The 3 Numbers Every Restaurant Owner Must Know to Protect Profit

If you don’t know your numbers, you’re not leading your restaurant. You’re reacting to it. And that’s exactly why profits feel so unpredictable. One way to establish consistent profits is to learn the three numbers every restaurant owner must know to protect profit and build real freedom. These numbers aren’t accounting trivia. They are leadership tools. When you know them, you make decisions with confidence instead of guessing and hoping.

Prime cost

Prime cost is the first number you must know.

At its simplest, prime cost is food plus labor. But let me be clear about what that really means. Prime cost is your total cost of goods sold including food, bottled beer, draft beer, wine, liquor, merchandise and anything else you sell plus your total labor costs including payroll taxes, benefits and insurance.

This number tells you how efficiently your restaurant runs.

Prime cost answers questions like:
Am I purchasing properly?
Am I using product correctly?
Am I hiring, training and scheduling effectively?

Everything reflected in prime cost is something you can control day to day as a leader.

When prime cost is out of control, it doesn’t matter how busy you are. You work harder to make less money.

The average restaurant runs around a 78% prime cost. That’s not a winning number. If you do $850,000 or more in annual sales, I want your prime cost at 55%. If you do less than that, 60% is the target.

Prime cost is not an accounting number. It’s a leadership scorecard. High food cost points to missing systems. High labor cost points to scheduling and training issues. All of it is fixable when you’re paying attention.

Breakeven point

The second number is your breakeven point.

This is the sales number you must hit to pay your bills without making or losing money. Every dollar in equals every dollar out.

Here’s what matters most. The more efficient your restaurant is, the lower your breakeven point. That means you start making money sooner. If your restaurant is inefficient, you can increase sales week after week and still not dig yourself out of the hole.

When you don’t know your breakeven point, you celebrate busy days that are actually losing money. You panic during slow weeks without any real context.

Break even creates clarity.
Clarity reduces stress.
Less stress leads to restaurant freedom.

Weekly profit benchmark

The third number every restaurant owner must know is your weekly profit benchmark.

This answers one simple question: Did I make money this week or not?

It’s not about surviving the week. It’s about whether your restaurant performed by design. When you track profit weekly, you stop waiting until the end of the month to find out you were wrong.

Numbers tell the story. Leadership writes the next chapter.

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