Tag: contribution-margin

Food costing step by step: the formulas, a worked plate cost with yields, food cost percentage targets, and four methods to price a menu item for profit.

Stop guessing which dishes make you money. Menu engineering uses a simple four-quadrant matrix to classify every item by popularity and profitability, then gives you specific strategies for each category. Restaurants that adopt this system typically see profits increase by 10-15%.

Food cost percentage is not the same as profitability — and the difference can cost you thousands of dollars in misguided menu decisions.