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A New York City Restaurant Loses Money on a $14 Sandwich

• jfengel 5y ago
  $7 for labor on a single sandwich is a lot -- much more than just the proportion for a living wage, even in New York. A short-order cook could crank out a dozen sandwiches like this per minute. They're being fancy and getting a lot of things perfect, which requires a lot more attention -- perfectly fried egg, perfectly grilled cheese, careful plating. The spinach required a bunch of setup. Even so, it's hard to imagine that it costs $7 to put this together. Even that "living wage" is probably only $20 per hour; with benefits and such it's probably $30 per hour. That's a rate of only 4 sandwiches hour -- sure, it's a lot of care, but surely they can cook faster than that. The labor cost presumably also includes the expediter, manager, cleaning staff, etc. Even so... man, that's just a ton of labor cost, and considerably more than other stores. Given that the ingredients breakdown included $.03 worth of butter, lumping all of the labor into $7 could really use more breakdown to explain why they're spending so much.
  • cl42 5y ago
    Agreed! I remember reading somewhere else that fancy restaurants actually make significantly less than QSRs or lower quality restaurants for these reasons.