Get back to a restaurant that runs without eating you alive.
For independent restaurant operators who just hit a trigger event — a bad month, a key hire walkout, an accountant meeting that didn't go the way they expected, a supplier price hike, or the lease for Location 2 sitting on the desk unsigned.
Find the leak. Plug it. Keep the place.
Book a Discovery Call 20 minutes. No prep required.This is for you if one of these landed this month.
The Recovery Engagement is not a course, not a coaching call, not a community — and it is not a report that tells you what your staff already told you. It is an install: twenty-one days where I sit inside your numbers and work beside you. Find where the money leaks out of your food cost, install the system that stops it, and pressure-test it until it runs without me.
- The bad monthSales were up. The P&L came back negative anyway. You stared at it for an hour before you understood what you'd done.
- The walkoutYour sous chef, your bar manager, your right hand — gone on a Saturday night with covers on the board. The shift survived. The system did not.
- The accountant meeting"You grew. You also made less money." You didn't know what to say.
- The supplier price hikeOne line item moved by twenty-five percent in six weeks. You changed nothing on the menu. Your food cost ate the difference.
- Pre-Location-2The lease is on the desk. The accountant pulled you aside and said "fix Location 1 first." You know they're right.
The kitchen that got leaner as it got busier.
My own kitchen. Dawson City — the most remote kitchen in North America. The truck comes twice a week or it doesn't come at all. Food cost got tighter as the season got busier. That is backwards from how kitchens are supposed to work.
The number
Ask any operator what happens to food cost when the rush hits. It climbs. The line gets slammed, prep runs short, somebody over-portions to keep up, and the walk-in fills with good intentions nobody had time to use. Busy is where margin goes to die.
At Grumpy Schnitzel, busy is where margin got made.
May opened at a 36% food cost. By July — the busiest month of the season — it was 28%. Prime cost, food plus labour, came down the same way: 53% in May, 39% at the peak. Sales nearly doubled from May to August, and the kitchen did not get looser as the volume climbed. It got tighter. Blended across the whole season, food cost held at 34%.
How the number got made
None of it was luck. Four things held the line, and an operator can copy all four.
The plate was costed before it was cooked. Every item had a spec and a standard recipe — same portion, same plate, every service. The schnitzel went out as two pieces, 80 to 90 grams each, the same two pieces every single ticket. The spätzle was portioned the same way, off a standard batch. Food cost is decided at the prep table, not at the register. Engineer the portion and the margin is already inside the dish before the first ticket prints. Most kitchens leave that to whoever is on the line that night. That is not a cost problem. That is a missing-system problem.
The menu was built to use itself. Every ingredient had to earn its place by showing up in more than one dish. The pork loin was nearly the whole menu in one cut: I bought it whole, sliced it into schnitzel for the plate, and the same prep became the patty in the Yukon Slammer burger. One protein, two completely different tickets. Cheddar did the same job across every burger, every deli stacker, and the add-on list. Nothing sat in the walk-in waiting on a single dish to justify it. A menu that cross-utilizes is a menu that forgives a slow night.
I bought to the menu, not to the shelf. In a remote town you cannot overstock and you cannot run out — both cost you, and one of them closes you. I consolidated volume with one distributor so the price came down on the things I ordered most. And the hero ingredient — the pork loin — I bought local, straight from the butcher in town, at the local price instead of paying to truck every cut up the highway twice a week.
I was on the pass, and nothing got wasted. Every trim, every off-cut had a second life. The trim off those pork loins never hit the bin. It went into a pot and boiled for twelve hours into a stock — and that stock became the base of the Black Forest mushroom gravy that went over the schnitzel and spätzle. The protein was already paid for by the schnitzel; the trim turned into the best gravy in the world for the cost of time and a low burner. When the owner is on the line, the food cost is personal. You feel every dollar that hits the bin, so fewer of them do.
| Month | Food cost | Prime cost | Operating margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| May | 36.0% | 53.4% | 15.0% |
| June | 37.7% | 49.8% | 25.4% |
| July | 28.4% | 39.2% | 39.6% |
| August | 31.8% | 40.9% | 33.6% |
| September | 40.9% | 59.6% | 16.3% |
| Season blended | 33.7% | 47.9% | 25.1% |
Straight off the Square and the bank records. October moved to Friday and Saturday only — a two-day shoulder, not a full operating month — so it sits outside the kitchen numbers above.
The lesson
Food cost is not a number you chase at month-end and feel bad about. It is a system you build before the doors open and then run every single service.
