A multi-location restaurant service agreement should give you one point of contact, one reporting format, a written site onboarding process, clear routing rules for who goes where, an escalation path for problems that repeat, and pre-agreed repair authorization limits. It should also say honestly where the contractor is based and where work is larger or project-style. The goal is consistency across sites without every manager negotiating each call.
- At two sites you can manage service by phone. At ten, you need a structure: one contact, one report format, written rules for approving repairs.
- Onboarding each site as a documented step, with an equipment walk and unit labeling, prevents the first emergency from also being the first time anyone sees the equipment.
- Repair authorization rules are what keep general managers from stalling a call to find an approver, or approving something that should have been reviewed.
- Ask a provider where their base of operations is. Davinci is based in Orange County; larger commercial and project work is also done in neighboring regions, with no offices or yards there.
- Escalation should be about patterns, not only emergencies. A unit that fails twice in a quarter needs a diagnostic conversation, not a third dispatch.
Why multi-site service needs a structure
Each restaurant in a group has a general manager who knows their kitchen well and does not know what the other sites are experiencing. Left alone, each one calls whoever answers fastest, approves whatever seems fair at the moment, and files the invoice in a drawer. After a year you have a dozen vendors, no equipment records, and no way to tell whether the walk-in that failed at site six is related to the one that failed at site two.
A service agreement for a group is not mainly about price. It is a set of rules about who talks to whom, what gets written down, who can say yes to a repair, and what happens when something goes wrong twice. The sections below describe what to put in place. They sit on top of the single-site program in designing a restaurant refrigeration maintenance program and the broader multi-unit service guide.
One point of contact, with a named backup
Ask the provider to name a single coordinator for your account, plus a backup for absences. That person owns scheduling, report delivery, quote follow-up and the relationship. Your side should do the same: one person in operations who receives reports and approves outside the normal limits.
This is not about avoiding managers. Site staff still make the emergency call and describe the symptom. The coordinator is the person who connects what happened at site four to what happened last month at site nine, and who will say so in a report.
- Define how site staff request service: a phone number, an after-hours path, and what information to have ready (unit ID, symptom, current box temperature).
- Define who on your side can place a call and who is only informed.
- Agree on how the coordinator hands off when the technician finds something larger than the call.
Onboarding a site before the first call
The cheapest time to learn a kitchen's equipment is a scheduled visit, not an emergency. Treat each new site as a short project with defined steps.
- Equipment walk. A technician visits and lists every refrigeration unit, ice machine and relevant HVAC piece, with model, serial and location.
- Labeling. Each unit gets a unique ID, ideally a QR tag that opens its record.
- Baseline readings and condition notes. Temperatures, pressures where appropriate, coil condition, door and gasket condition, with photos.
- Access and logistics. Roof access, key or lockbox arrangements, delivery windows to avoid, who to ask for on arrival, parking.
- Risk ranking. Place each unit in a tier with the site manager's input. The inventory and risk ranking page describes how.
- Findings report. Anything urgent is flagged and quoted, anything older or marginal goes on the replacement list.
With the DaVinci Portal, the labeling and baseline become the start of each unit's service history. Whatever system you use, ask that onboarding produce something you can keep, not just a technician's memory.
Routing, coverage and honest geography
Routing is the part of a service agreement that sounds boring until it fails. Who goes to which site, from where, and how long travel adds to a call all depend on where the contractor really operates. A provider that lists a hundred cities but has no technicians near most of them is selling you a map, not a service.
Davinci Mechanical is based in Orange County, and that is where routine, program-based service is strongest. It also takes on larger commercial, public and bid-level work in Los Angeles County, the Inland Empire, San Diego County and Ventura County, but it has no offices or yards in those regions. If your group has sites spread across several counties, ask directly how recurring service will be handled at each one before you sign. For a project such as a multi-unit walk-in replacement at a distant site, the conversation is different from routine monthly service.
| Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Is routine program service offered at this site, or only project work? | Sets expectations for visit cadence and who answers a call |
| Where do technicians start their day? | Travel distance drives scheduling realism |
| What is the plan for after-hours calls at this site? | A written answer beats a promise |
| Who handles work outside the contractor's trades? | Electrical, structural and roofing items need a named responsible party |
Regional pages are available if you want the geography spelled out: Orange County, Los Angeles County, Inland Empire, San Diego County and Ventura County.
Standard reports across every site
The value of a group agreement shows up in the reports. If each site's visit summary looks different, nobody upstairs can read them. Ask for a single format with the same fields every time.
| Report element | What it should answer |
|---|---|
| Visit summary | What was inspected, what was done, who attended, when |
| Readings | The same measurements as last visit, for comparison |
| Findings by unit | Condition notes tied to unit ID, with photos |
| Open recommendations | What was found, urgency, what happens if it waits |
| Repeat-issue flags | Units with more than one call for the same cause |
| Replacement watch list | Units approaching end of useful life, feeding replacement planning |
A portfolio roll-up, one page per period showing every site's open items, is what operations leaders actually use. The reporting and documentation page covers what good looks like, and multi-site and portfolio programs goes further on portfolio structure.
Escalation: for emergencies and for patterns
Most agreements describe emergency escalation: who to call when the walk-in is at temperature trouble at night. Write that down, and also write down pattern escalation, which gets less attention and costs more.
- Emergency path. Site staff, then the after-hours line, then the coordinator, then your operations contact. The emergency playbook has the first-hour steps for kitchens.
- Repeat-call trigger. Agree that a second call for the same unit and symptom within a defined window triggers a root-cause review, not another dispatch. The second opinion diagnostic is one way to do this.
- Quote follow-up. Open recommendations should have an owner and a date for decision.
- Quarterly review. A short call between coordinators to look at the roll-up and decide what moves.
Putting it in the agreement
Many of these items belong in an exhibit or operating procedure rather than in the legal body of the contract, so they can be updated as you add sites. Whatever the format, confirm the following exist in writing before you sign.
- Named coordinator and backup, and your equivalents.
- Site list with onboarding status.
- Report format and delivery schedule.
- Repair authorization tiers.
- Coverage description per region, including what is routine and what is project work.
- Exclusions, including product loss and work belonging to other trades.
- How units are added or retired from the program.
If you want to see how the terms side typically reads, the pages on contract terms, response times and exclusions and comparing proposals are good companions.