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Turning Arkansas's Restaurant Data Into Revenue Decisions
Northwest Arkansas is one of the fastest-growing regions in the country — but growth doesn't fix a blind spot. Most local restaurants and small businesses are sitting on years of POS, labor, and marketing data they've never actually looked at. They know what happened. They don't know why, or what to do next.
I built a full analytics engagement — from raw data to boardroom-ready dashboard — for a simulated 8-location NWA restaurant group spanning Fayetteville, Bentonville, Springdale, and Rogers. The goal: turn 5,800+ store-days of transaction data into decisions an owner could act on in a week.
What the analysis uncovered:
A $2.9M growth trap: marketing spend was up 31% while repeat customer rate quietly fell from 60% to 48% — acquisition was masking a retention problem
A 9-point margin gap between the best and worst-performing location, driven almost entirely by food cost % and labor efficiency, not revenue size
Clear seasonal and day-of-week demand patterns that were never being staffed or purchased against
What I delivered:
A complete analytics stack — Python + R exploratory analysis, an executive Power BI dashboard, and a plain-English insights report using my DATA Framework™ (Discover → Analyze → Translate → Automate) — built to be handed straight to an owner, not just a data team.
This is the exact process I run for small businesses across Arkansas: you have the data already. I turn it into decisions that protect margin and stop growth from quietly leaking out the back door.
Have a business with data sitting in spreadsheets, your POS, or QuickBooks? Let's find out what it's telling you. Message me for a free 15-minute Data Health Check — I'll show you one insight from your own numbers before you commit to anything.
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