Recommendation
The client should pause expansion and focus on improving unit-level performance by addressing revenue declines and ingredient cost controls.

Key Rationale

• Revenue per store has declined, even with more locations
• Ingredient costs rose significantly, while other cost areas remained flat
• Fixing per-store profitability is critical before scaling further

Risks & Mitigations

• Continued inflation in input prices
  Mitigation: Lock in vendor contracts or consider bulk purchasing
• Underperforming new stores
  Mitigation: Launch store-level dashboard to track weekly performance and intervene early
• Customer loss due to price changes or product changes
  Mitigation: Use limited-time offers to test pricing or portion changes before rollout

Next Steps

1. Analyze per-store performance to identify weakest units
2. Conduct a detailed ingredient cost audit to trace source of cost spikes
3. Temporarily freeze new store openings and reallocate team to operations
4. Run pricing elasticity tests to evaluate if small increases can offset margin pressure