PROTECTING THE BOTTOM LINE

Real Financial Advice for Restaurant Operators

  • Raising Menu Prices: When to Do It, How Much, and How to Communicate It

    Raising Menu Prices: When to Do It, How Much, and How to Communicate It

    The most consistently underpracticed financial discipline in independent restaurants is raising prices. Operators who have not increased menu prices in 18 to 24 months, in an environment where food costs, labor costs, and occupancy costs have all risen, have effectively given themselves a pay cut. The math is simple and the outcome is inevitable: if… Read more

  • Understanding Commodity Costs: How Food Price Volatility Affects Your Restaurant

    Understanding Commodity Costs: How Food Price Volatility Affects Your Restaurant

    Restaurant food cost is not static. Even with perfect portioning, zero waste, and disciplined ordering, your food cost percentage will move — because the prices of the ingredients you buy move. Commodity costs, the underlying market prices for the proteins, produce, dairy, and grains that make up your menu, fluctuate based on factors that have… Read more

  • Fixed vs. Variable Expenses: How to Think About Your Restaurant’s Cost Structure

    Fixed vs. Variable Expenses: How to Think About Your Restaurant’s Cost Structure

    One of the most useful frameworks in restaurant financial management is also one of the most basic: the distinction between fixed expenses and variable expenses. It sounds like an accounting classification, and it is — but it is also a practical tool for understanding how your business performs under different sales conditions, where you have… Read more

  • Profit and Loss by Sales Channel: Not All Revenue Is Created Equal

    Profit and Loss by Sales Channel: Not All Revenue Is Created Equal

    A restaurant’s P&L typically presents revenue as a single line: net sales. That aggregation is useful for understanding the overall financial picture, but it conceals something important — the margin profile of different revenue streams can vary enormously, and a restaurant that does not understand its profitability by sales channel may be enthusiastically growing its… Read more

  • Labor Targets: Why You Need a Number Before the Week Starts

    Labor Targets: Why You Need a Number Before the Week Starts

    Managing labor in a restaurant without a target is like running a kitchen without a recipe. You might produce something edible, but you are unlikely to produce something consistent, cost-effective, and repeatable at scale. Labor targets — specific, pre-established benchmarks for what labor should cost in a given period — are the mechanism that transforms… Read more