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RecipeMapping
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RecipeMapping

A good recipe for home cooking doesn't always work out when you attempt to replicate it in the restaurant. Startup restaurateurs find out quickly that a recipe intended to yield four, six or even 10 servings might not be practical when feeding dozens or even hundreds of guests - every day.

We've said it once, we'll say it again: Success in the restaurant business is often measured in pennies. Toss in an inaccurate order here, a dash of wasted product there, and mix in a bit of inefficient labor use, and you've got a recipe for slim margins. And while your friends and family never minded waiting an extra half-hour or so for your famous meatballs, your restaurant guests will not be so forgiving to slow service and inconsistency.

Related Online Course

  • Online Course
    Menu Costing Basics

    Knowing what each of your menu items costs to prepare is one of the most basic yet overlooked aspects of running a profitable restaurant. Costing out your menu can be an arduous task, but you must know your menu cost before you can make intelligent decisions on cost-cutting, price increases or other changes to your menu. This course teaches managers and owners how to implement a menu costing system ...

For good recipes to become great menu items, you must learn to make them pleasing to both your guests and your accountant. You must break them down into stages that assist purchasing and inventory control, organize prepping, reduce production time, and maximize yield. Then you must build them up to serve dozens of covers. We call it RecipeMapping® - a three-step process that allows you to add new items to the menu consistently, methodically and profitably. We hope it helps "map out" your strategy for adding items to your menu, as well as help you put your startup "on the map."

Step 1 - Add Ingredients to the Master Inventory List Step 2 - Create the Prep Stages

Every restaurant should maintain a Master Inventory List that includes all of the ingredients that a restaurant must use in the preparation of their menu items. This list can be maintained using a spreadsheet format that includes purchasing information such as the pack, size and price of the ingredients - information that is useful when creating other management forms such as inventory and order forms. But to accurately calculate the real cost to produce a menu item, the Master Inventory list should not only reflect the purchasing cost and unit of measure, but also the corresponding recipe cost and unit of measure.


Any ingredient used in cooking can be expressed in one of three units of measure when using it in a recipe - weight measure (typically ounces or lbs.), volume measure (such as tsp.,tbsp.,cups, qts. or gal.), or by piece. Many products are purchased by weight units of measure but are measured for recipes in terms of volume (fluid) measure. To determine a true recipe unit cost, it can require measuring a pound of product to determine its recipe yield.


Here we identify parts of the menu item that can be prepared prior to final cooking and presentation, to reduce the time from order to service. Even a simple, single menu item often requires several subrecipes that are produced in batch and become part of the routine preparation tasks. Each subrecipe is then added to the Recipe Manual for reference by the kitchen staff. The cost of each subrecipe ingredient is calculated by multiplying the number of recipe units used by the recipe unit cost listed in the Master Inventory. The subrecipe batch is then assigned its own recipe unit and cost based on to total cost to produce the batch and how much it yields.


Step 3 - Calculate Menu Item Cost

Finally, the cost of the menu item is determined by calculating the cost of each individual recipe or ingredient needed to produce the menu item, then affixing a selling price that produces the desired profit. Restaurants should review their menu item cost every three to six months to ensure that cost expectations are accurate.

Each month, Restaurant Startup & Growth magazine features different menu items in the Recipe Mapping article.

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