An advisory firm built on operator-level exposure to the European hospitality market.
Krause Hospitality Advisory is an independent strategy advisory firm focused on market entry, expansion risk, concept fit, competitive positioning and portfolio growth for restaurant chains, foodservice investors, and hospitality decision-makers in Europe.
Michael Krause
Restaurant marketing advisor since 2001. Diplom-Ökonom, University of Hohenheim. Two and a half decades of operator-level exposure to the German hospitality market — from family-run independents to multi-unit systems and franchise operations.
Founded GastroInsider Intelligence — the primary DACH foodservice market-intelligence platform with direct operator coverage across 950+ active businesses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The same proprietary data set, decoded for chain leaders, capital, and institutional decision-makers, is what Krause Hospitality Advisory exists to deliver.
Cross-industry by design. Pattern recognition is sharper when it travels: routing logic from quick-service e-commerce, capacity-utilisation reads from aviation, standardised execution from luxury hospitality. The work refuses to treat foodservice as a closed system — because the chains and capital that succeed in it don't.
Independent — by structure, by paycheck, by client mandate. Advisory work only, to chain leaders, foodservice investors, and franchise systems considering DACH and Western Europe.
How we hold the line.
Independence is not a tagline. In this firm it is a series of structural choices about how we get paid, who pays us, and which seats we will not sit in. Each one rules out a category of conflict we will not carry.
No franchise interests in the markets we advise on. No operator subsidiary. No roll-up vehicle, no LP positions in the chains we evaluate.
Compensation is fees from clients, paid directly. No carried interest, no consideration in shares, no rev-share linked to engagement outcomes.
No referral fees from POS vendors, software platforms, suppliers, staffing providers, or franchise consultants. The recommendation is not the product.
One side of a transaction at a time — never both sides of the same deal. The brief belongs to one client.
The first call is a structured briefing, not a deck. The work product is the engagement.
Independent — by design, by structure, by paycheck.
Five engagement types. One reason capital and chain leaders use us — answers that hold up under scrutiny.
Market Entry Assessment
Should we enter DACH or Western Europe, and how do we sequence the entry?
Expansion Risk Review
Where does the system break before it scales — units, capital, supply, talent?
Concept Fit Assessment
Is this concept chain-capable in our market, and at what unit count does the model work?
Competitive Positioning Review
Where do we stand in the segment, and where do we hold the line?
Portfolio Growth Review
Where in the portfolio is the unrecognised growth — and which assets are quietly losing it?
Engagements are scoped on the briefing call. We do not publish standard packages; the work is calibrated to the decision in front of you.
HERI-40, the Operational Readiness Score, the Market Timing Score — auditable frameworks calibrated against documented hospitality transactions from 2018 through 2025.
Decision-grade. Reproducible. Usable in the deal room. The full executive summary lays out the framework end-to-end.
Read the HERI-40 Executive Summary →Operator-grounded — our partner-publication GastroInsider has tracked DACH foodservice for 25+ years with direct intelligence coverage of 950+ active operators across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The data set that informs our chain and PE work is the same one our operator audience reads weekly. Same ground truth, two registers.
A briefing call costs you 30 minutes. The cost of not having one is harder to quantify.
Every engagement starts with a structured briefing call — decision context, scope, fit. No prepared deck on our end.
Brief the Founder