The situation
I joined a restaurant in a management role – but it quickly became clear that the financial side of the kitchen mattered just as much as the food on the plate. There was no system in place; the software was there, but nobody was using it properly.
The challenge
I had to think as a manager and as a finance person at the same time. The first period was about learning – understanding the software, building the recipes, working out the pricing logic.
The solution
Step by step, I built the complete kitchen cost control system. Every dish got an accurate costing – it was clear what had to be paid for the ingredients, and what that dish had to sell for to turn a profit. When the maths did not add up, we changed something: the ingredients, the quantities, or we developed a new, more cost-effective dish in its place.
The goal was not for every single dish to deliver maximum profit, but for the menu as a whole to be profitable – with waste kept to a minimum.
The result
Once the system settled in, everything became visible – the good and the bad alike. If something was off, we knew immediately where the problem was and could correct it straight away. The owner felt the difference too.
