Login
Book a demo

Little Door Case Study

by | Oct 10, 2025 | Customer Stories

CASE STUDY – LITTLE DOOR

Run Tighter Margins and Empower Growth

Using S4labour, Little Door & Co are increasing productivity and maximising revenue across their five London sites. Find out how you can do the same by booking a demo.

Book a Demo

In multi-site hospitality, growth can quickly outpace control. As you expand, the complexity of managing labour across locations increases. Without a unified system, you’re left with inconsistent processes, reactive decisions, and missed opportunities to maximise revenue. So, you’re growing, but not always profitably.

Perhaps you’ve got five sites – each with different ways of working and varying levels of control over margins. One manager is overstaffing to stay safe; another is understaffing to hit targets. You’re trying to make strategic decisions and know you’re losing margin, but you can’t pinpoint where. With S4labour, control isn’t just about oversight – it’s about empowering growth.

Every month, every site, every decision becomes an opportunity to drive performance and reinvest in your people. That’s exactly what Little Door and Co’s Operations Director, Ronald Homberg, is doing across their five venues using S4labour:

“S4labour enables us to control the business and have visibility so clearly laid out that it pays back every single month or more.” “We are able to put that back into our staff base to make sure that the environment is good.”

With clearer visibility and better control over labour management practices, Little Door & Co are able to deploy teams to deliver fantastic hospitality – capitalising on peak sales periods and running tighter margins across all of their sites.

“Having a system that makes things simple for junior and senior management is invaluable.” “S4labour has helped us increase productivity… The heat map helps us maximise revenue and reduce staff cost.” 

Ready for labour management that helps you to stay on top of the pennies that create the pounds and give your managers the confidence to grow? Watch Ronald’s story here to find out more.

Using S4labour, Little Door are increasing productivity by maximising revenue and reducing staff cost.

Want to do the same?

Book a Demo

“S4labour has helped us increase productivity… The heat map helps us maximise revenue and reduce staff cost.”

Ronald Homberg

Operations Director, Little Door & Co

More Case Studies

Summer Momentum Slows for Hospitality Sector in September

by | Oct 6, 2025 | Sales Figures

Friends dining in restaurant

The latest sales figures from S4labour reveal a mixed picture for UK hospitality in September 2025, with overall sales down just 0.1% year-on-year. London continues to lead the way, with a 7.9% increase in like-for-like sales compared to the same month last year. In contrast, non-London regions saw a decline of 2.7%.

Food-led venues in London saw an increase of 4.8% compared to a 4% decline outside the capital. Wet-led venues in London saw a strong uplift, with sales rising 11.9% year-on-year. In contrast, non-London wet-led sites experienced only marginal growth, up just 0.5%.

Richard Hartley, Chief Growth Officer at S4labour, commented: “Since April, the industry has largely managed to absorb rising operating costs, buoyed by strong sales during a warm and sunny summer. However, September’s dull and rainy conditions marked a turning point, with many operators experiencing pressure on both top-line revenue and bottom-line profitability.”

Thorley Taverns

by | Sep 19, 2025 | Customer Stories

CASE STUDY – THORLEY TAVERNS

Empower Your Managers and Boost Profit Margins

with Strategic Labour Management

Using S4labour, Thorley Taverns are driving up profits by making proactive, sales-driven decisions that improve productivity and profitability.

Find out how we can help by booking a demo.

Book a Demo

How Thorley Taverns Became a More Profitable Business.

You’re an Ops Director in 2025 – which means you already know that managing labour cost isn’t enough. You might already have a wage system in place, but is it helping your managers understand their labour in a way that drives both cost control and sales performance? To improve profit margins, you need a labour strategy that empowers managers in every site with the tools to see exactly where they are spending money – and understand why.

Are your managers stuck with outdated systems, vague overviews, and ingrained habits that lead to inefficiencies? Maybe you’ve got kitchen porters clocking in at 10am, standing around waiting for work while wages tick up and productivity stalls. Multiply that across multiple sites, and the cost of poor visibility becomes clear. Without knowing where and why money is being spent, managers can’t make the right decisions — and ops leaders can’t drive the change that’s needed. Here’s how Robert Bridger, Thorley Taverns used S4labour to empower his teams, reshape habits, and transform profitability.

