Hi all,
I’m writing this one earlier than usual because Frank’s Market opening is close, the coast is finally warm, and for the first time in months there’s a version of a Tuesday where I’m not up at 6.48am pretending the letter writes itself.
So here’s the plan: the LOBBYLetter is taking a small summer break. No letter for the next few Tuesdays. I’ll be back in your inbox Tuesday, August 25th, hopefully with sawdust still on my hands and a café that actually opened.
Before I disappear for a bit, I did something I never do. I went back on all 50+ letters. Every one, from the first messy batch in November to last week.
And I noticed that for 8 months I thought I was writing about a lot of different things. I wasn’t really. I was writing about 5 of them. The same 5 obsessions, over and over, from different doors.
So instead of a normal letter, here’s the whole thing, sorted. 5 categories. The best of each. Save this one folks :) it’s the map to the back-catalogue, and it’s a decent summer reading list if you’re building something.
Before you jump in. Feel free to reach out during summer, I’m still around, somewhere.
Email: kevin@ciao-lobby.com
Insta: kevin_lgff
1// Concept & conviction
The idea has to be sharp before anything else is allowed to happen.
This is the one I can’t shut up about. Most places fail because nobody decided what they actually are. So the café quietly becomes a café-bookshop-flower-studio-community-space, and everyone’s surprised it feels like nothing six months later. A place that tries to please everyone has no edges. And people fall in love with edges, not with the safe middle.
Start here:
2// Place & territory
Where you build has to be a proper decision.
Everyone fights for the same corner in the same big city, paying triple the rent for a third of the soul. Meanwhile a small town is waiting for exactly what you want to build, sane rent, real community, loyal talent, and nobody expecting you to be the 400th elevated neighborhood spot on the same three streets. Stop hunting for the perfect address. Build a relationship with a place instead.
Start here:
3// Money & model
The unromantic part that quietly decides whether you survive.
Banks fund numbers and not dreams, we all know that :). They’re also good for track record and collateral. And our vision is for the guests, not the loan guy behind the desk. “They didn’t believe in my project” almost always means “I pitched a feeling to people who only read spreadsheets.” The soul of a place is not more important than the business model. But the soul needs a model to survive. Both. In that order.
Start here:
4// Brand & story (which comes last)
Branding is downstream of clarity. I spent years selling the downstream thing.
This is the confession category. I built a whole studio on making places look alive, and the hardest thing I’ve had to admit is that a beautiful brand on a founder who hasn’t understood the job is just an expensive way to fail with better typography. Please don’t rebrand the mess. A new logo won’t fix a model that doesn’t work. It just makes the confusion look more expensive. Build the experience first. Then dress it.
Start here:
5 - The founder’s life & the long game
The place you build and the life you live are two different briefs.
A 7-day-a-week destination restaurant is a dream, and also the reason you never see your kids. Plenty of beautiful places quietly eat the founder alive. Falling in love on opening day is easy; staying in love is the actual job. And whoever you hire first sets the temperature of the room forever. This is the category I write from experience, the good ones and the bad ones. Most days from the coast, 80% of our clients five hours behind me, kids at 5pm, café at 100 meters.
Start here:
Now the honest part
Read those five back to back and you’ll notice they all point at the same thing.
Do the thinking before you spend the money.
Get the concept sharp, the territory right, the model real, the story last, and the life protected —> before the branding, the architect, the lease, the €30k you can’t get back.
You’ll see through the résumé behind, I’ve been circling a new idea for 50 letters. I meet a lot of people looking to launch a place and my studio is answering a part of it. But there is also a big part of our job that is understanding the vision, and sharing guidelines. So I built a thing around it, and its called FOUNDATIONS PROGRAM.
Introducing Foundations Program
Foundations is a 4-week sparring program for independent founders who want a hospitality concept that holds up. Before spending money on branding, architects, or a lease.
Here’s the strange part: I run a branding studio, and I’m telling you to come to me before you think about branding. That’s the whole point. Most founders spend €30,000+ dressing up a concept that was never load-bearing in the first place. Foundations is the step everyone skips.
It’s 4 weeks of me pushing on your idea until either it holds, or you find out cheaply that it doesn’t.
How it works
4 one-on-one sessions, one a week, with real exercises and templates between them:
Challenge: we stress-test the core concept and what actually makes it different.
Position: who it’s for, who it’s not for, the offer, the point of view.
Story: the narrative and the messaging (yes, this comes late, on purpose).
Move: your launch roadmap and what to do first.
You walk away with a single Project Foundation Document: concept, positioning, audience, narrative, experience principles, pricing logic, your real differentiators, a business reality-check, and a 3–6 month roadmap. One document that a founder, an architect and a banker can all read and understand.
The terms, plainly
If after session 1 it’s clear the concept shouldn’t move forward, we refund half. I’d rather you keep the money than build the wrong thing.
The full fee credits toward any LOBBY Studio engagement in the next six months. If we go on to build it together, Foundations was free.
I take three projects a month. It’s genuinely how much of this I can do well.
Who it’s for: first-timers opening a hotel, café, restaurant, guesthouse or something hybrid, people with conviction and some capital but not yet a concept that holds. Who it’s not for: anyone who wants a logo this month, wants to be told they’re right, or is already open.
If you’ve been reading this letter and nodding, this is the version where I actually get my hands on your project.
→ Read the details and apply here
Applications are open through the summer. I respond within five working days to anything that’s a fit. So you’ll hear from me even while the letter’s on break.
That’s it. One year, 50+ letters, 5 obsessions, and 1 program I’m genuinely proud of.
Thank you for reading this thing every Tuesday. It means more than the open rate suggests.
Go build something with edges. Catch up on the back-catalogue if you’re procrastinating. And I’ll see you Tuesday, August 25th, hopefully writing to you from behind the counter at Frank’s Market
Have a real summer,
Kevin