Episode 112 Menu Costing, the Best Way, the Easy Way and What You’ll Need to Get Started

Why?

• What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get managed
• How your menu is performing
  • Theoretical vs. Reality
  • So, your food cost is high.  How do you know?
• How your team is performing
  • More than price, staff affects COGS more than anything
    • Pricing, Portioning, Pouring
• Keeping your fingers on the pulse tells the story of profitability
  • Great, you’re making money, but are you making as much as you should make?

How? – The Best Way

• Know your costs
• Know your recipes
• Know your portions (build sheets)
• Have all 3 in check?  Get to calculating…

How? – The Easy Way

• Q-Factor System (Episode 86)
  • Use the “Best Way” to cost out some side dishes, average out.
  • Round up and add this to your Center of the Plate Cost for each dish.  Then, Divide by Sales Price.

How – the Easiest Way

• Add up purchases for the week and divide sales
  • For food, use food purchases and food sales
  • For beverages, use beverage purchases and beverage sales
• Manage carefully and patiently with this system

Pitfalls

• Yeild %
• FC %
• Gross Profit
• Prime Costs