The reason it got tighter as the season got busier is the same reason the busy months were the best months: the system did not care how slammed the line was. The portions were already set. The menu was already designed. The order was already right-sized. Pressure had nothing to grab.
That is the whole job. Take the thing that usually breaks under pressure, and engineer it so pressure cannot touch it.
What you're paying for: I don't guess at your food cost. The Recovery Engagement rebuilds it the way I rebuilt mine — the portion specs, the cross-utilized menu, the buying rules, the waste protocol — so the number holds when the rush hits instead of blowing out. The full dollar-level teardown, costed to the invoice, I walk you through on the call.
What twenty-one days looks like.
Three phases. One operator. One restaurant. One leak found and closed.
Find where the plate bleeds.
Your menu, your POS exports, your supplier invoices, your prep sheets. Every dish costed to the invoice, not to a guess.
- Dish-level cost reconstruction — every plate priced against what you actually paid for it
- Portion reality check — what goes out the door versus what the spec says (the gap is usually the leak)
- Ingredient-utilization map — what earns its place and what sits in the walk-in waiting on a single dish
- Written diagnostic at the end of week one — the dishes losing money, the specs that don't exist, the items to cut or fix
Install the four levers that hold the number.
The same four moves that held my own kitchen at 34% food cost while sales nearly doubled. Built into your menu, not your memory.
- Cost the plate — a standard recipe and portion spec on every dish, so the margin is inside the plate before the ticket prints
- Cross-utilize the menu — rework it so every ingredient earns its place in two dishes or more, nothing stranded in the walk-in
- Buy to the menu — order to what the menu actually turns, consolidate volume for a better price, source local where freight is killing you
- Kill the waste — a trim and off-cut protocol that turns scraps into stock, specials, and second-life prep instead of bin liner
Prove the number holds under a rush.
The last seven days I'm watching, not driving. The specs run through real service. We find every place the line drifts off them and we close it before I leave.
- Three live service weeks where your crew runs the new specs and I review the numbers
- Food cost tracked weekly against the specs — every over-portion and off-spec plate caught and corrected
- Handoff document — the costed menu and spec book on one page, on your desk
- Day 21 close-out call: what the next ninety days look like holding the number on your own
The Engagement
What's included
- Dish-level cost reconstruction — every plate costed to your invoices
- Written diagnostic (Day 7)
- The four food-cost levers installed: costed specs, cross-utilized menu, buying rules, waste protocol (Day 14)
- Three live service weeks of review while your crew runs the new specs
- One-page costed menu and spec book, plus handoff (Day 21)
- Direct access to me throughout — not a portal, not a chatbot
Questions operators ask before booking
Who is the Profit Recovery Engagement for?
It's for independent operators who just hit a trigger event — a bad month, a key hire walkout, an accountant meeting that went sideways, a supplier price hike, or an unsigned lease for Location 2. It's built for operators above $800K in revenue and at least two years in. It is not a tune-up for someone shopping for the cheapest consultant.
What happens in the 21 days?
Three phases. Days 1–7, Diagnose: every dish costed to your invoices, plus a written diagnostic. Days 8–14, Install: the four food-cost levers — costed portion specs, a cross-utilized menu, buying rules, and a waste protocol — built into your menu. Days 15–21, Pressure-test: your crew runs the new specs through live service while the numbers get reviewed, ending in a one-page costed menu, a spec book, and a Day 21 close-out call.
How much does it cost, and is it worth it?
$3,500 CAD, one-time, for the full 21 days. Pulling five points of food cost on a million dollars in revenue is roughly $4,000 a month back in your pocket — so the engagement tends to pay for itself the first month the number comes down. It includes the dish-level cost reconstruction, the written diagnostic, the four levers installed, three weeks of live-service review, the handoff document, and direct access throughout.
What's the guarantee?
The find-a-leak guarantee: if a food-cost leak worth more than what you paid isn't found inside the first seven days — the diagnostic week — you owe nothing and keep the diagnostic. In twenty years that hasn't happened.
How is this different from a course or a coaching call?
It isn't a course, a coaching call, or a community. It's 21 days where I sit inside your numbers, find where the money leaks out of your food cost, install the system that stops it, and pressure-test that system before I leave.
Book a discovery call.
Twenty minutes. Three questions on the call. You'll know by minute fifteen whether the engagement is the right move — and if it isn't, I'll tell you what is. No upsell, no follow-up sequence.
Book the 20-min discovery call
If you're under $800K in revenue or just curious, start with the free Profit Leak Calculator instead.