A profitable first site rarely predicts a profitable second. The difference sits in overheads nobody modelled.
Operators usually open a second site on the strength of the first one's profit and loss. That statement, however, quietly carries the founder's own unpaid labour, a lease signed in a softer market and a supplier relationship built over years.
Model the second site from scratch. Give it a real general manager salary, a market-rate lease, delivery commissions at current levels and a training cost for a team that has never worked with you.
Where the numbers still hold, expansion is a genuine opportunity. Where they do not, the honest answer is usually to deepen the first site's margins before signing anything.
