Confidentiality & Intellectual Property

Last updated: September 19, 2026

Restaurant concepts are stolen more often than anyone admits. Clients hand over recipes, margins, expansion plans and unsigned lease terms, and they are entitled to know exactly how that material is handled. This page explains our standards. Where you have a signed NDA or consulting agreement with us, those documents control.

1. NDA Before Substantive Discussion

We sign a mutual non disclosure agreement before any detailed conversation about your concept, numbers or plans. Mutual matters: we also share proprietary frameworks and market intelligence, and both sides should be protected. If your counsel prefers your own NDA form, we will generally sign it.

2. What We Treat As Confidential

• Concept descriptions, positioning and unlaunched brand ideas
• Recipes, formulations, specifications and preparation methods
• Financial statements, P and L data, sales figures and margins
• Supplier agreements, pricing and terms
• Lease documents and site information under negotiation
• Expansion plans, target markets and franchise strategy
• Employee, training and organizational information
• Anything else a reasonable person would understand to be confidential

3. How We Handle It

• Client files are access restricted to the people working on your engagement.
• Every subcontractor, designer and specialist signs confidentiality obligations before receiving materials.
• Confidential documents are shared through secure channels, not casual email attachments where avoidable.
• We do not discuss identifiable client work publicly, including in marketing, without written permission.
• Materials are returned or deleted at the end of an engagement on request, subject to the professional records we must retain.

4. Conflicts Of Interest

We work across the restaurant industry, which makes conflicts a real possibility rather than a theoretical one. Our approach:

• We disclose potential conflicts before accepting an engagement.
• We decline engagements that directly compete with an active client in the same format and trade area.
• We never use one client's confidential information to benefit another.
• Where you want broader protection, we will discuss a defined exclusivity period or geographic restriction as part of your agreement.

5. Ownership Of Deliverables

On payment in full, you own the work created specifically for you, including:

• Concept documents, positioning and strategy materials
• Brand names, logos and identity assets created for your project
• Menus, costed recipes and menu designs
• Operating manuals, SOPs and training materials
• Financial models built for your business
• Reports, analyses and presentations prepared for you

6. What We Retain

We retain ownership of our own intellectual property, which is not your concept and never becomes it:

• Our analytical frameworks, methodologies and processes
• Template structures for manuals, models and documents
• General industry knowledge, benchmarks and expertise
• Skills and experience gained through the engagement

We may reuse those tools on other engagements. We do not reuse your content, your recipes or your concept.

7. Recipes

Recipes occupy an unusual legal position, since a list of ingredients generally cannot be copyrighted, though written expression, photographs and processes can be, and recipes can be protected as trade secrets when properly handled. Where you bring recipes to us, they remain yours. Where we develop recipes for you, ownership transfers on payment. We advise clients with genuinely proprietary formulations to treat them as trade secrets with appropriate internal controls, and to take advice from counsel on protection.

8. Your Brand Name

We research names for obvious conflicts during naming work, but we are not trademark counsel and do not perform legal clearance searches. Before you invest in signage, packaging or registration, have a trademark attorney conduct a full clearance search and handle filings. We will happily work alongside your counsel.

9. Portfolio Use

We may reference an engagement in general terms, for example "a fast casual concept in Central Florida", without naming the client. Naming a client or showing their brand work publicly requires written permission, and you may withdraw that permission at any time for future use.

10. Duration

Confidentiality obligations continue after the engagement ends, for the period stated in your NDA, and indefinitely for material that qualifies as a trade secret.

11. Contact

Questions about confidentiality, conflicts or ownership:

Restaurant Concepts International, Inc., 128 S Highland Ave, Apopka, FL 32703, phone 706-798-4398, email info@restaurantsconceptint.site