Food Costs

There is one, and really only one, system that ultimately is the key to your restaurant running profitably. That system is recipe costing cards! Having recipe costing cards allows you to make [...]

Recipe Costing Cards Keep Restaurant and Catering Costs Separate Most restaurant owners who launch or already have a catering division ask me for tips on keeping the costs of their two businesses [...]

Keeping Catering Costs Separate from Restaurant Costs A great way to make more money in your restaurant is to increase sales in the restaurant without adding more seats. Catering magically [...]

Your restaurant prime cost is the most important number in your restaurant. Until recently, finding your prime cost was a real challenge. You had to pull a number of different spreadsheets [...]

  Prime cost, prime cost, prime cost! It’s all we think about. It’s where we lose the most money when we don’t pay attention. It’s in the control of management every day in how they hire, [...]

You’ve probably heard plenty of times that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, yet many restaurant owners find it easier to try [...]

By Willis Getchell, CEC, M. Ed. Food cost can be the 600-pound gorilla sitting in the corner of your operation, demanding constant attention. After you’ve priced your menu effectively, checked [...]

Operating a restaurant has not changed much fundamentally over the past 50 years, but running a profitable restaurant has. Why is that? There are many factors that have contributed to this, such [...]

Last week, I outlined portioning techniques as a way to trim food costs without cutting labor because not having enough staff can be a disaster. This week I’ve outlined ways to stretch your food [...]

When you are struggling to cut food costs and bring down your prime cost number, it is always easier to focus on your cost of goods sold rather than cutting labor. Not having enough staff can be [...]