How to Cut Your Restaurant's Food Cost Without Cutting Portions

Food cost is a number you can know every week

Most owners feel their food cost before they see it: the walk-in looks full, the month looks busy, and somehow there is less left at the end. Food cost is simple math. What you spent on food, divided by what you sold. The trouble is that most kitchens only work it out once a month, and by then the money is gone.

Work it out every week. Add up the supplier invoices, take the week's food sales from the till, and divide. You will start to see the weeks that go wrong while you can still do something about them.

Cost every plate on the menu

A dish can be your best seller and still lose money. Take your top ten dishes and write down what goes on the plate, how much of each, and what each costs you today. Not last year's price: today's. Then look at the price on the menu. The dish with the worst margin is almost never the one you suspect.

• Price changed? When a supplier invoice comes in higher, re-cost every dish that uses it the same day.
• Portions drifting? Weigh three plates of your best seller on a busy night. If they are all different, that is money on the floor.
• Low earners that sell a lot? Raise the price a little, or change what goes on the plate. Do not pull them; people come for them.

Waste is food you paid for twice

Keep a waste sheet by the line: what was thrown out, how much, and why. Over-prep, spoiled, dropped, sent back. After two weeks you will know which prep list is too long and which item you are over-ordering. Nobody needs to be blamed. The sheet just shows where the money goes.

Order to a par, not to a feeling

Set a par for every item you stock: how much you need on the shelf before the next delivery. Count, subtract from the par, and that is the order. It is boring, and it is how kitchens stop running out of ribeye on a Friday while three cases of something else go bad in the back.

Jetsy for restaurants keeps every dish's cost and margin, a waste log, the order by par, and the night's food and staff cost on your phone. It starts at $25 a month, free for 7 days with no card.