Stop guessing your menu margins #FoodCostControl #RestaurantProfit #MenuEngineering

16 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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0:54

A short recorded discussion (two speakers) about food cost control and menu engineering. Speakers emphasize many restaurateurs don’t know exact menu item costs, cite typical food cost rates (around 25–30%), and show how small percentage improvements scale (e.g., shaving 5 percentage points on $1M revenue equals $50,000). They contrast software solutions with an "old school" spreadsheet approach—tracking ingredient costs, portions, waste, and trim to calculate true per-plate costs.

Questions this video answers

25–30% cost of goods

$50,000

Chapters

I really believe that the quickest way to change what's left at the end of the week is to understand what stuff costs and just work out how much you'll be selling it. Because it's. It's easy fix. Because Most people run 25, 30% cost of goods. Right. You know, if you can shave five points off and you're doing a million dollars, it's 50 grand.
That's a lot. Yeah. And I'm always shocked how many people don't know their food costs. Like, you know, I go on big.
Stages and.
I'll have like a thousand people in the audience and I'll. I'll raise my hand.
Say, raise your.
Hand if you know the exact cost of everything on your menu. Thousand people in the audience, ten.
Hands go up. I'm like, yeah, man, that's. That sucks. That's really sucks. Yeah. And like, we, we con. And so I know there's all these software and food costings and bits and pieces.
There's all kinds of tools out there, right.
I'm old school on the spreadsheet, right. I get my phone out and I look at the cost of summing in and then look at how many portions and what was the wastage. And then I really analyzed this protein. Cost me this. I've got this trim, whatever left over.