What if you couldn’t walk into your business tomorrow? What would happen? Would the team last a week or a month? Would they get through lunch? Would they get into the building? How long until the suppliers don’t get paid and stop delivering, or worst of all, payroll doesn’t get paid and your staff stopped turning up?
These were the opening questions from hospitality broker and sales specialist Olivia Casson from GSE Business Brokers, illustrating why every restaurant and café needs an exit plan – not just for selling, but for survival during unexpected crises.
“Your partner gets a phone call that you are in the hospital, unconscious,” Casson told the Fine Food audience. “They’re incredibly stressed and upset, and their main focus is how are you going to be. They’re not really thinking about who’s going to open your business tomorrow.”
When family members try to contact staff, they discover they don’t know where the phone numbers are – they might be stored only on the owner’s phone. Worse still, they realise they don’t even know some employees’ real names, only the nicknames the owner used.
The Five D’s that force sales
Casson identifies what she calls the “Five D’s” – disaster, debt, divorce, disability and death – as the most common reasons hospitality businesses are forced to sell without proper planning. COVID-19 served as a prime example of a disaster, affecting virtually every hospitality business overnight.
“Some businesses actually pivoted their business model and thrived. Some businesses never went back to their old business model,” Casson noted, highlighting how prepared businesses fared better during the pandemic.
Divorce isn’t always romantic, Casson explained – it can involve business partnerships. “Sometimes your bro that you opened your bar with when you were 21 isn’t the same person when they’re 31. You’ve had a big fallout, you don’t want to work with them anymore.”
Success Story: From loss to growth
Casson shared a real case study of Corey and Liam, owners of a café bakery in Western Australia, who contacted her in October 2023 after one partner was diagnosed with a life-changing illness.
Despite generating strong weekly sales of $50,000 to $60,000, the business had fundamental problems. From January to August 2024, they lost $143,000 while working five to seven days per week under constant stress.
After implementing Casson’s recommendations – including financial education, systems documentation, and team restructuring – their results transformed dramatically. By the same period in 2025, the business generated $392,000 in revenue. The owners now work in the business only two to three days a week, and the operation is run under management.
“They didn’t really want to sell their passion project that they built from the ground up from a coffee caravan, but they felt that was their only choice,” Casson said. “The workings of [an exit plan] will help you now.”
What buyers want
Casson outlined five key factors that make hospitality businesses valuable and sellable:
Systems: From simple opening and closing procedures to comprehensive operations manuals. “A recipe book is a system,” Casson noted.
Team capability: Businesses with well-trained, capable teams command higher prices than those dependent on the owner.
Financial clarity: Not accounting-level detail, but clear records of expenses. Casson cited one business where $20,000 in undocumented “general expenses” couldn’t be verified as legitimate business costs, directly reducing the sale value.
Lease security: A good lease helps sales, while high rent and demolition clauses can make even profitable businesses nearly unsellable.
Proven growth potential: Rather than theoretical opportunities, documented evidence of expansion possibilities.
Quick wins for business owners
Casson recommended immediate steps that any hospitality business can take:
- Write down the opening and closing procedures this week
- Cross-train someone in jobs that only the owner knows how to do
- Find and read the lease agreement, ensuring it’s properly registered
- Review the last 12 months of profit and loss statements, categorising unclear expenses
- List the top three genuine growth opportunities
