You can’t fix what you don’t measure. These are the four tools I use to put real numbers behind real decisions in a kitchen. They’re free, built for your phone, and take about thirty seconds each.
1. Food Cost Calculator
Enter your plate cost and your target percentage to get the menu price you actually need. Or enter your current price to see where your margin really sits. If you’re pricing off “what the guy down the street charges,” start here.
Open the Food Cost Calculator →
2. Labor Cost Percentage Tool
Sales in, labor in, and you get your labor percentage, your budget at target, and exactly how many dollars you’re over or under. Run it weekly. Guessing at labor is how a busy restaurant still loses money.
3. Recipe Yield Calculator
That $8.00 a pound product never costs $8.00 a pound once trim and cook loss are done with it. Enter what you bought and what’s left to see your true cost per usable pound and your cost per portion.
Open the Recipe Yield Calculator →
4. Prime Cost & Labor Margin Estimator
Food and labor are your two biggest controllable costs. This one puts them together so you can see where your margin is really going.
Open the Prime Cost Estimator →
How to use them together
Start with yield so you know your true ingredient cost. Plug that plate cost into the food cost calculator to set your price. Then check labor and prime cost weekly to make sure the whole operation holds up. Numbers you don’t track are numbers that cost you.
Have a tool you wish existed? Tell me in the comments or on the forum and I’ll build it.
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