MarginCub blog
Food cost %, menu engineering, supplier negotiation, delivery-app math. No email gate. Just read.
Most small restaurants accept whatever pricing their primary distributor sends. This playbook covers the five levers - bid sheets, quarterly rebids, PAR commitments, payment terms, secondary sourcing - that pull 6-12% off your top 20 SKUs. Worked numbers, phone scripts, 30-day plan.
Most restaurant menus carry 2-4 dogs that quietly drain margin. Menu engineering is the quarterly habit that finds them, repositions the puzzles, and protects the stars. This guide walks the full process with worked examples, action playbooks, and a 30-day rollout plan.
Food cost percentage is the metric that decides whether your restaurant survives. This guide walks through the formula, target ranges by segment, two worked examples, and a 30-day action plan you can start tomorrow.
Home bakers and cottage food operators almost always underprice. This guide shows the exact formula to include labor, packaging, and overhead - not just ingredients - with worked examples for cookies, cakes, and wedding tiers.
Food waste typically eats 4-10% of every kitchen's food budget. This guide breaks down the four waste categories, how to track each, and concrete tactics to claw back margin.
Third-party delivery apps charge 15-30% commission. If you list at in-store prices, you lose money on every order. This guide walks through delivery-app menu math, the right markup, and the trade-offs.
The average restaurant nets 3-5% of revenue. Where does the other 95% go? This breakdown of a typical $1M/year casual-dining restaurant shows exactly where every dollar lands.
Food trucks have unique cost structures - no commissary, no front-of-house, but high fuel, permit, and event fees. This guide walks through how to price a food truck menu for profit.
Catering pricing is different from 脿 la carte - every event is a one-off. This guide shows how to quote a per-person price that covers food, labor, rentals, and markup.
All these formulas in one tool - free during early access.