Menu pricing has exactly one formula and a hundred ways to feed it bad inputs. The formula: price = full plate cost ÷ target food-cost %. The craft is in the inputs.
1. Cost the recipe — all of it
Every ingredient at its as-purchased cost adjusted for yield: the trimmed weight of the protein, not the invoice weight; the usable portion of the produce case, not the crate. Yield losses of 10–30% on proteins and produce are where most "my food cost is fine" stories quietly fail. The workbook's recipe sheet does this line by line; for quick pricing, use your best per-serving number and be honest about it.
2. Add the Q factor
Oil, butter, salt, garnish, condiments, the bread basket — everything that reaches the table without appearing on a recipe. Untracked, it runs 5–12% of ingredient cost. Add it as a percentage and stop donating it.
3. Divide by your target
Quick service targets 25–30%, casual full-service 28–35%, fine dining 30–40%. The target isn't a grade — it's the share of the check you can afford to spend on food after your labor and rent take theirs. How to pick yours.
4. Round like a menu, then sanity-check contribution
Round up to your menu's endings (.50 or .95), then look at gross profit per plate × expected volume. A dish can pass the percentage test and still not earn its menu slot — and how you present the price matters more than you'd think.
The worked example
A pasta entrée: ingredients cost $3.85 per serving, Q factor 8%, to-go packaging averages $0.20, target 30%, selling ~60 a week:
| Line | Math | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients | — | $3.85 |
| Q factor | 8% × $3.85 | $0.31 |
| Packaging | — | $0.20 |
| Full plate cost | $4.36 | |
| Raw price | $4.36 ÷ 0.30 | $14.53 |
| Menu price | rounded up to .50 | $15.00 |
| Actual food cost | $4.36 ÷ $15.00 | 29.1% |
| Gross profit / plate | $10.64 | |
| Weekly contribution | × 60 servings | $638 |
Price the same dish "by feel" at $12.95 and the food cost is 33.7% — three points, $2.05 a plate, $123 a week, $6,400 a year. From one item. That's what re-costing a menu is worth.
The mistakes that eat menus
- Pricing from stale invoice costs. Re-cost quarterly, or after any supplier letter that starts with "due to market conditions."
- No Q factor. The most common 5–10% leak in independent restaurants.
- Same prices on delivery platforms. A 25% commission is a second food cost; run a marked-up delivery menu.
- Treating the percentage as the goal. Contribution pays rent. The rest of the forgotten-cost list.
Do this in 30 seconds instead
The free calculator runs this exact math with a target-comparison table. The $29 workbook adds full recipe costing with yields, whole-menu pricing, a menu-engineering matrix, and a weekly food-cost tracker.
Free Menu Pricing Calculator Full Workbook — $29