A few questions. Every option on the table. One introduction.
A restaurant raising growth capital gets a different pitch from every lender, each priced to look cheap. We sit on your side of the table, run them all against your numbers, and take the file to the one that fits.
The questionnaire takes two minutes and asks what predicts a good outcome, not just approval: revenue band (we work with restaurants from about $500,000 a year), the restaurant itself (we pull your Google rating and review count, and take a first guess at the format), how many locations, what the money is for, and how full the room is on a normal week.
That last question is the one most lenders skip and the one that decides the price of a dining-credit purchase. A room with soft weeknights fills them with new guests; a room that's full every night can only move its regulars onto a cheaper check. We ask it up front.
No credit pull, no financial statements at this stage. You see the read-out on the screen and get the worked numbers by email.
Every instrument we place is put on the same footing: cash received, total obligation, how repayment moves with sales, what it costs per year, and what it does to margins and to the guests you already have.
For a dining-credit purchase, that means your food and labor cost per dollar, your capacity, and your guess at how many app diners would be new to you. For an SBA loan it means rate, term, fees and the personal guarantee. For POS capital it means the factor, the holdback and how fast you'd repay. The fit model on this site is the same one we use, open to anyone.
We show you the modeled cost of each option on your own numbers, not a brochure's, and we label every figure an estimate until a partner puts it in writing.
Good fits for a dining-credit purchase are introduced to our credit-purchase partner with the file already shaped the way its underwriting reads it. Owners who need bank money go to an SBA lender or a marketplace with a clear brief. Equipment goes to an equipment lender. Owners on Toast or Square who need under $150,000 fast are usually told to take the offer already sitting in their dashboard, which earns us nothing.
Three answers we give regularly: wait for the bank, because you qualify and it's cheaper; finance the oven with the oven, not with your dining room; and don't borrow, because the money would cover losses rather than fund growth and no instrument fixes that.
When a term sheet arrives we walk you and your accountant through it: the obligations, the redemption or repayment mechanics, the default terms, what happens if you sell or close. We don't sign anything for you and we don't give legal advice; we make sure you know what you're signing.
We're paid by the partner when the placement closes. You never pay us. Where a partner pays, it's disclosed on that partner's page, and the routing on this site, in the assessment and in our follow-up is identical whether or not it does.
Start with a few quick questions. The rest follows from it.
Covers Advisory is an independent capital advisory, not a lender. We do not make funding decisions, and we are compensated by funding partners when a placement we arrange closes. Our recommendation is the same whether or not a partner pays us. How we're paid.