The biggest factor that can completely make or break your restaurant business is how the items on the menu are priced. Regardless of the business type you run, be it a restaurant, a bar, a bakery, a café, etc., product pricing is of utmost importance. Customers are happiest when they are charged reasonably and restaurateurs are happiest when they are making a good profit.
While calculating the selling price of an item, you must not only account for its ingredients but a lot more.
Below are some of the ways of effectively pricing the items on the menu:
• Include prices of raw ingredients
• Include VAT
• Calculate profit per portion served
• Create combos for selling more and earn higher margins
• Profits on alcoholic drinks are highly variable. Capitalise on that by having exciting offers
• Ensure the dishes and glasses are the same size and serve the right volume
• Calculate the price of the best-sellers carefully. The scope for earning a high margin is more since the procurement of ingredients and preparation of the specialities will be on the higher side
• Keep a buffer to protect your numbers against common problems that amount for a drip loss, such as wastage, expiration of ingredients or raw materials, etc.
The best way to offset this loss from accruing is by relying on a restaurant management system that notifies you regarding these concerns and gives you enough time to act on remedial measures
• Account for cooling, storage, cutting, heating, cleaning, heat treatments such as baking, frying, etc.
• Keep your portion size in control by using measuring cups, scales, etc.
• Try and make changes to menu items and not prices
