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RANGE

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Food cost caught the week it drifts, by the chef who can move it.

The fee

From $7,500

A five-point theoretical-to-actual gap cut to three on $4M in food sales is $80,000 a year.

Discovery is $1,000, separate from the install’s price, and it scopes the install and sets that price. If it concludes an install isn’t the fix, you’ll hear it, and the $1,000 bought the read that saved you the rest.

About 30 to 60 days after discovery, with the timeframe agreed up front.

Food cost runs above what the recipes say it should, and nobody owns the gap.

What this install fixes

The delivery gets signed for without a scale, the count gets done alone at close, and the order goes in off what the kitchen manager remembers. By the time that shows up in the month-⁠end P&L, you are a period or more behind it.

The install starts with the twenty items that carry most of the sales, because a costing project that tries to cover the whole menu stalls before anyone uses it.

When the chef and GM walk one page of actual against theoretical every week, the kitchen holds the gap to two or three points.

What it looks like now

Menu prices went up and food cost did not come down with them.

Tell us what’s breaking.

Bring last month’s invoices and your recipe costs.

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What gets installed

What gets built

  • The costing baseline: the twenty items that carry most of the sales, each on a recipe card with its sub-⁠recipes and costed from current invoices, with your chef costing the rest of the menu on cards built the same way during the install.
  • Theoretical food cost trued: recipes converted to weight, receiving units matched to how each recipe uses the product, and yields updated before any variance is read.
  • Yield tests on what the kitchen cuts: a daily log of each cut’s starting weight, portions and trim, and plates costed at the yield your team gets.
  • Receiving at the back door: cases checked for weight, quality and age against the order and the invoice, and every short followed to its credit memo.
  • Contract prices checked daily: every invoice entered the day it arrives and read against contract, and price moves on key items flagged weekly with their effect on plate cost.
  • The weekly count in walk order: counted in pairs and in ink against the par, with any line that looks off recounted blind before the order goes in.
  • Pars and the order: prep pars averaged by weekday so a Saturday is prepped for a Saturday, and every order built to par by the chef off an on-⁠hand count.

What holds it

  • Waste and non-⁠sale use logged: waste by item and quantity at every close, and team meals and comps recorded, so the variance left is the one worth chasing.
  • The one-⁠page weekly read: actual against theoretical by category, each gap in dollars with its cause, and the one or two fixes the chef and GM own that week.
  • Variance sorted across weeks: consistent, noisy or one-⁠off, so a recipe problem goes to the chef and a counting problem to whoever counts.

What it asks of your team: an hour a week from your GM and director of operations on the standing call, and your chef’s hour on the same call, plus the kitchen’s time in the costing, at receiving and at the weekly count.

How it runs: discovery on site, then the standing weekly call, with receiving and the yield tests reviewed by video where possible and any further time on site scoped into the price.

Start to handoff

  1. Discovery Check your recipe costs on the twenty items against current invoices, and find where food cost leaks.
  2. Build True the twenty recipes in weight and yield, then set the pars, the order guide and the one-⁠page weekly read to your menu.
  3. Run Put receiving, the weekly count and the yield and waste logs into the kitchen’s routine, then run the weekly read on the standing call with your chef, GM and director of operations.
  4. Handoff Run four weekly reads, re-⁠true any recipe they flag, and step out at the handoff date set in the scope, with your chef and GM walking the page without us.

If this is the problem, bring it.

Free, and before any discovery.

Book a call with Jon (opens in a new tab)

What this isn’t

It does not include:

Common questions

What does the Food-⁠Cost Install cost?

From $7,500. Menu size, vendor count and unit count set where the number lands. Fixed once discovery has scoped all three, all-⁠in. Discovery is $1,000, on top of it.

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

The weekly count feeds the one-⁠page read before the next order goes in, and the same page goes to your director of operations, so someone above the kitchen sees a leak inside the week. When a chef leaves, the recipe cards and the weekly read stay with the unit, so the next chef starts from the costed cards and last week’s page.

Our chef already costs recipes. What does this add?

This adds the weekly read of actual against the chef’s theoretical, the par and ordering that act on what the read finds, and a way to take a finding to the line: an item running heavy reaches the cooks as ‘portion to spec’ on the prep sheet, and the dollar figure stays with the chef. We true the chef’s costing against current invoices first; if it holds up, we build from it, and the fixed price reflects the smaller build.

Who runs it

RANGE was founded by Jon Peck, who spent twenty years running multi-unit restaurant groups: eight brands built and scaled, twelve openings across six concepts in three years, and more than $100 million of annual P&L owned.