FREE TOOL · FOR RESTAURANTS AND BARS
Find out what every dish really costs to make, see your food cost percentage, and get a menu price that protects your margin.
Add what you buy and how much goes in the dish. We do the unit math.
Use your inventory counts and invoices. Works for any period, as long as all four numbers cover the same dates.
Formula: (starting inventory + purchases - ending inventory) ÷ food sales
Add what you pay for each ingredient and how much goes in the dish. Ounces, pounds, grams, cups or each, the unit math is handled.
Slide to your target food cost and get a suggested menu price, rounded the way menus actually read.
Switch tabs to check your overall food cost % for a week or a month from your inventory and invoices.
Food cost per plate is the total cost of every ingredient that goes into one serving. For each ingredient, divide what you paid by the amount you bought, then multiply by how much goes into the dish.
Food cost % = plate cost ÷ menu price × 100
Take the fish tacos loaded in the calculator above. The ingredients come to about $5.82 a plate. Sold at $16, that is a food cost of about 36%. Moving the price to $18.95, or trimming the fish by half an ounce, brings it back near 30%.
Do not skip yield. If you buy a whole fish or a head of cabbage, some of it ends up as trim. A 92% yield on fillets means 8% of what you paid for never reaches the plate, so the real cost per ounce is higher than the invoice says.
Most full-service restaurants aim for a food cost between 28% and 35%. Quick-service and fast-casual spots often run lower, around 25% to 30%. Steak and seafood dishes can run higher and still be great dishes to sell, because they bring in more dollars per plate even at a higher percentage.
Look at food cost alongside the dollars you keep per plate. A $40 steak at 38% still leaves more in your pocket than a $12 pasta at 22%. The calculator shows both.
Menu price = plate cost ÷ target food cost %
For a $5.82 plate and a 30% target, that is $5.82 ÷ 0.30 = about $19.40. Round it to a price that reads well on a menu, like $19.50 or $19.95, and check it against what nearby places charge for something similar.
Once your prices are set, make the menu look as good as the food with our Free Menu Maker.
For one dish: add up the cost of every ingredient in a serving, then divide by the menu price and multiply by 100. For a whole week or month: starting inventory plus purchases minus ending inventory, divided by food sales.
Yield is the share of what you buy that actually ends up on the plate after trimming, peeling, bones or cooking loss. If you buy a pound of fish and get 14.7 ounces of usable fillet, your yield is about 92%.
Price each dish whenever you add it to the menu or a supplier raises prices. Check your overall food cost % every week, counting inventory on the same day each time.
No. Food cost covers ingredients only. Food cost plus labor cost is called prime cost, and many restaurants aim to keep prime cost under about 60% to 65% of sales.
Bar food menus often target 25% to 32%. For drinks, track pour cost separately. Many bars aim for roughly 18% to 24% on liquor, and higher on wine and draft beer.
Yes. It is free, with no sign up. You can print a recipe card for any dish you price.
Once the menu math is right, we help restaurants and bars get found on Google, build their own guest list and turn first visits into regulars.
Built by Houseful Co. Hospitality marketing from 18° to 20° North.