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RANGE

A working food-cost discipline: par, prep, and ordering built to your menu, variance you can actually see, and the controls that hold margins without a full finance project.

Fixed-scope install

From $7,500

A five-point theoretical-to-actual gap on $4M is $200,000 a year.

$1,000 discovery week, credited toward the install.

If the week concludes an install isn’t the fix, you’ll hear that plainly — the $1,000 bought the read that saved you the rest.

A 30–60 day install, scoped after a discovery week: long enough to run one full costing cycle and watch the variance read hold.

For groups watching margins drift who want the discipline installed, not a finance engagement.

Food cost rarely drifts because of one big leak. It drifts because of a dozen small ones running at once: over-ordering so you never run out, prep with no par behind it, portions that creep, waste nobody tracks, and a theoretical cost that hasn’t been trued to a recipe in two years. By the time it shows up in the month-end P&L, you’re already three periods behind it.

Closing that gap is a discipline, not a spreadsheet, and it’s what this install builds. We baseline what your core menu actually costs (the top twenty or so items by volume, the ones that move food cost), build the par-prep-ordering system around it, and stand up a theoretical-vs-actual variance read your managers can run without a finance background, so a leak gets caught the week it opens, not the month it’s booked. Undisciplined kitchens carry a gap of five points or more without knowing it; a controlled one holds it under two to three, inside a food-cost target of 28-35% of sales.

Run it on your own top line: a group doing $4M in sales with a five-point gap is leaking $200,000 a year, and closing it to two points recovers $120,000. That gap, closed, is the install — the control layer, without the finance project. And when the costing starts telling you what to reprice, cut, or rebuild, that’s menu re-engineering: the full Menu Strategy & R&D capability this install feeds. The install starts at $7,500. The math isn’t close.

Start with a conversation.

Take the Diagnostic

The Straight Read shows you which install to run first. Back within 48 hours.

What gets installed

  • —A recipe-costing and cost-of-goods baseline on your core menu: the top ~20 items by volume
  • —A prep-and-ordering system that turns sales into par and orders
  • —A theoretical-vs-actual variance read your kitchen manager runs weekly
  • —Ordering, receiving, and waste controls
  • —Costing sheets, par sheets, and order guides, handed over in a working session with the managers who’ll use them

How the install works

DiscoveryBuild the cost baseline, find where it’s leaking, and scope the install to close it.
BuildBuild the par, ordering, and variance system to your menu.
InstallStand up the variance read and run it with your kitchen managers.
HandoffThe install closes only after one full costing cycle has run. Then we true the numbers and hand them over.

What this isn’t

A fixed-scope install with a defined start and end, not an open-ended engagement. It does not include:

  • ●Financial modeling or forecasting
  • ●Full menu engineering and R&D
  • ●Vendor renegotiation
  • ●An inventory software build (that’s AI-Assisted Tools)
  • ●LTO or seasonal programs (scoped separately)

You’re in the right place if

  • —Food cost swings two or three points month to month and nobody can point to why
  • —Your theoretical cost hasn’t been re-costed against an actual recipe in years
  • —Ordering is a gut call the kitchen manager makes so the line never runs out

Common Questions

What’s the investment for the Food-Cost Install?

From $7,500. Menu size and vendor count are what set where the number lands. Priced fixed once discovery has scoped both, all-in, with no hourly meter and no travel line items. Run the $1,000 discovery week first and it comes off that number if you proceed.

Who on my team has to sit in the room for this, and for how long?

Mostly your kitchen manager or executive chef, plus whoever owns ordering today. Expect a handful of hours weekly for costing and par-building, rising during the week we stand up the variance read. Your GM signs off; they don’t need to run the numbers themselves.

How long is the install, and does it work around a seasonal menu change?

Thirty to sixty days, built to cover at least one full costing cycle so the variance system proves itself before we leave. If a menu change or seasonal LTO lands mid-install, we scope discovery around it rather than around a static menu that won’t exist by the time we finish.

What stops food cost from creeping back up after you leave?

Food cost creeps in silence, and the weekly theoretical-vs-actual read takes the silence away — a number your kitchen manager pulls, tied to par and ordering, so a leak shows up before it’s three periods deep in the P&L. By the day we step out, they’ve pulled it themselves through at least one full costing cycle; the install ends with the read already a habit, not a plan. If you ever want the margin watched longer-term, advisory exists for that, but the read is yours either way.

Our chef already costs recipes. What does this add?

Costed recipes are the input, not the control. Most kitchens have a costing sheet somewhere; far fewer have a weekly read showing where actual spend split from it. This install trues the chef’s costing against current invoices, then builds the par, ordering, and variance system around it — the part that catches a leak while it’s a week old, not a period deep in the P&L. If the recipes hold up, the install starts from them: less to build, and the fixed price is set with that in view.