Operator Sourcing & Selection
A disciplined search and RFP process that matches your space with the right food and beverage operator — and the right deal.
The most expensive mistake in food and beverage real estate is the wrong operator. A beautiful space with the wrong tenant burns through tenant-improvement dollars, sours the customer experience, and ends in a workout, a buyout, or a dark storefront. And the wrong deal structure can doom even the right operator before the first meal is served. At ONSET Hospitality, we run operator selection the way institutional capital deserves: a structured, competitive, criteria-driven process — informed by decades of sitting on the operator's side of the table. We know the questions to ask, the numbers that don't add up, and the red flags a leasing broker will never catch.
Developers, REITs, and campus owners engage us to source and select operators for restaurants, cafés, bars, food halls, and full campus dining programs. We don't circulate a flyer and wait. We build a curated field of qualified, credible operators from our national network, put them through a real RFP, and evaluate them the way we'd evaluate a partner for our own project — on food, on financials, on operating discipline, and on fit with your asset strategy.
Operator selection criteria and ideal-profile development
Curated operator identification from our national network
Qualification calls and NDA-gated information sharing
Custom RFP authoring, tailored to your asset and deal goals
RFP distribution, acknowledgment, and process management
Site walks and operator Q&A coordination
Deal structure guidance — lease, management agreement, or license
Submission evaluation, scoring, and side-by-side comparison
Financial vetting and pro forma stress-testing
Finalist interviews, tastings, and service demonstrations
Preferred-operator negotiation and agreement support
Transition planning from award through opening day
How we work
Define. Selection criteria, operator profile, and target deal structure — agreed with ownership before anyone is contacted.
Source and qualify. We build a curated candidate pool from our network, run qualification calls under NDA, and admit only credible operators into the process.
RFP. We author and issue a tailored RFP package, then manage the process end to end — acknowledgments, site walks, and post-submission clarifications.
Evaluate. Submissions are scored against your criteria, financials vetted, and finalists put through interviews, tastings, and service demonstrations.
Select and close. Preferred-operator notification, agreement negotiation support, and a managed handoff through lease-up, buildout, and opening.
The result is an operator chosen on evidence rather than instinct — and a deal built to perform for the life of the lease.