COGS Playbook - How to price your menu and increase your profit.

COGS Playbook

How to price your menu and increase your profit.

The problem

Your menu prices have not moved. But your costs have. Ingredients went up. Suppliers changed. Yields drifted. The dish that used to carry your margin is barely paying for itself now, and you do not know which one. You are still working hard. You are just earning less per cover than you did six months ago.

Most owners react to this by pushing harder on revenue. More marketing. More promotions. Fuller seats. The leaks keep widening because the leak is not in the front of house. It is in the math behind the menu.

This Playbook gives you the math.

What you’re getting

Sixty-three pages. The full menu engineering sequence, from raw ingredient to selling price. Yield tests, butcher and meat tests, recipe calculation, BOM and WIP, full menu costing, food cost percentage, margin and markup, selling price methodology, break-even analysis, common causes of uncontrolled food cost, food waste tracking, monthly cost analysis, and the daily flash cost report that catches problems before month-end. With templates, formulas, and worked examples for every step.

You also get a complimentary 30-minute COGS Walkthrough Call with Tara. Not a sales call. We go through your menu costs together, check your yield assumptions, and make sure your pricing actually protects your margin. Limited to the first 25 buyers, valid 30 days from purchase.

What’s inside

Part 1: Understanding Your Cost Structure. Revenue, cost, profit, the cost categories in F&B, and why food cost percentage alone can mislead you.

Part 2: The Menu Engineering Sequence. The five-step path from ingredient to plate cost, including yield testing, butcher tests, recipe calculation, and full menu costing.

Part 3: Pricing and Margin. The difference between margin and markup, setting selling prices, a la carte versus set menu costing, menu pricing in practice, and break-even analysis.

Part 4: Control and Analysis. What food cost is and is not, common causes of uncontrolled food costs, what to do when food cost is too low, food waste categories, tracking waste, monthly analysis, and the daily flash cost report.

Closing: Where the numbers lead. Plus templates index and a measurement conversion reference.

Who this is for

F&B owners who price menus by gut. Owners whose food cost percentage has been creeping for months without a clear reason. Owners about to launch a menu who want to cost it correctly the first time. Owners who suspect certain items are losing money but cannot identify which ones.

Who this is not for

This is a working playbook with formulas and calculations, not a menu design or marketing book. If you want photography tips, color theory for menu cards, or “how to write enticing dish descriptions,” this is not it.

Built from 15 years inside hospitality and F&B operations.

Not theory. Not motivation. Real tools from real kitchens.

Questions? hello.gidsmakers@gmail.com

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