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Is Your Plate Priced Right?

A $4 plate at $13.33 menu price is a 30.0% food cost — right on a 30% target. If price slipped to $12, food cost rises to 33.3%, $3.33 over target. The price needed to hit 30% is $13.33.

Results

Visualization

Cashbizly provides illustrative business estimates only. Results depend on your inputs and assumptions and are not accounting, tax, or legal advice. Consult a CPA or financial advisor before major decisions. Tax-year figures (mileage, QBI, SEP, etc.) are labelled by year and should be verified at IRS.gov.

How It Works

Food Cost % = Ingredient Cost / Menu Price x 100. It is the core restaurant profitability metric; the remainder must cover labor, occupancy, and profit. Full-service typically targets 28-35%. This is menu engineering 101 — track it per plate, not just per month.

What Should You Do?

Scenario 1: a $1 ingredient increase at $13.33 price pushes food cost to 37.5% — re-price or resize. Scenario 2: a 25% target on a $4 plate requires a $16 price. Scenario 3: high-volume low-margin items can subsidize loss-leaders if managed deliberately.

Frequently Asked Questions

What target food cost?

Usually 28-35% full-service, 25-30% quick-service; pair with labor cost which is the other big lever.

Price or portion to fix it?

Either raise price or shrink portion/upgrade sourcing; track which customers accept.

How does this relate to labor?

Food + labor often should stay under ~60-65% of revenue; see our Labor Cost % tool.

Authoritative References

Investopedia — Food Cost — Food-cost percentage definition.
SBA — Restaurants — Restaurant benchmarking and costing.