Kitchen Ops Kit — Self-Serve ($499): Menu-Cycle Calendars, Stock & Par Sheets, Batch-Prep Planners, and Simple Money Workbooks for Food Trucks and Small Cafés

Running the food is the fun part. Running the planning on paper scraps and memory is not.

The Kitchen Ops Kit takes the planning systems Jerry Madrigal built for his Fast, Cheap & Confident cookbook business — a stock list that drives the menu, a rotation calendar, batch-prep planning, pantry checks, and plain-English budget and bookkeeping sheets — and rebuilds them for one small food business: yours.

What's in the kit:

- Start-Here Guide — what each file is and the order to set them up in

- Stock-to-Menu Workbook — a capped core-stock list with pack size, supplier, par level, reorder point, and on-hand fields, mapped to the items you actually sell

- 4-Week Menu Cycle Workbook + printable wall sheet — your regular menu, specials rotation, service days, dayparts, and event dates in one cycle you can repeat instead of reinventing

- Batch-Prep Planning Workbook — prep-day sequencing, batch cards, and prep labels (item, date/time, quantity, allergens, initials) for your own menu items

- Ops Dashboard Workbook — a daily dashboard, an inventory / par dashboard, a supplier order list, blank menu-item cards (yield, portion, unit cost, cost per portion, menu price, allergen fields), and a prep / production log with sign-off columns

- Dry-Store / Staples Par Checklist — walk the shelves, check against par, order what is actually low

- Small-Food-Business Budget Workbook — monthly budget, bills and due dates (permits, commissary, insurance), and a year-at-a-glance view, in food-business categories

- Daily Sales & Expense Log — sales by date, daypart, and channel, expenses by supplier and category, and a monthly summary

Who this is for: an owner-operated food truck or a single-location café with a short menu, a small team, and prep that happens in batches — who is currently planning in their head, on paper, or in five different notebooks.

Who this is not for: franchises and multi-location businesses (this licence covers one business at one location), anyone looking for a POS system, and anyone looking for food-safety certification or health-code advice — this kit is neither. See the honest notes below.

Please read before buying — the honest notes:

- This is a planning framework, not a recipe collection and not compliance. The systems in this kit grew out of household meal-planning products. The workbooks give you the structure — fields, calendars, checklists, and logs. They do not contain commercial-scale, tested recipes, and they are not a food-code, HACCP, or health-department compliance product.

- You supply the numbers. Yields, portions, supplier prices, pars, temperatures, holding and cooling methods, and storage times for your kitchen must come from you and be validated by you under your local rules. Blank menu-item cards and log fields are provided for your data — the kit does not fill them with household figures and call them commercial instructions.

- Allergen fields are provided; allergen safety is your operation's responsibility. The kit includes allergen and cross-contact fields and labelling check steps. Nothing in the kit certifies any dish safe for any allergy.

- No results are promised. This kit does not guarantee sales, income, profit, lower food costs, or less waste. It is an organisation tool. What it does in your business depends on how you run your business.

- Money sheets are record-keeping, not advice. The budget and bookkeeping workbooks help you write things down in one place. They are not accounting, bookkeeping, or tax services.

- Licence: one business, one location. Print the checklists, logs, and wall sheets for your own staff at that location. Do not resell, share, or post the files, and do not use them at a second location — each location needs its own kit.

FAQ:

Is this software? Do I need a subscription? No. It is a set of downloadable spreadsheet workbooks and printable PDFs, bought once. You will need spreadsheet software that can open standard workbook files.

Does it connect to my POS or my supplier? No. There is no POS integration and no supplier connection. The order list is a sheet you fill in and order from, the way you order now.

Are recipes included? No commercial recipes are included. The kit is the planning system around your menu: blank menu-item cards, batch cards, and calendars for the dishes you already sell.

Will this help me pass a health inspection? This kit is not a food-safety or compliance product and makes no claim about inspections. Your local health rules govern your kitchen; this kit only helps you organise your planning and records.

Can I use it for my second truck / second café? The licence covers one location. A second location needs its own kit.

What if my menu changes every week? That is what the rotation and specials slots in the menu-cycle workbook are for — but you update them. The kit does not update itself.

$499 — one-time, one business / one location. No subscription. No promise of sales, income, profit, savings, or waste reduction — a planning system, honestly described.