Restaurants, cafes and food trucks
Know what every plate costs, and what to charge.
Type in what you pay for each ingredient and what goes on each plate. Plate Cost works out what every dish costs to make, its food cost %, and the menu price that hits your target, and it tells you which dishes a price rise has pushed over. Every number shows the math.
- You put in
- What you pay for each ingredient, and how much of each goes on a plate.
- You get
- What every plate costs, its food cost %, a menu price that hits your target, and a warning when a price rise puts a dish over it.
$49 a month per location. 14 days free, no card. For US restaurants.
How it works
An evening to set up your menu, then a few seconds each time a price changes.
Put in what you buy
Each ingredient the way you buy it: a 10 lb case of ground beef for $58.90, a pack of 12 buns for $4.99. Add how much is usable after trimming, if some of it is not.
Build the recipes
What goes into each dish, in the units you use: ounces, cups, each. Sauces and garnish sets are sub-recipes, made once and used in every dish they go on.
Put the menu together
Each menu item is its recipes and sides, and its menu price. Plate Cost shows the plate cost, the food cost %, and the price that hits your target.
Type in a new price
From your phone, the day the invoice comes. Plate Cost keeps the old one, says how much it went up, and names the dishes it has pushed over your target.
Every number shows its work
A made-up cheeseburger with fries, for a made-up diner, at a 30% food cost target. Example. Set your own.
| Ground beef 80/20 · 6 oz | $2.208750 |
| Hamburger buns · 1 each | $0.415833 |
| American cheese, sliced · 0.75 oz | $0.187031 |
| Tomatoes · 1.5 oz | $0.186458 |
| Garnish set (sub-recipe) · 1 portion | $0.250000 |
| Frozen fries · 5 oz | $0.368750 |
| Fry oil · 0.8 oz | $0.060000 |
| Ketchup portion cups · 1 each | $0.050000 |
| Small stuff (salt, pepper, napkins) | $0.150000 |
| Plate cost | $3.876823 |
| Plate cost / 30% | $12.92 |
| Rounded up to end in .99 | $12.99 |
| Food cost at $12.99 | 29.84% |
Ground beef is up 10.2% since the last price. 1 menu item is now over your target.
| Plate cost | $4.10 |
| Food cost at $12.99 | 31.58%, over |
| Suggested new price | $13.99 |
A garnish set or a burger sauce is made once, for 20 portions or a quart, and each dish it goes on takes its share. Change the pickle price and every burger moves with it.
Buy by the pound, use by the ounce; buy by the gallon, use by the cup. Buy Dijon by the jar's weight and use it by the spoon: say once how much a cup of it weighs.
Each change is kept with when and why, so you can see what beef cost in the spring, and the dishes it pushed over your target are named on the day it goes up.
$49 a month per location
14 days free, no card. Month to month; stop any time. No refunds.
Plate Cost
$49 a month per location
Every ingredient, recipe and menu item you have, price alerts, the price history, and every number with how it was worked out. Your data exports any time.
The first 14 days
$0
The whole of it, with no card. When they are up, everything you put in stays, to read and export; subscribe to keep changing it.
Questions
- Does it read my invoices?
- Not yet. You type a new price in, which takes a few seconds on a phone, and Plate Cost does the rest. Coming: snap a photo of an invoice.
- Does it connect to my register?
- No. Plate Cost works from what you type in: what you pay, what goes on the plate, and your menu prices. It does not know what you sell each day.
- What food cost % should I aim for?
- That is yours to set, for the whole menu or for one dish. A new account starts at 30% as an example; change it in Settings.
- How is the suggested price rounded?
- Up, never down, so the dish lands at or under your target: to the next price ending in .49 or .99, or, if you choose in Settings, to the next quarter dollar.
- I buy flour by the pound and measure it by the cup. Can it do that?
- Yes: on the ingredient, put how much 1 cup of it weighs. Without that, Plate Cost will not guess: a line in cups of something bought by the pound is refused, and it says why.
- I have two locations.
- Each location is its own account, at $49 a month, with its own prices, recipes and menu.
- Can I take my data with me?
- Yes. Settings has "Export everything", which downloads your ingredients, price history, recipes and menu as spreadsheets, and "Delete my account", which deletes all of it.
This tool does math on the numbers you give it. Check the results before you rely on them.
Start 14 days free
Your JTS account works here too: the same email and password as any other JTS tool.
Questions? Email us at platecost@jtsapps.com.
The rest of the JTS tools
Each one does one job for a small business, worked out from numbers you already have.