Menu Costing and Margin
How do you cost a recipe accurately down to the true plate cost?
Build a plate cost that reflects real ingredient prices and yields.
PlateCostr blog
Guides on menu costing and margin
Practical, honest advice from the team behind PlateCostr, written to help you do this well.
Menu Costing and Margin
What is food cost percentage and why does it matter for a menu?
Understand the number every operator watches and what it really tells you.
Menu Costing and Margin
How should you price a menu using both plate cost and target margin?
Set prices grounded in real costs instead of matching the place next door.
Menu Costing and Margin
How do you protect margins when ingredient prices keep rising fast?
React to vendor price hikes before they quietly sink a dish.
Menu Costing and Margin
Why do sub-recipes make food costing more accurate across a whole menu?
Cost shared components once so every plate that uses them is right.
Menu Costing and Margin
How do you find the menu items quietly dragging your margin down?
Spot the dishes that sell well but earn little before they hurt you.
Menu Costing and Margin
How does portion control affect food cost and plate consistency over time?
See why the scoop and the scale protect both margin and the guest.
Menu Costing and Margin
Why does recipe costing in a spreadsheet break down as a menu grows?
Understand where manual costing fails and what a real tool changes.
Menu Costing and Margin
How do you manage blended food cost across an entire menu each month?
Steer the whole-menu number, not just one dish at a time.
Menu Costing and Margin
How much does trim waste really add to plate cost when you skip yield tests?
As-purchased price is not what your plate actually costs. Here is how yield testing turns a case price into the real cost of the portion that reaches the guest.
Menu Costing and Margin
Which menu items should you promote, reprice, or cut after a menu engineering review?
Menu engineering sorts every dish by popularity and contribution margin. The useful part is what you do with each quadrant afterward.
Menu Costing and Margin
What is the best way to quote a catering job without losing your margin?
Catering quotes fail when they are built from restaurant menu prices instead of event-specific costs. Here is a costing approach that holds up when the guest count changes.
Menu Costing and Margin
How should a chef cost a daily special before it goes on the board?
Specials are where creativity and margin collide. A ten-minute costing habit keeps them from becoming the most expensive item you sell.
Menu Costing and Margin
How do you cost cocktails and bar pours the same way you cost plates?
A cocktail is a recipe like any plate, and pour cost is its food cost percentage. Here is how to bring the bar into the same costing discipline as the kitchen.
Menu Costing and Margin
How much margin does third-party delivery commission take from each plate you sell?
The plate cost does not change when an order comes through a delivery app, but the price you keep does. Here is how to cost delivery orders honestly.
Menu Costing and Margin
Why does actual food cost drift away from theoretical food cost every month?
Your recipes say one number, your inventory count says another. The gap between them is the most useful report in the kitchen if you know how to read it.
Menu Costing and Margin
Why does prime cost matter more than food cost alone for a small restaurant?
Food cost tells you how well you buy and portion. Prime cost tells you whether the restaurant can survive. Here is how the two fit together.
Menu Costing and Margin
How do you cost a prix fixe or tasting menu as one priced experience?
When guests pay one price for several courses, plate cost has to be understood across the whole sequence. Here is how to cost, price, and protect a set menu.
Menu Costing and Margin
What should a kitchen do when a supplier changes pack size and quietly breaks every recipe cost?
A pack size change rarely announces itself on the invoice, but it moves the unit cost behind every recipe that uses the item. Here is how to catch it at receiving and fix it in one place instead of fifty.
Menu Costing and Margin
When should you redesign a dish instead of raising its price to fix a bad margin?
Sometimes the price your target margin calls for is more than guests in your neighborhood will pay. This is how to measure that gap and choose between repricing, reworking the spec, or letting the dish go.