Short video by Donald Burns explaining the importance of calculating two key restaurant metrics: theoretical (ideal/perfect) food cost and actual food cost. Burns highlights that the average restaurant has a 9% gap between theoretical and actual food cost and urges operators to cost/update their menus to recover lost profit.
Every successful restaurant obsesses about two food cost calculations, theoretical and actual food cost. Theoretical is also known as ideal or perfect food cost. It is, in theory, what every item on your menu cost to make. Here's another fact that might motivate you to start costing or updating the costing on all of your menus. The average restaurant has a difference or a gap between theoretical and actual food cost of 9%. Oh my God. That's a lot of money to be leaving on the table. You need to do some work to find it. But I'm telling you, there's gold in those numbers.
If your restaurant only works because you work 80 hours a week, it doesn't work.
