Stop guessing which menu items make you money. FoodCostForge calculates your exact food cost percentage and gross margin for every item — no POS integration, no spreadsheets, no $300/month restaurant software. Just tell it your recipes and ingredient costs in plain English; the matrix tells you which dishes to push, reprice, or kill. ## What's included - **Recipe cost calculator** — enter ingredients + portions + yields → instant food cost % + dollar margin per item, including waste/yield factor - **Menu engineering matrix** — every menu item classified into Stars (high margin + high volume — protect + feature), Plow Horses (high volume + low margin — reprice or reformulate), Puzzles (high margin + low volume — promote), Dogs (low both — kill or replace) - **Price optimizer** — input target food cost % (28% upscale, 30% casual, 32% fast casual, 35% pizza) → exact price for each item that hits target - **Loss leader alert** — flags any item priced below variable cost; surfaces the dollars-per-day you're bleeding - **P&L impact modeling** — "if I raise the burger from $14 to $16" → revenue impact per night, per month, per year, with assumed elasticity range - **Profitability report** — clean Markdown ready for your manager, accountant, or investor; per-item cost + margin + classification - **Industry benchmarks** — compares your food cost vs NRA standards by concept type (steakhouse, pizzeria, fine dining, fast casual, bar) - **Recipe versioning** — track when costs change (beef went from $5.20/lb to $6.80/lb); auto-recalculate every item that uses it - **Catering + special-event pricing** — separate logic for buffet, plated dinner, hors d'oeuvres - **Beverage program separate** — bar pour cost, wine BTG vs BTB margin, well/call/premium tiering ## Limitations - **Not a POS** — pairs with Toast / Square / Clover / Lightspeed for actual checkout transactions - **Not an inventory system** — calculates from your recipes + counts; live inventory deduction needs MarketMan / Restaurant365 - **Not a labor cost tool** — focuses on food cost; prime cost (food + labor) needs separate workflow - **Not legal counsel** — pricing strategy is business advice; menu disclosure / allergen compliance handled separately - **U.S.-focused** — units (lb/oz), tax conventions, NRA benchmarks; international metric conversions adapt ## Best fit Independent restaurant owners + food truck operators + caterers + bar managers with 1-5 locations who don't need enterprise POS-integrated software. Chefs who suspect specific dishes are losing money but can't prove it. New restaurant openings building the launch menu. Especially valuable for restaurants in their first 18 months — most close because food cost ran 38-45% when target was 30-32%; one repriced Plow Horse can swing the entire operation from losing money to making money.
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