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Restaurant & Bar Ops Starter Kit

An Excel workbook and a printable PDF with the five sheets most independent restaurants and bars rebuild from scratch. Works in Excel, Google Sheets and Apple Numbers. Free with our weekly brief.

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What's inside

  1. Prime cost calculator. Weekly food + beverage COGS (opening inventory + purchases − closing) plus labor, as a % of sales, against your own target. Over-target weeks turn red.
  2. Par level & order sheet. Par from average daily usage, days between deliveries, lead time and safety days. Order quantity = par − on hand − on order, rounded up to the case size.
  3. Recipe / plate cost card. Cost per portion from purchase price and usable yield, food cost % at your current price, and the menu price you need to hit a target %.
  4. Pour cost calculator. Cost per pour and pour cost % for spirits, wine by the glass and draft, with pours per bottle or keg.
  5. Opening & closing checklists. Kitchen, bar, front of house, money and building tasks, with FDA Food Code 2022 holding and cooling temperatures. Tick-box tabs plus a printable PDF.

Benchmarks we cite (for context, not targets)

The National Restaurant Association's 2025 Restaurant Operations Data Abstract, built from data on more than 900 restaurants, reported prime cost at a median 65% of sales for limited-service restaurants. Food and non-alcohol beverage cost was a median 32.0% of sales at full-service and 32.4% at limited-service restaurants in 2024. The NRA says these figures are management tools, not standards or goals for any one restaurant.

Sources

Not accounting or legal advice. Your state or local health code applies where it differs from the FDA Food Code.

More free tools: labor cost calculator · free templates · staff schedule guide