Restaurant types
Quick-service restaurant costs: targets and 2024 medians
By Felix S. Pavel · Updated · 8 min read
At a quick-service restaurant, guests order at a counter or kiosk and the food comes fast. Fewer paid hours stand behind each sale than in a dining room, so the targets sit lower than full service's. Here are the targets RestaurantDoctorAI uses for quick service, what counter-service restaurants reported for 2024, and where the money goes. Fast casual has its own section below.
The quick answer
Healthy targets for a quick-service restaurant: prime cost 60% or less, food and drink 26–32%, labor 26–31%, and rent and utilities 10% or less of sales.
Prime cost % = (food and drink cost + labor cost) ÷ net sales × 100
| Quick service | RestaurantDoctorAI's target |
|---|---|
| Prime cost | 60% or less |
| Food and drink | 26–32% |
| Labor, payroll taxes and benefits in | 26–31% |
| Rent and utilities | 10% or less |
The typical limited-service restaurant, counters of every kind, spent 65 cents of each sales dollar on food, drink and labor in 2024, and kept 4.0% before taxes (National Restaurant Association). The targets are the ones the free profit check grades against.
Our targets beside the 2024 medians
The National Restaurant Association (NRA) surveyed more than 900 restaurants for its 2025 Restaurant Operations Data Abstract, on 2024. It reports counter service as one group, limited service, so its medians cover quick service and fast casual together. No neutral source we found splits the two.
| Line | RestaurantDoctorAI's target: quick service | RestaurantDoctorAI's target: fast casual | NRA 2024 median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prime cost | 60% or less | 60% or less | 65% |
| Food and drink | 26–32% | 28–33% | 32.4% (food and soft drinks) |
| Labor | 26–31% | 27–32% | 31.7% |
| Rent and utilities | 10% or less | 10% or less | 5.2% |
| Pretax income | No target | No target | 4.0% |
The typical counter restaurant misses our targets, and we say so. Its 65% prime cost is 5 points over our 60% ceiling, and its 31.7% labor is 0.7 points over the top of our quick-service range. The ceiling is a healthy line, not a typical one: the median operator kept only 4.0% before taxes. Our 60% matches the line RestaurantOwner.com gives: keep quick-service prime cost “at 60 percent of total sales or less.”
Labor is where profit and loss split. Limited-service restaurants that made a profit ran labor at 30.0% of sales. The ones that lost money ran 34.1%.
Rent and utilities. We print a ceiling, 10% or less, not a range. The NRA's median was 5.2%: 6.0% in cities, 5.0% in suburbs and 3.2% in small towns. Its page doesn't say what the figure counts, and ours counts rent, charges on top of rent and utilities together. Under the ceiling is fine, however low.
Why quick-service numbers online disagree
- Margins with no source. Restaurant365, a software vendor, says “fast casual and quick-service restaurants average 6–9%” and names no survey. The NRA's median for limited service was 4.0% before taxes.
- Payroll taxes and benefits. Ours count both; the NRA's medians count benefits. A “labor %” built from hourly wages alone, common in scheduling apps, comes out lower.
- Two types counted as one. A burger counter and a made-to-order bowl shop land in the same limited-service group, so its medians mix the two.
- Drinks. The NRA's food figure leaves alcohol out; our food and drink target counts it in. At counters it matters less: where limited-service restaurants serve alcohol, it averaged 6% of sales, the NRA told a federal regulator in 2023 (its comments).
An example month, worked through
This is an example, not an average: one quick-service restaurant with $50,000 in sales a month, food and drink at 30%, inside the 26–32% range, and labor at the NRA's 31.7% limited-service median.
- Net sales
- $50,000
- Food and drink, 30%
- $15,000
- + Labor, 31.7%
- $15,850
- = Prime cost, 61.7%
- $30,850
- Ceiling at 60% of sales
- $30,000
That's $10,200 a year. Food is fine; labor is 0.7 points over the 31% top of its range. At this volume each point of sales is $500 a month.
Where quick-service restaurants lose money
Six leaks that show up at counters, each with the first thing to do and where to work it out.
Staff on the clock between rushes
A counter's sales come in peaks. Staff who stay on through the afternoon lull are paid for idle hours. The fix: stagger start times so extra staff arrive with the rush, and send the first person home when sales per labor hour drop under your cut line. How to set your cut line.
