Sort of. Papa Johns' food costs is about 30%. The margin on a store is 10-20%. Papa Johns is a takeout pizza chain, one of the few consistently profitable resta

Sort of. Papa Johns' food costs is about 30%. The margin on a store is 10-20%. Papa Johns is a takeout pizza chain, one of the few consistently profitable restaurant models. Most do not have these margins. Also, the hard part about making a Papa John's pizza from grocery store ingredients is finding ingredients that are crummy enough and in small enough quantities. ): It's easier to make a a big pizza with good cheese and fresh ingredients at home for $20-30 of ingredients. You would pay more than that for the equivalent at a restaurant when dining or delivery tax and tip are factored, especially. Economies of scale do help restaurants, but only to the extent that they can pack their labor and other operating costs into the price and not lose money. Many restaurants have not survived because they couldn't attract a high enough percentage of customers to the higher margin items on the menu. So when someone orders out they are going to end up paying for the labor they're not spending, outside of unusual circumstances or the few money-printing carryout formats (like mass market carryout pizza.)