A dish that costs $4.50 in ingredients, priced at a 30% target food cost, should sell for about $15.00 and leaves a $10.50 gross margin. At 25% the price is $18.00; at 35% it is $12.86. Enter your own plate cost below - the math is live and nothing you type leaves your browser.
Most restaurants target 25% to 35%.
| Target food cost | Menu price | Gross margin per dish |
|---|---|---|
| 25% | $18.00 | $13.50 |
| 30% | $15.00 | $10.50 |
| 35% | $12.86 | $8.36 |
Suggested prices are starting points; round to menu-friendly numbers like $14.95 and sanity-check against your market. Everything recalculates as you type, entirely on this page.
Menu price = ingredient cost / (food cost % / 100). With the defaults, $4.50 / 0.30 = $15.00. Gross margin per dish is the price minus the ingredient cost: $15.00 - $4.50 = $10.50. The comparison table runs the same formula at 25%, 30% and 35% so you can see how sensitive the price is to your target.
Food cost percentage only counts what is on the plate. Labor, rent, utilities and packaging live elsewhere; the common wider yardstick is prime cost (food plus labor), which most operators try to keep around 55% to 65% of sales. So a dish can hit a perfect 30% food cost and still lose money if it takes 20 minutes of knife work - use the percentage as a pricing floor, not proof of profit.
Targets also vary by concept: pizza and pasta often run in the low 20s, proteins and seafood in the high 30s. If the suggested price looks too high for your market, work backwards instead - multiply the price your menu can carry by your target percentage to get the ingredient budget the dish must fit.
Pricing only pays off on orders that reach you, and around a third of restaurant calls go unanswered at peak; Siya answers 24/7 from $19/mo (pricing) if the phone is your leak - the missed call calculator will tell you.
Menu price = ingredient cost / (food cost % / 100). A dish costing $4.50 at a 30% target prices at $4.50 / 0.30 = $15.00. Food cost percentage itself is the inverse: ingredient cost / menu price x 100.
Most full-service restaurants target 25% to 35%, but it varies by concept: pizza, pasta and baked goods often run in the low 20s, while steak and seafood can justify high 30s. The right question is blended: cheap-margin items can subsidize expensive anchors as long as the menu as a whole hits your target.
No. Food cost only counts the ingredients on the plate. Labor is tracked separately, and the two together are called prime cost, which most operators try to keep around 55% to 65% of sales. A dish with perfect food cost can still lose money if it takes heavy prep time.
Work the formula backwards: multiply the highest price your menu can carry by your target percentage to get the ingredient budget the dish must fit. A $13 ceiling at 30% means $3.90 of ingredients, so adjust portion size, swap components or accept a higher percentage on that item.
No. All math runs in your browser with plain JavaScript; nothing you type is sent, stored or shared.
