Multi-Location Scale — 1 to 5
Coffee House & Tea Company opened its first location in Ponce, PR in 2016. Over the next 6 years, the business scaled to 5 locations across Puerto Rico with full P&L ownership and no outside capital.
Growth without systems is unsustainable. As new locations opened, the absence of documented processes created quality inconsistencies, training failures, and inventory problems across sites.
Build operational systems that could scale across multiple locations
Standardize hiring, onboarding, and training
Implement food safety and inventory SOPs
Maintain P&L discipline across all 5 locations
Documented core operational procedures from scratch — no prior SOPs existed
Built hiring and onboarding playbooks used for every new hire across all locations
Created food safety documentation meeting health department requirements
Implemented inventory tracking system using Square POS data and Google Sheets
Trained location managers to own their P&L using standardized reporting tools
Scaled from 1 → 5 locations sequentially, testing and refining systems at each new site
Square
POS, inventory management, sales reporting
Google Sheets
P&L tracking, inventory audits, custom reporting
Custom SOPs
Hiring, onboarding, training, food safety, inventory
1 → 5 locations scaled over 6 years with full P&L ownership
Zero outside capital raised — organic growth only
Operational SOPs adopted across all 5 locations
Consistent health inspection compliance across all sites
“Scaling a physical business taught me more about operations than any MBA module. You can't automate your way out of broken processes — you have to document, train, and trust the system before you can step back.”