How Can Your Restaurant Cut Food Cost?

How many times do customers not eat all the food a restaurant serves them?

I have recently noticed that many people are taking to-go boxes home from a restaurant. This is usually because they are being served more food than they can eat. Maybe it's time to cut down your food cost by serving less food versus raising menu prices. I would venture to say that only about half of the people that take that food home eat it. Many times it's left in the refrigerator too long, goes bad or sometimes it's forgotten. Serving less food could cut food costs, eliminate a lot of wasted food, and improve people's health! A good majority of customers don't need that much food. Let's look at some restaurant items and service procedures that you could change without a customer even noticing:

• Breakfast dishes always come with a large portion of hash browns or red potatoes - the serving portion should be cut by one-third or more.
• Dinner salad - this is a side salad, not an entree, and can be cut by one-third or more.
• Dinner rolls - serve the dinner rolls after the food order has been taken maybe the customer will order an appetizer and don't bring more unless asked or could even ask if they would like rolls before their meal.
• Side of pancakes that are served with an entree - Why not go back to the dollar size? No one can eat those big pancakes with a meal. That's another meal in itself.
• French toast - most people can only eat two-four slices of toast, not six or eight.
• Offer smaller portion entrees as an option for those watching calories.
• Menu size - cutting down on the size of your menu will help the food cost because you won't have to purchase/inventory so many products that could go to waste.

Besides lowering your food cost think of all the to-go containers that you are spending money on. Most people are trying to cut down on what they eat and end up tossing the food and container away in a few days.

Lowering your food and equipment costs won't affect a customer as much as that menu price or the poor customer experience.

Let us at The Hart Experience give you a customer's perspective on menu items. Contact [email protected] 602.717.3271, https://www.thehartexperience.com