In a restaurant, nothing on the menu is there by accident. Every dish has a role: Some are margin workhorses. Some are guest magnets. Some are there to complete the story of who you are. Cash should work the same way. Most independent restaurants run on pre-tax profit margins of roughly 3–5%. For every $100
If you run a restaurant, brewery, or taproom in a four-season market, you probably don’t need a calendar to tell you when slow season hits. Covers drop. Prep lists get shorter. You start wondering if that second server or extra line cook is really necessary on a Tuesday. For most operators, the instinct is simple:
Most operators still “measure” labor when payroll hits the bank. The problem? Pay dates are arbitrary—they don’t line up with when service actually happened. That mismatch hides real staffing needs, dilutes productivity insights, and muddies profitability. If we care about labor productivity (not just labor percent), we have to measure labor where it lives: in
In the food & beverage world, labor is one of your largest—and most delicate—levers. Too many operators lean into labor efficiency (i.e. hitting labor as a percentage of sales) as their north star. That framing often backfires: when sales dip, hours get slashed, service suffers, team morale erodes, and long-term growth stalls. What if we
When most people think of hospitality, they imagine what happens across the table: the guest experience — the food, the service, the sense of being welcomed. But true hospitality runs deeper. It’s not a transaction; it’s a transformation. In the restaurant industry, this transformation happens twice — once for the receiver and once for the