EHS Newsletter No. 4 May 21, 2026

FRONT PAGE NEWS

Strong April Results to start Q2

April showers brought more than just May flowers — they brought some genuinely encouraging numbers.

Despite stormy weather across the region, restaurant sales for EHS clients came in broadly positive. Most operators posted year-over-year growth and beat general expectations, which, given the noise in the broader economy lately, is no small thing.

A handful of spots turned in standout performances, while median growth landed in the 10.5–13% range. On the flip side, the restaurants that have been grinding through a tough 2026 didn't quite catch a break this month.

Profitability also showed meaningful year-over-year improvement across many EHS restaurants. And with the stock market hitting all-time highs as of May 11th, consumer confidence could have some tailwinds heading into summer.

Control the Controllables:

Not All Expenses Are Created Equal

Running a restaurant means juggling a lot of numbers, but not all numbers deserve the same amount of your attention.

• Controllable costs are the ones your managers can actually move the needle on every single day: food, labor, supplies.

• Non-controllables are the expenses that mostly live outside daily decision-making: marketing, utilities and G&A.

If you want your management team to be laser-focused, start by setting clear, realistic targets for controllable costs. When your team knows what "good" looks like, they can chase it. (We've covered this in our prime cost post, worth a read if you haven't already.)

Non-controllables are a different animal. They shouldn't be ignored, but they don't need daily attention; they need monthly or quarterly attention. That's the right cadence for bigger-picture moves: rethinking your marketing spend, renegotiating a contract, taking a hard look at your third-party delivery fees. Left unchecked, non-controllables can quietly eat into your bottom line and skew your profitability numbers in ways that don't reflect how well the operation is actually running.

As always, if you want help figuring out where your controllables and non-controllables stand, that's exactly what we're here for.

Set up a meeting with us!

Accounting Explained: Reconciliations 

The Key to Accurate Reporting

Nobody got into the restaurant business because they love matching numbers to bank statements. And yet.

Reconciliations are the process of matching your accounting records to their source documents to make sure everything is complete and accurate. Think bank statements, credit card deposits, expenses and liabilities. If the numbers in your books don't match the real world, reconciliations are how you find out.

Why does it matter? Because small discrepancies have a way of quietly becoming big problems. Duplicate transactions, missing expenses, timing issues and uncleared deposits: any of these can creep into your books and distort your profitability numbers before anyone notices. When reconciliations are done consistently, you can trust what you're looking at. Making smart decisions for your business requires the numbers on your P&L to reflect what actually happened in your business, not an approximation of it.

That's why we complete reconciliations monthly, catching issues early before they snowball into bigger reporting headaches. Clean books are important because they're the foundation on which everything else is built, and we take that seriously.

Know your numbers. Run your business better. Press here and we’ll show you how.

What are we listening to?  Served Up - The Podcast You probably know Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits as a huge distributor, but in 2020 they started putting out a great podcast. They have conversations on topics like advocacy, entrepreneurship, and belonging with food & beverage industry and social justice thought leaders representing our diverse hospitality community.

Where are we eating and drinking?  The EHS team is always eating out and enjoy checking out everything Chicago has to offer from the hot new thing to the old faves (some are clients, some aren't ...YET) Finally got a reservation at Creepies!! From the folks that brought you Elske, Chefs David and Anna Posey opened a little French neighborhood bistro next door. The food is next level and the wine is stellar. Not to be missed: the brie bites, the gnocchi with swiss and ham, the roasted chicken in a liver and wine sauce and the ridiculously good butterscotch custard, and I didn't even know I liked butterscotch!

Congrats on 10 Fantastic Years Arbella!

The Arbella team celebrated their 10 year anniversary and threw a great party. Thanks for having us and we love what you do!!