Practical articles on margins, food cost, labour cost, and financial management for restaurant operators.
The average full-service restaurant operates on a net margin of 3–9%. Here's what the benchmarks are, what prime cost means, and how to calculate your real numbers.
Food cost above 35%? Here's how to find where it's going — portion control, waste, supplier pricing, menu engineering — and bring it back under control.
Labour is 28–35% of revenue and the hardest cost to control. Here's how to measure it weekly, benchmark by department, and reduce it without hurting service.
Most restaurants don't fail because the food is bad. They fail because of six specific, preventable financial mistakes — and most owners don't see them coming.
Most menu prices are set by copying the place down the road. Here's how to price from plate cost up — and why contribution margin matters more than percentage.
The revenue you need before you keep a cent. How to calculate it, convert it into covers per night, and what to do when the number looks uncomfortable.
Drinks run at 18–25% cost against 28–35% for food. Where that margin leaks, and how to build a beverage program that actually moves the bottom line.
Rent should sit under 10% of revenue. How to work out what you can afford, the lease clauses that matter more than the headline number, and options if you're already above.
Profit and cash are not the same thing. Why healthy-looking restaurants hit cash crises, and how a 13-week forecast gives you time to act.
You don't need forty metrics. Four weekly numbers, four monthly ones, and the popular measures that mislead more than they help.
Most owners read the bottom line and skip everything above it. Here's the structure of a restaurant P&L, what each section tells you, and the red flags worth catching early.
Restaurant turnover runs 75%+ a year industry-wide. Here's what each departure actually costs, why the industry can't hire its way out of it, and what genuinely moves the number.
Median cost to open an independent restaurant is around $375,000 — but the number that actually decides whether you survive year one is the reserve you hold back from it.