Restaurant Inventory

Do you know if you’re using your inventory efficiently?

Or how many days you’re holding inventory?

Managing your restaurant’s inventory sometimes get pushed to the backburner.

Invoices stack up. Servers call in. Managers show up late. And payroll has to get done.

You have a million things to think about every day and inventory management isn’t always a top priority.

But understanding your inventory is vital to the success of your restaurant.

You should have a thorough understanding of your inventory turnover rate, how many days its held on average, and how that compares to others in your market.

Technology has changed the way you run your restaurant.

These days, you likely use a POS system, not handwritten tickets. You probably have a website with your location and menu. And you use social media to share updates about your restaurant.

If you’re not doing any of that… Well, we hope living in the 90s is fun for you.

The words “taking restaurant inventory” are enough to make you and your staff cringe and scatter in 20 different directions.

You’ve tried taking it yourself. But every time you pick up the pen and clipboard, there are a dozen other fires to put out. So you put it off.

You tried getting staff to do it. And it… Didn’t go too well.

You’ve spent countless hours on taking your restaurant’s inventory. Hours you’ll never get back.

Your valuable time is eaten away by weekly counts detailing every ingredient on your shelves.

We’re sure you’d love to focus on your never-ending to-do list.

It’s plain and simple: You need to know your food costs.

Why? Because understanding how your food spend relates to your sales is the defining health measure of your business.

Of course, there’s plenty of evidence if you pay attention you’ll be more profitable – up to 24% more profitable.

So, when we talk about inventory, we’re really talking about profits, money, cash flow – the reason you got into business.

But inventory sucks, and we all know it. The clipboard. The count. The data entry. The price look-up. No one in the restaurant likes it. No. One.

No one likes taking inventory in a restaurant.

You sure don’t. Maybe that’s why you don’t take it…

Or if you do, you only kinda take it. You leave those old prices in that spreadsheet – I mean, no one’s gonna notice, right?

And what you’re left with is a guesstimate, not a measurement. You just went through a really painful process and the result is shaky at best.

The Master Inventory Count Sheet Template

Here’s the thing… inventory is hard.

You know it. We know it.

It’s universally hated… especially the part where you take a count on a messy paper inventory sheet.

Over the past 3 years, we’ve talked to thousands of restaurant managers.

Most agree… they’d rather do just about anything than take inventory.

Count cash…

Schedule servers…

Wipe down the line at the end of the night…

We’re talking anything other than stepping into that stockroom to count.

But why?

Why do most managers want to skip inventory altogether? WHY is inventory just so hard?

We’ve boiled it down to the 7 of the reasons we hear… over and over again… and we’re giving you tricks to make it a whole lot easier.