Street Tacos (order of 3) Cost Calculator
Three carne asada street tacos on doubled corn tortillas with onion, cilantro, salsa, and lime. Foodservice ingredient cost per order against a typical restaurant price. Prefilled with US average ingredient costs. Edit any quantity or price to match what you actually pay, and the math updates as you type.
How much does it cost to make Street Tacos (order of 3)?
About $2.64 for three carne asada street tacos at foodservice prices, against a typical $12 order, a 22.0% food cost. The steak is $2.00 of that. Tortillas, onion, cilantro, salsa, and lime together come to 64 cents.
Where the money goes
| Carne asada (flap meat) | 75.8% · $2.00 | |
|---|---|---|
| Corn tortillas | 9.1% · $0.24 | |
| Salsa | 7.6% · $0.20 | |
| Onion + cilantro | 3.8% · $0.10 | |
| Lime | 3.8% · $0.10 |
What 60 of them return at different prices
| Your price | Food cost % | Over ingredients, each | Over ingredients, 60 |
|---|---|---|---|
| $9.00 | 29.3% | $6.36 | $381.60 |
| $12.00 US average | 22.0% | $9.36 | $561.60 |
| $15.00 | 17.6% | $12.36 | $741.60 |
Ingredients only. Labor, packaging, fuel, and stall or platform fees come out of these figures.
A taco is a protein with 64 cents of everything else around it. The doubled corn tortillas, onion, cilantro, salsa, and lime are the same on every taco on the board; the meat is 76% of the cost of a carne asada order and sets the food cost almost alone. That makes a taco menu unusually easy to cost: price the tortillas and garnish once, then add each protein at its own price.
It also exposes the most common taco pricing mistake, one price for every protein. Swap the 5 oz of asada for chicken thigh at foodservice prices and the order costs well under two dollars; swap it for shrimp and it costs well over three. Sold at the same $12, the shrimp tacos earn noticeably less than the chicken ones, and if shrimp is the popular choice the whole board's food cost drifts up without any single price looking wrong. Taquerias that charge a dollar more for asada or shrimp are pricing the one line that varies.
Portion is the other lever, and it hides in the scoop. Five ounces across three tacos is a full order; a cook who loads closer to six adds 40 cents to every order, which on a 60-order day is $24 of steak nobody charged for. A portion scoop, or a weighed pan of meat at the start of service, is cheaper than any price change.