Restaurante

489 Ways to Cut Costs
in Restaurants,
Cafes, Clubs, Catering,
Hotels & Bars
Contents:
Food costs and kitchen management
Administration and insurance
Electricity and gas
Water usage
Repairs and maintenance
Bar, cellar and beverages
Functions and events
Labour costs
Safe working conditions
Cleaning costs
Equipment and wares
Packaging and consumables

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Information brought to you by Profitable Hospitality.
See our complete range of management systems on the website
at www.profitablehospitality.com - all designed to make your
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Phone: 1800-001353 (Australia) or +612 93401089 (International)

489 Ways to Cut Costs in Restaurants, Cafes,Clubs, Catering, Hotels & Bars

Food costs and kitchen management
1. Set a minimum use-by date needed on your supplies to avoid having
stock that runs out of date before you use it.
2. Make sure there is sufficient lighting in the dining area so menus can be
read, and they are typed large enough to be read in dim light. Anything
that leads to reduced sales will flow through to a higher coststructure.
3. Offer expensive seafood as part of a mousse item eg smoked salmon
mouse tartlets rather than smoked salmon on rye.
4. Watch weather reports for supplier costs and find websites that give
supply price changes – this allows more economical menus to be
planned in advance.
5. Check your product specifications so they aren’t too strict, resulting in
supplies being sent to you nomatter what the cost eg first grade lemons
may mean using expensive imports at some times of the year.
6. Increase some prices, especially on your middle priced items – 50c more
on half a dozen items may mean a difference of 0.5% less in food costs.
7. Break down your cost cutting efforts into 2 or 3 items each week – this
way staff feel it’s an achievable (even fun) project rather than amassive
undertaking. Make a fuss about the good results they achieve.
8. Supermarket purchasing is a curse (and an occasional blessing). Ban it
for all ‘run-out’ purchases but monitor it for specials eg salad vegetables.
9. Specify the need for staff training by product suppliers when they start
supplying to you eg chicken supplier will show staff how to get extra cuts
from boning a wholechicken, how to bread fillets for schnitzels, make
‘supreme’ portions etc. Sales reps enjoy this part of their work – it’s a
change from haggling over prices and they will be more motivated to look
out for deals for you. They also get brownie points back at the office for
their extra customer service.
10. Understand how the sales reps makes their money. You don’t want to be
loaded up with massiveamounts of stock that will take weeks to use just
because you bought their special pallet deal.
11. At the end of the month when sales reps have quotas to meet you might
be able to get good deals on items you use a lot if you help them meet
their target figures.
12. Import your own supplies – if you use large quantities of say mineral
water, tinned tomato etc, investigate how much acontainer load will cost.
Take into account storage and lead times but the savings can be
enormous. Use temporary storage if need be.
13. Print up a plan of your cool room and storage area (like the plan in a
bookshop) so new staff can find things quickly and there’s no excuse for
not putting stock away in the right place.
14. Have standard names used in your recipe cards and order lists eg Beef –ground, Beef – sirloin, Beef – eye fillet rather than ground Beef, Sirloin
Steak and Eye fillet Steak – otherwise they will sort alphabetically into
different areas.

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489 Ways to Cut Costs in Restaurants, Cafes, Clubs, Catering, Hotels & Bars

15. Watch that garnishes are served in edible sizes eg the large scoop of
sour cream on the nachos is...