Questions
Restaurant cost questions, answered with the math
Each answer with a figure is our free calculator's own reply for the example in the question, worked out on , in the question's dollars. The targets behind them are on the methodology page, with their sources, and as data at /targets.json. Your own numbers give your own answer: each one links to its calculator.
My full-service restaurant took $80,000 last month and spent $26,000 on food and drink and $25,500 on labor. Is my prime cost OK?
Prime cost is 64.4% of net sales. Food, drink and labor: 51,500 of 80,000 in net sales. That's inside the 65% target for full service, with 0.6 points to spare. Each point of prime cost (1% of your sales) is worth about 800 a month, or 9,600 a year, at these sales.
Prime cost calculatorA quick-service restaurant pays $3,900 in wages and $450 in payroll taxes on $15,000 of sales a week. Is its labor cost too high?
Labor cost is 29% of net sales. Pay, taxes and benefits: 4,350 of 15,000 in net sales. That's inside the 26–31% range for quick service. Each point of labor cost (1% of your sales) is worth about 150 a week, or 7,800 a year, at these sales. Wages alone are 26% of sales; payroll taxes and benefits add 3 points.
Labor cost calculatorA dish costs $5.40 in ingredients and sells for $18 at a full-service restaurant. Is that a good food cost?
One plate costs 5.40 in ingredients. Food cost: 30.0% of your 18.00 price. That's the share of the price that goes on the food. Full-service restaurants aim for 30–34% food and drink cost across the whole menu. This dish sits inside that range.
Food cost calculatorHow much does a restaurant need to sell to break even, with $60,000 a month in sales, $19,000 of food and drink, $14,000 of hourly pay, $3,000 of other costs that rise with sales and $16,000 of fixed bills?
You break even at 40,000–47,369 a month. 40,000 if your hourly staff time goes up and down with sales, 47,369 if it stays about the same. Your real schedule sits somewhere in between. At 60,000 a month you're 12,632–20,000 above break-even (21.1–33.3% of your sales): your cushion before you start losing money. You had about 8,000 left over after every bill, before income tax.
Break-even calculatorHow much can a café keep from $40,000 a month in sales, with $4,000 in rent and utilities?
At 40,000 a month, RestaurantDoctorAI's targets for a café leave 4,000–7,200 a month (10–18% of sales) after every bill, before income tax. With the budget at the top of the targets, you break even at 30,000–34,595 a month: 30,000 if labor goes up and down with sales, 34,595 if it stays about the same. Your expected 40,000 is above it.
Restaurant budget calculatorWhat should a $15 dish cost on a delivery app that takes 30%?
Price it at 21.43 or more on the app. That's 43% above your in-house price. At that price the app keeps 6.43 and you keep the same 15.00 as a dining room sale.
Delivery app price calculatorAre $1,600 in Square fees on $50,000 of card sales too much for a quick-service restaurant?
Your card fees came to $1,600 on $50,000 of card sales: $3.20 per $100, an effective rate of 3.20%. A fair range for a quick-service restaurant is about $2.35 to $3.95 per $100, wide because the average card sale isn't known: it covers average card sales of $10 to $20. The number of card sales on the statement narrows it. That's inside the fair range. That's about the price of Square's published in-person rates (2.4% + 15¢ to 2.6% + 15¢, by plan), about $3.15 to $4.10 per $100 with average card sales of $10 to $20: the price of that plan, not a fee to question. Paying less means another plan or another processor.
Card fees calculatorWhat does OpenTable Core really cost with 400 guests a month from OpenTable and 300 from my own website?
OpenTable Core costs you at least $699 a month, $8,388 a year. Counting the guests given, that's about $1.00 for every guest who booked through it. Each guest from OpenTable's own app and website cost $1.75 all in: the plan and the $1.00 fee per guest together. If 1 in 4 of the guests from OpenTable's own app and website booked on your website instead, about $100 a month would stay with you ($1,200 a year), as long as they'd have come anyway.
Booking fees calculatorCan a Texas restaurant, an S corporation, claim the FICA tip credit on $300,000 of reported tips over 12,000 tipped hours?
Your business may have generated about $20,177 to $20,262 of FICA tip credit in a year like this. The check lists first why the real answer may be $0, such as a credit already claimed on Form 8846 or no federal income tax owed.
FICA tip credit calculatorHow much does a server tip out on $2,000 of sales and $360 in tips, at 2% to the busser and 1% to the bartender?
The total tip-out is 60.00 (3% of net sales). The server keeps 300.00.
Tip-out sheetWhat are good prime cost, food cost and labor percentages for each type of restaurant?
As a share of net sales, RestaurantDoctorAI's targets are: Quick service: prime cost 60% or less, food and drink 26–32%, labor 26–31%. Fast casual: prime cost 60% or less, food and drink 28–33%, labor 27–32%. Full service / casual dining: prime cost 65% or less, food and drink 30–34%, labor 30–35%. Fine dining: prime cost 70% or less, food and drink 32–38%, labor 34–38%. Bar, taproom or lounge: prime cost 57% or less, food and drink 20–26%, labor 25–32%. Café or coffee shop: prime cost 60% or less, food and drink 24–32%, labor 28–34%. The prime cost lines for quick service and full service match RestaurantOwner.com's; the rest are RestaurantDoctorAI's own. Many restaurants run over them. The same targets are published as data at restaurantdoctorai.com/targets.json.
The targets and where they come fromWhat should a coffee shop's food cost and labor be?
RestaurantDoctorAI's targets for a café or coffee shop are food and drink 24–32% of sales, labor 28–34% and prime cost 60% or less, with rent and utilities at 10% or less. No public survey covers cafés on their own, so these are our own, set between what coffee roasters and listed coffee chains report and the National Restaurant Association's counter-service medians.
Targets for cafés and coffee shopsWhere do these numbers come from?
Fixed formulas work out every figure, against RestaurantDoctorAI's targets for each type of restaurant. The free check and the calculators use no AI; in the paid report, AI writes the words around the figures, never the figures. The methodology page lists each target, says which match a published figure, and names the sources, checked against the National Restaurant Association's latest medians. The targets are also published as data at restaurantdoctorai.com/targets.json.
How we gradeWhat does RestaurantDoctorAI cost?
The profit check, the calculators, the templates and the free AI tools cost nothing and need no account. The full report is $9.99, or $19.99 with your real numbers and a check-up, paid once, never a subscription, with a 14-day refund for any reason.
Every price, on one pageCan I use these calculators from ChatGPT or Claude?
Yes. The same calculators are free tools any AI assistant that supports MCP can use, with no account or key: add restaurantdoctorai.com/api/mcp as a connector. The assistant sends the figures you give it and gets back the answer with its working and a link that opens the calculator with them filled in.
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