Good food cost percentage or sabotage?

[bizkit]

There are a lot of helpful answers and insight to my monthly question of why. Food cost is food cost, it's what you pay. If there is no theft, spoilage, waste ect. and your menu is priced correctly you should be OK. Running the inventory down without 86ing menu items does show the chefs that you are going through everything, no old items (except that very expensive spinach powder that isn't going anywhere). As far as I know there is no bonus for good food cost. Often I ask, how did we do? The answer is always the same, "I don't know". We do find out when it is high. The owners of the restaurant are not involved at all. They do come in from time to time, they have dinner, say they like how every thing is going then their out and we'll see them in a couple of months. Everything is left to the GM who makes the prices for our menu. My thinking on this is not to run so low that we are gonna disappoint our patrons. Order what you need if only 2 out 10 items get sold during the end of period you will sell the rest on the next period and that money wouldn't get spent. As long as you don't order out-of-control it should create a balance. thanks to everyone for your helpful input.

[oldschool1982]

Originally Posted by even stephen

Make a spreadsheet on excel and log all your invoices.
Copy all your invoices if you have to.
Put together your own p&l if you have to.
Miscoded invoices are ultimately your responsibility.
There are some pretty normal standards for the industry
available if you don't know them. If you can't get it through
to the owner then thats just bad luck. Move on. All promo, employee
meal, and comps should end up with a credit to cost of goods.
If janitorial, cleaning, chemical, waste removal, etc are being
charged to food cost, then there certainly is a reason for an elevated
food cost. Do you have a budget and forecast?

Ya know I'm sure this is done all over but since stephen worked(s) in Atlanta, I know that almost everyone that is in charge of a restaurant operating cost does this. In fact I still have the logs and tracking info from three of the places I was at. These "marginal machiavellian goofball owners" (as Rivitman calls them and in some cases very appropriate I might add ) had a way of screwing with you while you were ther and long after you were gone. In fact I had, on more than one occasion, needed to bring some of this info on a return interview just to prove that I wasn't the one screwing with the numbers. (When owners talk amongst themselves the Chef becomes the big screw-up not them ).

Anyhow this is good sound advice. You could also go a step further and keep a personal log of all activities in the building. You'd be surprised how handy those things are ) Okay enough on that rant.....

As far as bonus/incentive and food or any costs goes... it was once a comon practice to tie these and inspection scores to a bonus/salary structure. I gave up on those along time ago since there was always and I do mean always (well except for that one quarter at Rio Bravo... ) the higher-ups or owners always seemed to find a way to take it out of your hands.

There is one benefit to what stephen suggests, it's the fact that it does keep the owners on their toes. It's harder for them to "blow smoke up your...." when you are told by them that your costs are "@#$*&^g outta control" and then you slap them upside the hedad with your log. It's amazing how many invoices/inventory sheets they "forgot" about. The downside is that you end up destroying that "false sense of trust" they think they had snowed you with and it makes it easier to be replaced by the sous the day you return from having knee surgery. Doohhh!!!!

[GmeNGrmetSales]

I can see where he is coming from on food cost, especially if you are buying from Broad liners and their minimums. Maybe try and find a small business owner in your area that will sell in less than case lots. I deal with a alot of small restaurants and I sell less than case lot and deliver less than $100 orders. There should be someone in your area that does this. I supply all over the US if your interested.

[foodpump]

Just a note to the Seraphim's comments about an empty fridge running more efficient than a full one:
Nope. A full fridge runs more efficient than an empty one. Refrigerating empty space, or air is alot harder to do. If your fridge was chock full of say, pop, the fridge would be working alot less, think of the items as a heat-sink, or in this case, a cold-sink.

[greyeaglem]

I've noticed this trend since I got back into the business. The owners claim they want as little capital as possible tied up in inventory, which makes sense, but then you have the problem you mentioned. They run everything so low that you're constantly out of things. It's aggravating to have to tell people you are out of what they want or to change a special menu item at the last minute because you don't have the ingredients. In my book, if it's that big of deal to have money tied up in inventory, then the place must have money problems. At the start of a new venture I can understand it, but if the place has been in operation for some time then that basic inventory should have been paid for several times over by generated profit and therefore no different than an operating cash reserve. The other reason can be storage issues. The place I work at now has that problem. There just isn't enough srorage space even with deliveries coming in several times a week. We get by, but it isn't easy.

[even stephen]

30 to 40K is a lot of money to be tied up when its unnecessary.
With deliveries every day there is no reason tie up that much money.
At the moment I've got a relatively small inventory. About 28 to 32K
at the end of the month. If your organized you should never run out of
anything anyway. 10 or 15 grand may not be a large amount of money
to tie up for some chefs out there, but, its a pretty big chunk of money
to me. If I can free up that money by simply being responsible, then I
think its part of my job. Gee! Is tomorrow the 1st?