Cutting Costs and Waste: A Dual Approach

On your journey to make your restaurant grow, the most important part of this journey is learning to control your food and labor costs. It's like mixing the right ingredients for a perfect dish. Let’s dive into how being smart with food and your team can lead to a growing restaurant.

The Combined Metric of Food and Labor Costs

Running a restaurant means keeping an eye on two big things: how much you spend on food and how much you pay your staff. Sometimes people think about these separately, but it's smarter to think of them together. Imagine if you could use less food and make your staff work smarter at the same time.

Strategies for Owners

It's super important to start keeping track of your food and staff costs right from the start. If you wait, it'll get really tough later on. Getting these things right from the beginning will help your restaurant make money and run smoothly.

Case Study: Learning from Big Restaurants

Big, successful restaurants are really good at controlling how much they spend on food and staff. If you're not great at this yet, it's okay! You can learn, or find someone who's good at it to help you. It's all about knowing your restaurant's money well.

Personal Insight: My Ice Cream Shop Story

I once had an ice cream shop and faced a big challenge. We wanted to grow but couldn't hire more people. We made a smart move by having someone else make our cookies. We knew exactly how much it cost us to make them, so we found someone who could do it for basically the same price. This let our team focus on making ice cream, and it was like having an extra pair of hands without hiring more people.

Knowing how to handle food and staff costs is key to making your restaurant work well and earn money. Start early and think of smart ways to keep costs down, like how we did with our cookies.

I'd love to hear about your own tricks for handling food and staff costs. Share your stories and let's learn from each other!