The Margin · Free Tools

Food Cost, Prime Cost & Beverage Cost Calculator.

Know Your Numbers Before Your Numbers Know You.

Four quick calculators, one page: food cost per dish, overall food cost, prime cost with a full labor breakdown, and beverage cost. Type in your numbers — nothing is saved, nothing is uploaded.

Per-Item Food Cost

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Typical target: 28–35% Below 28%: room to reinvest in quality Above 35%: reprice or re-source

Food Cost %

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Enter a plate cost and menu price to see where this dish lands.

This tells you where one dish stands today. Restaurant bookkeeping keeps every dish’s cost visible every week — not just when you go looking for it.

Overall Food Cost % · for a week, period, or month

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Quick-service: 25–30% Full-service: 28–35% Fine dining: 30–40%

Overall Food Cost %

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Enter your food purchases and food sales for the same period to see your overall food cost.

One number, checked once a month, doesn’t catch a slow leak. Restaurant bookkeeping tracks this weekly, so drift gets caught in week two — not month six.

Prime Cost · food cost + labor cost, for the period

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Labor, By Category

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Quick-service prime cost target: ~55–60% Full-service target: ~60–65% Above 65%: margin is getting squeezed

Prime Cost %

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Fill in sales, food cost, and the four labor categories to see your prime cost.

Prime cost is the single number that predicts whether a restaurant survives its first eighteen months. A Restaurant Launch CFO engagement or ongoing fractional CFO support turns this into a plan — not just a percentage you check once a month and worry about.

Beverage Cost %

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Liquor: 18–24% Beer: 20–28% Wine: 30–40% Blended bar program: ~20–24%

Beverage Cost %

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Enter beverage COGS and beverage sales for the same period to see your pour cost picture.

A single blended number hides a lot — a heavy wine list and a heavy liquor well can land at the same overall %, for very different reasons. Restaurant bookkeeping can break this out by category so you know which one to fix.

Want the story behind these numbers — what counts as healthy, and what to do when it isn’t? Read Understanding Prime Cost.

Begin the Conversation

A Calculator Tells You Where You Stand. We Tell You What To Do Next.

If your numbers came back high — or you’re not sure what “high” even means for your concept — that’s exactly the conversation to have.

Begin the Conversation More from The Margin

Clarity in your numbers. Control in your business.