. This guide keeps those decisions together, with companion worksheets for the planning that needs to happen before the first guest arrives.
Find the Guide That Fits Your Work
Both books are available in PDF, ePUB, and audiobook editions. You can explore the contents, read sample pages, listen to a preview, and find the available editions on The Shift Up website.