Which plates on your menu are actually carrying the place?

Common questions

What is menu engineering?

Menu engineering reads a menu as a portfolio rather than a list of dishes that each succeed or fail on their own. It crosses two axes an operator already has the numbers for — how well an item sells, and how many dollars it contributes after food cost — and sorts every item into one of four quadrants. The method is Kasavana and Smith’s, published at Michigan State in 1982, and it is still the standard because both axes come off a sales report and a recipe card rather than out of a consultant.

What are stars, plowhorses, puzzles and dogs?

A star sells well and contributes above the menu average. A plowhorse sells well and contributes below it — volume is doing the work that margin should be. A puzzle contributes above average but does not sell, so the margin is already there and what is missing is covers. A dog is below the bar on both. The names are the industry’s, not a judgement on the cooking: a dog can be the dish the owner is proudest of.

Why rank by contribution margin instead of food cost percentage?

Because the two disagree constantly, and only one of them pays rent. A $34 steak at 40% food cost contributes $20.40 a plate. A $9 pasta at 20% contributes $7.20. The pasta wins on the percentage the industry quotes and loses by $13 on the dollars that actually reach the bank. Ranking a menu by food cost percentage is how a kitchen ends up promoting its cheapest-to-make plate into a worse week.

How is the popularity threshold calculated?

If every item on the menu sold equally, each would take an equal share of covers — 10% on a ten-item menu. The convention is to call an item popular once it clears 70% of that equal share, so the bar on a ten-item menu is 7%. It is a convention rather than a law, which is why this calculator prints the threshold it used instead of asking you to take the classification on trust.

Why is the margin bar weighted by covers?

Because the bar is meant to represent what the menu actually earns per cover, and an unweighted average does not. Averaging the per-item margins lets a $40 plate that sold twice pull the bar up as hard as the $14 plate that sold four hundred times. This calculator divides total contribution margin by total covers instead, so the bar reflects the mix that actually walked through the door.

What does the price increase figure assume?

That the same number of people order the same items at the new price. That assumption is the whole risk in the number, and it is why the figure is printed as arithmetic rather than as a forecast. A price move can change the mix, and nothing in four columns of your own sales data can tell you by how much — only the next period’s sales report can.

Is my data uploaded anywhere?

No account and no network requests — the calculator runs entirely in your browser. Nothing about your dish names, plate costs, menu prices, or cover counts is sent anywhere or stored anywhere but this device. The optional usage counter records only which features were used and the day, never any of your numbers.

Is this accounting, tax, or business advice?

No. It is arithmetic on the plate costs, menu prices, and unit counts you type in. It has no opinion on what to charge, what to cut, how to lay out a menu, how to treat any of this for tax, or how to run your kitchen — check those against your own records, your POS reports, and a qualified professional before acting on anything here.