Staff who leave
In accommodation and food services, an average 4.2% of workers quit each month in 2025, against 2.0% across all jobs (Bureau of Labor Statistics). Each new hire means paid hours of training. The fix: train a second person on each station so a call-out doesn't become a double. Seven steps to lower labor cost.
Menu prices already up
Limited-service menu prices rose 3.2% in the year to August 2026, against 2.2% for groceries (Bureau of Labor Statistics). A price rise is a poor fix for a recipe nobody has re-costed. The fix: re-cost your best sellers with this month's supplier prices, and fix portions before prices. Plate cost calculator.
Delivery orders priced like counter orders
The delivery apps take a commission on every order, before any promotions. At counter prices, it comes out of a margin that was already thin. The fix: work out the app price that leaves each dish what it earns at the counter. Delivery app price calculator.
Prime cost nobody checks weekly
Food and labor can each look fine on their own and still add up past 60%: the tops of our quick-service ranges add to 63%. The fix: add the two every week, against sales for the same days. How to track prime cost.
Rent that outgrew the sales
Above 10% of sales, rent and utilities squeeze a counter's thin margin. The fix: work out the sales your rent needs before the lease comes up. How much rent a restaurant can afford.
California's $20 fast food wage covers chains, not independents
California's fast food minimum wage, $20.00 an hour from April 1, 2024, applies to a limited-service restaurant that's part of a chain of at least 60 establishments nationwide, whether its owner runs the brand or is a franchisee (California Department of Industrial Relations, checked October 10, 2026). An independent counter with fewer locations isn't covered by it. The state minimum still applies: $16.90 an hour in the US Department of Labor's table, or more where a city or county sets more.
Fast casual: the same group, its own targets
In the free check, fast casual means order at the counter, food brought to the table; quick service means counter or kiosk, fast turnover. Food made to order on a line takes more prep per order, so our fast-casual ranges sit a little higher: food and drink 28–33% against 26–32%, labor 27–32% against 26–31%. The prime cost ceiling is the same, 60% or less, so fast casual has less room for both to run high at once.
No neutral source splits fast casual from quick service, so these ranges are RestaurantDoctorAI's own. The NRA's limited-service medians, 32.4% food and 31.7% labor, sit inside both fast-casual ranges and just over the top of quick service's.
- Plate cost on build-your-own orders. Every extra scoop changes the plate. Cost your most popular build, not the menu photo's. Plate cost calculator.
- Labor on the line. A made-to-order line needs its stations staffed at the rush. Set the cut line from the top of the fast-casual range, 32%. Work out your cut line.
Run the free check as a fast-casual restaurant, with fast casual already picked.
Questions quick-service owners ask
What is a good profit margin for a quick-service restaurant?
The median limited-service restaurant kept 4.0% of sales before taxes in 2024, by the NRA's figures. Higher figures you'll see online usually come from vendors with no survey behind them. Prime cost under 60% is what leaves room for more.
Is 25% labor cost high for a fast food restaurant?
No, it's under our 26–31% quick-service range and under the 30.0% median of profitable limited-service restaurants. Check that it counts payroll taxes, benefits, managers' salaries and any hours you work yourself unpaid.
Is a 32.8% food cost acceptable?
At quick service it's just over our 26–32% range; at fast casual it's inside 28–33%. The NRA's limited-service median for food and soft drinks was 32.4%. Either way, check it with labor: prime cost under 60% is the line that matters.
What is the 30/30/30 rule for restaurants?
A rule of thumb with no published source: 30% of sales to food and drink, 30% to labor, 30% to everything else. Food and labor at 30% each make 60%, our quick-service ceiling. The typical limited-service restaurant spent 65%. How the rule compares with real restaurants.
Is fast casual the same as quick service?
The NRA counts them together, as limited service. The free check treats them as two types with their own targets, a point or two apart. If guests order at a counter and staff bring the food to the table, you're fast casual.
Check your own numbers
Free calculators for the numbers on this page. No sign-up.
Free calculatorLabor cost calculatorLabor as a share of sales, payroll taxes and benefits in, against your range, plus your cut line.Free calculatorDelivery app price calculatorThe app price that covers the commission on each dish.Want every leak with its dollar estimate and a plan? See what the full report adds.
RestaurantDoctorAI's targets are its own; the medians beside them are the National Restaurant Association's, linked where they're quoted. General information, not financial, tax or legal advice.