Our approach

The BDS Approach

A decision in one part of a restaurant shows up in the rest, so BDS develops concept, menu, kitchen, space, service and brand as one system.

Pasta, garlic bread and small plates from Ālaya's kitchen on a dark marble table

Restaurants are often developed in sequence. A concept is agreed, a designer draws the room, a chef writes the menu and staffing is worked out close to opening. Each decision can look right on its own. The cost arrives later: a kitchen that cannot produce the menu at the covers the layout allows, or a service style that needs more people than the price point can pay for.

In a restaurant, every decision feeds the next. Raise the price point and the menu, the kitchen and the capital budget change with it. Choose a different service style and staffing, training and the guest experience follow.

How BDS works

BDS connects concept, design, food and beverage, operations and brand, and starts each decision from the business it has to support.

The approach comes from operating hospitality businesses, not only designing them. The studio’s founder, Rish Saini, has spent much of his career living with the decisions after a venue opens.

How a project runs

  • The business first: site, customer, price point and what the venue needs to earn.
  • A concept written to answer that brief.
  • The menu and beverage programme, then the kitchen and bar they require.
  • Layout, interiors and technical coordination, planned around covers and service.
  • Brand, operating systems, staffing and training, set up before opening.
  • Opening support, followed by marketing and digital work where the project continues.

Not every project needs every stage. Uptown Escape in Guwahati, opened in 2019, was an A-to-Z consultancy built around one commercial question: how a café and a cocktail bar trade across the day. Ālaya in Shillong ran from concept to opening in 2026. At Nuts & Brew, an established Guwahati brewery, the 2025 work was a repositioning: interiors, food, menus, uniforms and the beer programme moved together, from four beers on tap to eight.

The chain

A restaurant is a system.

Each decision in a restaurant sets the terms for the next. Get the order right and the business holds together; get it wrong and the cost shows after opening.

  1. 01Concept

    The concept decides who the venue is for and which occasions it serves. Every later decision is tested against it.

  2. 02Customer

    The customer sets the price point, the length of a visit and the hours the venue has to trade.

  3. 03Revenue

    Revenue depends on covers and average spend, and it sets what the menu, rent, fit-out and team can cost.

  4. 04Menu

    The menu influences equipment, preparation, kitchen area, staffing, margins and service speed, so it is settled before the kitchen is drawn.

  5. 05Kitchen

    The kitchen’s size, equipment and position set capital cost and peak output, and decide where everything else can go.

  6. 06Space

    Layout affects covers, circulation, service efficiency, guest comfort and revenue. It also sets the routes the team walks every shift.

  7. 07Service

    The service style sets staffing and training, which decide whether a quiet Tuesday is run as well as a full Saturday.

  8. 08Brand

    The brand begins as reputation earned in service. Identity, menus, uniforms and social channels then have to say the same thing.

  9. 09Growth

    Growth is the result of the whole guest experience working consistently. It cannot be added afterwards by marketing alone.

BDS works across the chain.

Building or transforming a hospitality business?

Whether starting with an idea, repositioning an existing restaurant or developing a scalable hospitality brand, begin with the business you want to build.

Work With BDS

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