A retail space at bare concrete, before fit-out

Solv · operating partners to founder-led retail, food & hospitality

Someone has to be on top of all of it.

We fix the business that’s stuck, find the margin that’s leaking, run the expansion the owner has no time for, and build the new one from an empty box to open doors.We fix what’s stuck, find the margin that’s leaking, run the expansion, and build the new one from an empty box to open doors.

Start a conversation hello@solvretail.com

01 — The box

We find the site, read the lease before it’s signed, underwrite the deal and set the budget.

What we hear

“We’re busier than we’ve ever been and there’s less money at the end of it.”

“I know some of what we sell loses money. I don’t know which.”

“I have the space. I don’t know who to call first.”

“Everyone asks me. Nothing moves until I answer.”

Half of these are problems to solv. Half are just too many moving parts and nobody to hold them. Same job either way.

Where we come in

You already have a business

It’s running, and it’s stuck

Margins slipping, everything routed through you. We get inside it and fix what is actually wrong — rarely the thing you called about.

You have a space and an idea

Nothing exists yet

Site, lease, budget, architect, contractor, equipment, crew, opening. We hire the people who do the work and stand over it until the doors open.

The money side

Most of what goes wrong in a retail business shows up in the numbers months before anyone feels it. Reading them is part of the job, not a separate service.

One dollar through a shelf item Illustrative — the shape of it, not any client’s numbers

4¢

What’s left

Four cents.

Before the doors openCapital

Clarity on what you actually want — the concept, the size of it, who it is for — settled before a dollar moves
A plan for how it gets built, and who is doing which part of it
A budget you can hold, with every line carrying a name and a date
Doors that open on time, without you living on the site to make it happen

Once it’s tradingMargin

Clarity on cost of goods — what each item actually earns, item by item
Pricing and mix set from those numbers instead of from habit
Improvements that keep coming, so the business is better each quarter than the last
A business you can run without carrying every part of it yourself

Every line above is something you should be able to feel, not just read in a report. If it has not changed how the week actually runs, it has not happened yet.

Selected work

What we took off the owner’s plate.

Kosher live-fire group

Ongoing

A caterer who couldn’t be in two places, becoming a group that’s in five.

Took the venue lease from term sheet through the owner’s redline to a counter
Specified and sourced the entire kitchen package against the buildout budget
Sequenced the units so each one pays for the next
Hired the GM into the seat the founder had been stuck in himself

Ground-up supermarket, Miami

Ongoing

Trades, drawings and a budget moving in three directions, with nobody sitting above them.

Ran the build from empty shell through to opening day
Bid every trade on a common scope and held them to one schedule
Reconciled each invoice against the line it was meant to hit
No change order reached the owner as a surprise

Client names withheld by default. We’ll go into specifics with you directly.

How we work

Five things you can hold us to.

We come to you.

In the store, in the kitchen, on the site during the build.

We get the data.

The POS exports, the invoices, the schedule, the lease — whatever exists. Then we go and look at the thing itself.

We get clear on where this is going.

Agreed with you and written down, before anyone starts spending. Including the part you didn’t ask about.

We put a plan against it.

Who does what, by when, and what it costs. We hire the people who do the work and we stand over them — one number to call instead of six vendors pointing at each other.

We stay until it holds without us.

Done is when it survives a month you’re not watching.

Tell us what you’re looking at.

A business that isn’t working, or an empty space and a deadline. Most of our work starts with a phone call and a walk-through.

Message us on WhatsApp hello@solvretail.com