Restaurant facility managers running multi-unit portfolios from out of town do not need someone else to dispatch their vendors, manage their budget, or make calls on their behalf. They need consistent, current, photo-documented reporting from every DFW location on a cadence they set. A Restaurant Facility Condition Assessment from Proportional FM is a reporting-only engagement with a published scope checklist. The remote FM keeps the relationships, the budget, and the decision rights. Proportional FM provides the eyes and the documentation.
Restaurant operations are not a vertical that benefits from a vendor coordination layer placed between the operator and their trades. The margins are thin. The in-house labor pool can absorb a lot of the small repair work. Most multi-unit operators have an FM, an operations director, or a regional manager who has spent years building the vendor mix that fits their service standards and their cost targets. Inserting another decision layer creates friction. Inserting another invoice creates margin compression.
What a multi-unit restaurant operator running locations from out of town does not have, in most cases, is consistent visual documentation of every site on a defined cadence. The locations get visited. The operator may even be on-site monthly. But the trip is for the people, the operations, the P&L review. The building rarely gets a structured walkthrough with photos that match a published scope, every quarter, in the same format.
The reporting-only engagement
The Proportional FM Restaurant FCA is reporting only. That is not a starting position from which we try to expand into vendor coordination over time. It is the design. The remote FM contracts the visit, receives the report, and uses it to inform the work they were already going to do. Proportional FM does not contact vendors, does not approve invoices, does not have authority over budget, and does not make recommendations as to which vendor should perform any specific work.
The deliverable is the same on visit one as it is on visit twenty: a photo-documented FCA following the published scope checklist, organized into priority tiers, sent to the remote FM in a consistent format. The report shows what was observed at the date of the visit. It does not certify anything, does not opine on code compliance, and does not represent itself as a replacement for licensed trade evaluation when one is needed.
Restaurant FCA Published Scope
The scope is published before the engagement begins. There are no surprise inclusions or omissions across visits.
Why a published checklist matters more in restaurants than in other verticals
Restaurants are higher-traffic, higher-wear environments than most commercial space. Surface degradation moves fast. The line between "looks tired" and "starts costing reservations" is narrow. A walkthrough that only photographs whatever the visiting staff member found interesting that day is not a record. It is a snapshot. The remote FM cannot trend snapshots over time.
A published scope means every visit photographs the same items in the same order. The dining floor in the same condition lens visit-over-visit. The walk-in exterior in the same lens. The grease trap access cover in the same lens. The remote FM can compare visit twelve to visit one and see the trajectory, not just the snapshot.
That is the difference between an FCA and a tour. The FCA is structured. The tour is conversational. Most multi-unit restaurant operators have plenty of tours and not much structured documentation.
The Engagement, Visualized
No decision authority crosses the line. The report flows one direction. The remote FM stays in control of every downstream call.
What the report does and does not do
What it does. Documents condition. Shows trajectory across visits. Flags items in priority tiers (Critical, High, Medium, Low, Monitor) so the remote FM can see at a glance which items are reactive and which are documented for trend purposes. Provides a consistent, redistributable record that can be reviewed by a regional manager, a corporate FM, an insurance underwriter, or a future buyer of the location.
What it does not do. It does not certify code compliance. It does not perform an ADA assessment. It does not evaluate licensed trade work for adequacy. It does not recommend specific vendors or scope changes. It does not predict failure of any system. It does not represent itself as a substitute for engineering judgment when one is required.
When this fits and when it does not
Fits: a multi-unit restaurant operator with locations in DFW running facilities from out of state or out of region. An FM who already has vendor relationships and budget authority. An operator who wants documentation cadence without giving up any control. A regional or corporate FM tracking deferred maintenance trends across a portfolio for capital planning.
Does not fit: a single-location independent operator who needs a hands-on FM presence. An operator who wants someone else to manage vendors and approve invoices (that is a different engagement, on a different page). A restaurant group looking for the lowest-cost handyman to do small repair work between FCAs. The Restaurant FCA does not compete with that scope; it complements an FM model that already exists.
Cadence and pricing
For most multi-unit operators, the working pattern is quarterly at high-revenue or high-traffic locations and bi-annual at steadier locations. Annual is the floor for any location the remote FM wants documented at all. Cadence is set by the operator. Pricing follows the standard FCA tiers ($0.10/SF ad hoc, $0.08/SF bi-annual, $0.06/SF quarterly, $0.04/SF monthly with minimum thresholds), confirmed in writing in the engagement proposal.