Restaurant operations guides: food cost, prime cost, labor, and waste
Plain-language guides to the numbers that decide a restaurant's margin: the formulas, worked examples, the ranges operators watch, and what to do when a number moves. Each one links to a calculator you can run on your own figures.
All guides
- Food cost percentageHow to calculate restaurant food cost percentageThe formula, a worked example, actual versus theoretical, and how to track it daily.
- Prime costWhat is prime cost in a restaurant, and how do you calculate it?Cost of goods sold plus labor, why operators watch it weekly, and how to read it.
- Labor costRestaurant labor cost percentage: formula, benchmarks, and how to lower itThe formula, what to include, sales per labor hour, and where labor leaks.
- Recipe costingRestaurant recipe costing: how to calculate plate cost and menu priceYield, trim, the plate cost formula, and how to turn a cost into a menu price.
- Reducing food wasteHow to reduce restaurant food waste, and measure what it costsWhere waste comes from, how to log and price it, and the fixes that tend to work.
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