“The hardest thing in my job as an Ops Director is getting people out of those habits… We had a wage system in, but it didn’t give us as much detail as S4labour does.”

Slack hours build up. Stress hours go unmanaged. Labour is misaligned with demand.

“The main outcomes of using S4labour for us was to get our labour strategy correct…S4 can split it down to an hourly basis to show exactly where you are spending your money on your staff.”

Two years later, our system continues to empower Thorley’s managers, with hour-by-hour visibility of labour spend, giving them the tools to reshape habits and improve profitability.

“From an ops point of view, we can go into units and say, ‘you’re not spending your money in the right areas of your labour’…It really has empowered the managers in what they need to do and how they control their daily and weekly budgets.” “It’s definitely driven profits up because we know where to put our labour spend now.”

Every one of your sites is different. A community pub doesn’t operate like a gastro venue, and weekday staffing needs aren’t the same as weekends. S4labour doesn’t just manage labour — it gives your managers the visibility to understand where they’re spending, why, and how to align labour with trading patterns.

“Because we’re such a multi-diverse pub company, it’s really crucial for me that I can go into a community pub and see where they’re at and go into a gastro pub to see that they are not spending too much in the week and are saving up for the weekends.”

With S4labour, your teams aren’t just reacting to costs — they’re making proactive, sales-driven decisions that improve productivity and profitability. S4labour helps you:

  • Align labour with demand, hour by hour
  • Embed smarter habits across teams
  • Reduce unnecessary spend
  • Drive profitability through better decisions

“It’s really transformed us as a company…it’s definitely value for money for us.”

Ready to move beyond basic labour management? Watch Rob’s story to see how S4labour helped him reshape habits, empower his teams and transform performance across a multi-diverse pub company.

Using S4labour, Thorley Taverns are driving up profits with proactive, sales-driven labour management.

Want to do the same?

Book a Demo
“It’s definitely driven profits up because we know where to put our labour spend now.”
Robert Bridger

Area Manager, Thorley Taverns

More Case Studies

London Continues to Lead Hospitality Sales Growth in August

by | Sep 15, 2025 | Sales Figures

london pub in SW1

The latest figures from S4labour show a 2.9% increase in hospitality sales in August 2025 compared to the same period last year, with London once again driving the uplift. The capital saw a standout 10.5% rise in like-for-like sales, while non-London regions recorded a modest increase of 0.9%.

Dry-led venues across the UK were up 2.4%, with London dry-led sites outperforming at 9.2% growth. Outside the capital, dry-led venues saw a smaller uplift of 1.1%. Wet-led sites experienced a 4.2% increase overall, with London wet-led venues surging by 12.1%, compared to a marginal 0.4% rise in non-London areas.
Richard Hartley, Chief Growth Officer at S4labour, commented:
“London’s strong performance this August was likely boosted by the warmer, more settled weather compared to last year, which encouraged greater footfall across both wet-led and dry-led venues. However, ongoing cost pressures and more cautious consumer spending continue to temper growth outside the capital.”

London Drives Hospitality Sales Growth in July

by | Aug 26, 2025 | Sales Figures

london pubThe latest data from S4labour reveals hospitality sales across the UK rose by 2.2% in July 2025 compared to the same period last year, with London significantly outperforming the rest of the country. The capital saw a 9.8% increase in like-for-like sales, while non-London regions experienced a slight decline of 0.2%.

Food-led venues in London were up 9.5%, compared to just 0.5% growth outside the capital. Wet-led sites also saw a strong uplift in London, rising 10.2%, while non-London wet-led venues fell by 2.1%.

Richard Hartley, Chief Growth Officer at S4labour, commented: “London’s hospitality boom this July could be due to a number of factors, including above average temperatures and return to office culture, with operators well-positioned to capitalise on increased demand. Inflationary pressures continue to pose challenges for all operators across the country, likely dampening performance outside of London in particular.”