Restaurant Break-Even Calculator (Covers Per Day)

Enter your monthly costs and average check. The calculator gives you the sales and the number of guests a day you need to break even, and how many more you need to make the profit you want.

Last updated November 10, 2026.

Free calculator

Break-even covers per day

Fixed costs per month ($) Semi-fixed costs per month ($) Variable costs (% of sales) Average check per guest ($) Days open per month Profit you want per month ($, optional)

Free: The Restaurant Financial Health Checklist. 30 monthly checks across sales mix, prime cost, 4-wall EBITDA, cash and operations, with the target ranges I use. Written by a former chain CFO. Instant PDF.

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Prefer to watch? Here’s the video version, with the worked example.

How the math works

Break-even sales = (fixed costs + semi-fixed costs) ÷ (1 − variable cost %). Divide that by your average check and you have guests. Divide by days open and you have guests a day.

Fixed: rent, base insurance, property tax, loan payments, salaried GM.
Semi-fixed: other salaried managers, the minimum crew for each shift, base utilities, software.
Variable: food and beverage cost, hourly labor that flexes with covers, card fees, delivery commissions, supplies.

Getting labor in the right bucket matters most. If you call all labor variable, your break-even comes out too low. The break-even formula post walks through five concepts line by line.

A worked example

A full-service casual restaurant has $42,000 a month in fixed costs and $22,000 in semi-fixed costs. Variable costs run 63% of sales. Each dollar of sales leaves 37 cents.

$64,000 ÷ 0.37 = $172,973 a month. At a $40 average check, that’s 4,325 guests a month, 145 a day over 30 days. To clear $15,000 a month, it needs $213,514 in sales, or 178 guests a day.

Those 33 extra guests a day are the real target. Each one is worth $14.80 toward fixed costs. Raising the check by $2 does about the same job: break-even drops to 138 guests a day.

What to do with the number

Compare it to a slow day: if your slow days run below break-even, those are the shifts to cut hours on or close.
Check the menu: a point of variable cost moves break-even by about 3%. Start with prime cost.
Plan before you sign: run it on a new lease before you commit, with rent at the quoted number.

More on this: how to build a restaurant budget, what it costs to open a restaurant.

From the Toolkit

Track break-even every month, not once.

The Toolkit’s Break-Even Analysis adds what-if tables for check average, food cost and labor, plus a 12-month actual vs break-even tracker.

Get the Toolkit, $67

FAQ

How do I calculate restaurant break-even?
Add fixed and semi-fixed costs for a month. Divide by one minus your variable cost percentage. Divide the result by your average check for guests a month.

What variable cost percentage should I use?
Food and beverage cost, hourly labor that flexes with volume, card fees and supplies, as a share of net sales. In the example it’s 63%.

Is labor fixed or variable?
Both. Salaried managers and the minimum crew are semi-fixed. Hourly staff you add on busy shifts are variable.