Hi, I’m Dino Kottis and I would like to thank you for visiting my website!
Hospitality KnowHow is something I have been thinking of creating for a long time now.
As far as I remember myself, hospitality has been a part of my existence. The house I was born in my hometown in Greece used to be an old tavern ran by my grandfather since the early 1900’s. Later, growing up in the city of Tripoli in South Greece, the main and probably only conversation we had with my family was about food and treating guests to our home on several social occasions. As you see, being a Greek, hospitality of this kind is set by default in each one of us.
Around 1996, my official journey in the industry started when I was 16 years old, as I got a job as a waiter in one of the Clubs in my hometown. Since then I worked in almost all the positions in hospitality you can imagine: DJ (my favourite), waiter, delivery boy, kitchen porter, chef, restaurant owner, kitchen manager, catering manager, cafe manager, restaurant general manager, match-day stand manager, hospitality consultant, operation manager and the list goes on. The positions I held were in independent companies. but also in many big brands like Starbucks, Liverpool FC and Tesco.
Based in Liverpool UK for the last 8 years, I am currently working as a Hospitality Trainer / Assessor, for one of the biggest training providers in the UK, dealing with the development of adult individuals in the hospitality industry.
Saying all these and having been around the block, I felt that the time is right to put all my experiences together in something that might be helpful for all the bold people out there, who are interested to get involved or are already involved with this amazing but very tough industry.
In the last 15 years I have been highly involved with the opening of a number of restaurants, cafes and coffee shops and I have realised one basic thing: most of the times, the people who are passionate about opening their business and willing to invest their money and time in it, they do not really know how to do it in the right way for them and their circumstances. They usually follow a route they feel that is the right one by instinct, missing a number of key areas, which are essential and tailored to their success.
And this continues after the opening of their business, during the time their business operates as usual. The result is to fail their businesses and eventually close their doors within the first year of opening. Sad but true. They belong in the category where 60% of the restaurants close their doors or change ownership in the first year of opening, and 80% closing their business within the first five years.
Hospitality KnowHow is a guide created to offer free support and education to everyone who is planning to open a hospitality business or operating one already. It is created with lots of care and love for the industry after many years of working in it and gathering invaluable experiences from different positions.
My aim with this website is to help anyone who is willing to be successful in hospitality and ready to spend the time to educate themselves on the basic areas in order to achieve this. I really want to help those who are passionate about hospitality and save them from mistakes and fails that I still see around me in the present and I have also personally made in the past.
That’s all from me, please feel free to contact me in our email address: contact@hospitalityknowhow.com for anything you feel I can be of your help.
Now enjoy this website which I am really proud of! (Of course any of your feedback is welcomed and very helpful indeed)
Thanks so much for being here,
Dino
Hospitality KnowHow 