Your menu should cover payroll #RestaurantProfit #LaborCosts #MenuEngineering

18 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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1:09

This content was created by Donald Burns. This content was uploaded by Donald Burns. This is a YouTube video titled "Your menu should cover payroll #RestaurantProfit #LaborCosts #MenuEngineering" (created 2026-01-18) containing an English multi-speaker dialogue (SPEAKER A, SPEAKER B, SPEAKER C). The participants discuss restaurant payroll and profitability—rising minimum wages, labor costs, differences between Australia’s single national labor rules and the U.S. state-by-state system, compulsory retirement/benefit contributions (referred to as 401), and the need to manage menu pricing and labor to protect margins.

Questions this video answers

$16 an hour.

Minimum wage going up to $20 an hour.

$21 an hour.

Once they earned $400 a month.

Contributions are now compulsory "from the first dollar".

I always like, I love, like use you guys as an example because like, you know people.
16.
I have to pay $16 an hour or like, oh, minimum wage going up to 20 bucks an hour ago. You should talk to Mark, talk to Mark and Ruth and see what they pay. And then you won't feel so bad. You'll be like, that $21 an hour is now a bargain.
Yeah.
You're thinking.
Yeah, because in Australia, like in America, each state runs their own labor laws, right? In Australia is one labor law, right? So we all pay from the same pot. We all have to pay the same amount of money for people to work in the restaurant industry, right? And that's cool. But every year it goes up. Like it's. It's like, yeah, up it goes.
This down. Never knows that. Never goes down. Like the place never go down. Things never go down.
And because the government's got no money, so they make us put money into the 401. Like it's compulsory, right? So even if so, they used to have a couple years ago where once they earned 400amonth, then you would start paying. Now it's from the first dollar, you know what I mean?
Overnight.
Yeah. Like just bang, get into that one. Yeah. Oh, well, okay. We'll figure it out. We've got to work on our menu and get the food cost in because you can't fight labor team.
That's why you've gotta have your labor team just are on check. You can't afford to carry anyone.