Garde Holdings · New York
We lend to restaurants, buy restaurants, and keep the books for both.
Garde runs the back office for 60+ restaurant groups. Holdings is the part of Garde that puts capital and ownership behind the operators whose numbers we read every week.
First in the portfolio: Little Mo, Bushwick
Who you'll be talking to
"I've done the books at eleven at night, argued with the accountant about food cost, and found out a store was losing money two months late. That's the job most owners are quietly doing on top of running the floor."
Raymond owns Little Mo in Brooklyn, the first restaurant in the portfolio, and runs operations at Garde. He reads every application and every message to Holdings himself. If you own a restaurant in New York and want to compare notes on the finances, write to him. Owner to owner.
A note before the numbers
Why we started this
Most of the restaurants we keep books for have never been offered a loan they could say yes to. The bank wanted two years of tax returns, a personal guarantee and a credit score, and it took ninety days to say no. Nobody at the bank had looked at a single day's sales.
We had. We journal every day's sales, line-item every invoice and reconcile every delivery payout for 60+ restaurant groups. We know which kitchens are well run because we can see it, week after week, in the prime cost and the close. At some point it stopped making sense to watch good operators get turned down by people who were not reading the numbers.
So Holdings lends on the ledger, and when an owner is ready to step back, it buys the restaurant and keeps the name on the awning. Either way, the back office stays with us and the people stay in the building. That is the whole idea.
What we do
Three things, each priced plainly and decided on the same ledger. Every item below is explained on its own page.
House rules
Ten things we hold ourselves to. Hold us to them, too.
- The books come before the pitch.Ten minutes of daily sales, invoices and payroll tell us more than an hour of slides.
- We keep kitchen hours.Call after close and someone answers. Most of us have worked a Friday service.
- The name stays on the awning.We do not rebrand what a neighborhood already loves.
- The team stays.Nobody should have to lay off their cooks to sell their restaurant.
- No surprises in the term sheet.One page, plain words, every fee on it. If you need a lawyer to find the catch, we wrote it badly.
- Slow weeks pay less.Repayment tied to daily sales means a snowstorm in January does not become a default in February.
- We read the numbers with you, every week.Not a quarterly report. A ten-minute read with the operator, with the fix attached.
- Say no fast, and say why.If it is not a fit we tell you on the first call, and what would make it one.
- Good restaurants should outlive their owners' careers.The exit for an independent should not be a closing sale.
- Your margin is our margin.We only do well when the restaurant does. There is no version where we win and you do not.
From the comment cards
What operators on Garde say
"Garde found savings we didn't know existed and cut our bookkeeping time in half. It felt like having a full-time CFO for a fraction of the cost."
Little MoVietnamese fusion, Bushwick · now in the Holdings portfolioBoth quotes as published on garde.app.
From first call to funded, or closed.
A loan and a sale follow the same order, because the books are the diligence either way.
- Week 0
A thirty-minute call
What you need, your timeline, the headline numbers. We say on the call whether it is likely a fit.
- Weeks 1 to 2
Connect the books
Point of sale, invoices, payroll and bank onto Garde. If you are not on Garde yet, this is the application.
- Ten business days
We read the ledger
Sales trend, prime cost, cash days, delivery mix, vendors, rent. The same read we do for every restaurant we keep.
- One page
Terms, or an offer
Amount, term and repayment for a loan. Price, structure and your role for a sale. No fee hiding in paragraph nine.
- Days, or 30 to 60
Funded, or closed
A wire to the operating account, or a closing with your attorney and ours. Then we keep reading the numbers together.
In the portfolio
Little Mo, Bushwick
Banh mi, grandma's pho and rice bowls on Myrtle Avenue, run by best friends. A cafe by day and one of the block's late-night rooms after dark.
On Garde, third-party payouts are reconciled to the order and every invoice is line-itemed. That is how the restaurant found more than $15,000 it was leaving on the table and got half its bookkeeping hours back. It is the first restaurant in the portfolio, and the reason we believe this model works.
Plain answers
Questions we get on the first call
- What is Garde Holdings, exactly?
- The holding company next to Garde, the restaurant back office. Garde keeps the books for 60+ restaurant groups. Holdings lends to restaurants and buys restaurants, using that ledger to decide.
- Do I have to use Garde to borrow?
- Yes, for the life of the loan, and it is included. If you are not on Garde yet, onboarding is the application. The books are yours afterward whether or not we lend.
- How big are the loans, and for how long?
- Indicatively $100K to $2.5M over 12 to 60 months, repaid as a fixed monthly amount or a share of each day's sales. Final terms are set in underwriting and written on one page.
- How fast is a decision?
- About two weeks to connect the books, then ten business days to a decision. If the answer is no, you hear it on the first call where we can tell.
- What do you look for in a restaurant you would buy?
- Three or more years open, $750K to $5M in annual sales per location, a team that wants to stay, and a neighborhood that knows the name. New York City first.
- What happens to my team if I sell?
- They keep their jobs. We are buying a restaurant that works, and the people are why it works.
- Do you take over the kitchen?
- No. We run the back office and read the numbers with you every week. Operators operate.
- Where are you?
- New York. Raymond is in Queens and Brooklyn most days, our first holding is in Bushwick, and we want to be able to walk into every restaurant we work with.
"All leadership had to do was review insights in their weekly meetings. Garde handled the rest."
OBAO Noodles & BBQSoutheast Asian, multi-unit, New York · $80K profit swing in six months