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My father-in-law has been a restaurant owner for his whole career. He has told me that it's quite common to have dished on the menu that are simply a loss (he i
by matt-attack 9y ago
My father-in-law has been a restaurant owner for his whole career. He has told me that it's quite common to have dished on the menu that are simply a loss (he is in a very price-sensitive market). They're countered by other dishes that have substantial profitability. In short, I agree with most of what you wrote, but each dish doesn't have to have the same profit margin on its own.
- SmellTheGlove 9y agoThat's a fair point, and I'm a bit ignorant there. My exposure is mostly mid- to fine-dining, mostly family friends who were owners. Food costs tended to be higher for them, as did labor - they weren't the kinds of places that people would work at just to stamp their resume, but needed good FOH and BOH talent. It seemed to me they wanted no part of bargain shoppers - they understood their fully burdened costs and priced accordingly. Some items had thinner margins than others, but they didn't put loss leaders out there.
- dkrich 9y agoI once read that McDonalds for many years sold burgers and shakes basically at cost and made almost all of its profits on french fries. This seems to be a fairly common practice on high volume stores. I know that bars typically make next to nothing on food in hopes of making it up on alcohol sales.