It’s not always easy to run a profitable restaurant.
There are always dozens of things on your mind – and maintaining your food costs might fall by the wayside.
That’s why last year, we created the Complete Guide to Inventory.
And why this year, we’ve made it even better.
LEARN HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR FOOD SPEND WITH A FRACTION OF THE WORK.
Running a profitable restaurant is hard work.
We get it… You’re busy. You’ve got a lot of irons in the fire.
The last thing you want to do is spend the time you don’t have on things like taking inventory.
So, how do you boost your profits and take your restaurant business to the next level?
The answer is three little words: Food spend management.
Only one metric gives you an accurate measure of your restaurant’s profitability.
It’s not your sales, or the number of people who walk through the doors. It’s your restaurant’s Cost of Goods Sold, or your COGS.
It’s how you’ll know if your food costs are way too high, or if you need to make changes to your ordering, usage, or pricing.
It’s how you’ll know if this year is going to be great… or a little more tricky.
For one of our customers, it changed her life.
Four “words” stand between you and more money in the bank.
They’re words your suppliers don’t want you to know.
They’re words that have to do with food costs and food trends.
Words that can save you money.
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.
Let’s face it, food costs aren’t going down.
According to the National Restaurant Association, they’ve actually shot up 25% over the last 5 years.
Price fluctuations? They’re even more common.
Sometimes, they change as often as every week.
These numbers wouldn’t matter (and we wouldn’t spend time writing about them) if food spend didn’t represent 30% – a full third! – of an average restaurant’s total budget.
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.
Food costs… it’s one of the Big 3.
And that means it’s really important that you get it right.
As a restaurant, 1/3 of your budget goes to food costs… and by default that makes it a big ticket item in your budget, but it’s more than that… it can also be a business killer if you don’t manage it closely.
Failure.
Yeah, it’s pretty common in the restaurant business.
We all know the damaging stats… 60% of restaurants fail their first year and 80% fail after 4 years.
But you’ve survived… and maybe even thrived.
And you want to keep it that way.
So how do you avoid the pitfalls the vast majority of restaurants make that doom them to fail?
Well, we’ve got you covered.
We stand by our claim… Recipe costing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Now, before every restaurant consultant in the land spews hate in the comments section, let’s take a step back.
Of course, recipe plate costing can help drive the profitability in your menu.
It’s what helps you create a dish that is not just culinary genius, but also financially delightful. In simple terms, recipe plate costing is about running a profitable restaurant.
But, that’s not the usual conversation we have when people talk about plate costing. More often, there are complex systems and models involved.