The head chef and the numbers they should see

A head chef runs one of the best kitchens in the neighbourhood. The food is excellent, the team is loyal and the reviews praise every dish. But the chef has never seen the kitchen's food cost, does not know which dishes sell least and only hears about slow tickets when a guest complains. When the owner says the restaurant is losing money, the chef is surprised and defensive. The kitchen was doing everything right, except knowing its own numbers.

A head chef runs the kitchen: the menu, the recipes, the team, the quality of every plate, food safety and the kitchen's share of the costs. Cooking well is the heart of the job, but it is not the whole of it. The numbers tell a head chef where the kitchen's money and time go, and which decisions about next week's menu, prep and team will make the biggest difference.

This guide covers the four reports a head chef should read every week, the food cost report, ticket times, the menu report and the prep and waste record, what each shows and what each should change, and how to make reading them a habit rather than a chore. It is part of our role playbooks, which start with the restaurant host. Every venue and figure in it is an example.

The numbers matter because the kitchen is where much of a restaurant's money is spent: the food, a large share of the labour, the energy and the waste. A head chef who knows the numbers can protect the margin, spot problems before they grow and make the case for the changes the kitchen needs.

The numbers also protect the chef. A chef who can show the owner that the food cost is under control, the tickets are on time and the waste is falling has a far stronger voice than one who can only say that the food is good.

A head chef does not need forty reports. Four, read every week in about half an hour, cover most of what matters: the food cost report, ticket times, the menu report and the prep and waste record.

Each answers a different question. Is the kitchen spending the right amount on food? Is it fast enough? Which dishes earn their place? Is it preparing the right amounts? Together, they show the kitchen's health.

The food cost report shows the cost of the food the kitchen used, as a share of food sales, for the week or the month. It is built from the stock counts and the purchases: opening stock, plus purchases, minus closing stock, divided by food sales.

Our guide to the weekly food cost report worth ten minutes covers how to read it. The figure itself matters less than its direction and the reasons behind it.

When the food cost rises, find out why before changing anything. Supplier prices may have risen; portions may have grown; waste may have increased; the mix of dishes sold may have shifted towards more expensive ones; or the count may have been wrong.

Each reason calls for a different action: a conversation with a supplier, a portion check, a closer look at the waste, a menu price review or a recount. Our guide to what COGS is for a restaurant kitchen covers the date errors that often explain a sudden jump.

The actual food cost, from the counts, is what the kitchen really used. The theoretical food cost, from the recipes and the dishes sold, is what it should have used. The gap between them is the kitchen's variance: the food lost to waste, over-portioning, mistakes and theft.

A head chef who knows both can see where the money goes. A small gap means the kitchen is using food as the recipes intend; a large one means something is leaking, and the waste record and the portions are the first places to look.

Ticket times show how long the kitchen takes to send each order: from the moment it arrives to the moment it is ready. They are the kitchen's measure of speed, and they shape the guests' experience more than almost anything else the kitchen controls.

Our guide to ticket times: the only kitchen metric that moves covers how to read them. Look at the median, the slowest tickets and how both change through the service.

Slow ticket times point to a problem in the kitchen's flow: a station that is overloaded, a dish that takes too long to plate, a prep that was not finished before service, too few cooks at the peak or a wave of orders from the floor.

Look at where the time goes: in the queue before a station starts the ticket, in the cooking or at the pass. A ticket that waits in the queue needs more hands or a smoother arrival flow; one that takes long to cook may need a simpler dish or better preparation.

Ticket times by station show which section is the bottleneck. If the grill's tickets take twice as long as the cold section's, the grill is setting the kitchen's pace.

Ticket times by hour show when the kitchen struggles. If the tickets slow every evening at half past seven, the cause may be the arrival flow from the floor as much as the kitchen. Share the pattern with the host.

The menu report shows how each dish sells: the number sold, the revenue and its share of sales, over a week or a month. It tells the chef which dishes guests choose, which they ignore and how the mix changes through the season.

Our guide to the menu report worth reading every month covers how to read it. Read it weekly for the trends, and in depth every month.

Menu engineering combines the menu report with each dish's margin: how popular each dish is against how much it earns. Dishes that sell well and earn well are the menu's stars; those that sell poorly and earn little are candidates to change or remove.

Our guide to menu engineering: the four dishes you must act on covers the method. The chef needs each dish's cost from the recipe costing, and the sales from the menu report, to do it.

The menu report should change the menu. A dish that sells little and takes long to prepare may be costing more than it earns, in stock, prep and space on the line. A dish that sells well but earns little may need a price review or a cheaper recipe.

Make one or two changes at a time, and watch the next weeks' reports. A menu changed all at once makes it impossible to tell which change worked.

The prep list tells each section what to prepare before service. It is built from the forecast of covers and the expected sales of each dish, and it decides how much food is prepared, and how much is wasted.

Our guide to the prep list that ends the morning guesswork covers how to write one. A prep list built from last week's sales is far more accurate than one built from habit.

The waste record shows what was thrown away, why and how much it cost: prep that was not used, food that spoiled, dishes that were sent back or remade. It is the most direct measure of whether the prep list is right.

Read it weekly beside the prep list. A dish whose prep is thrown away every Tuesday is a dish whose Tuesday prep is too large.

When the waste record shows the same item wasted week after week, change the prep for that item on those days. When it shows spoilage, look at the ordering and the storage. When it shows dishes sent back, look at the recipe, the station or the communication with the floor.

A falling waste record is one of the clearest signs that the kitchen is learning. It also lowers the food cost directly, because every item not wasted is an item not bought again.

Labour is the other large cost the head chef controls. The kitchen's hours, against its sales, show whether the team is the right size for the work. Too many cooks in the quiet hours costs money; too few at the peak costs ticket times and the team's wellbeing.

Plan the kitchen's rota from the forecast and the ticket times by hour. A kitchen staffed for the shape of the day is both cheaper and faster than one staffed for an average.

Set a time each week to read the four reports: the same day, the same hour, about half an hour. Many chefs choose a quiet morning early in the week, when last week is complete and next week can still be planned.

Write down one or two actions from each review: a portion to check, a dish to reprice, a prep quantity to change, a station to support. A review that changes nothing was not worth the half hour.

Share the numbers that matter with the kitchen team. Cooks who know their station's ticket times, the waste on their section and the dishes that sell best can help improve them. A team that sees the figures often has the best ideas for changing them.

Share them as information, not as blame. A cook who is shown that the grill is the bottleneck, and asked how to fix it, is far more useful than one who is told to work faster.

The head chef and the owner should read the numbers together regularly. The owner sees the restaurant's whole picture; the chef sees the kitchen's. Together, they can make decisions about the menu, the prices, the team and the investment the kitchen needs.

A chef who brings the numbers to that conversation, with an explanation and a plan, is a chef whose judgement is trusted.

Many chefs learned to cook, not to read reports, and the numbers can feel unfamiliar. Start with one report, the menu report or ticket times, and add the others as the habit forms. Ask the manager or the accountant to explain what each figure means.

Within a few months, reading the numbers becomes as natural as tasting a sauce. It is one more way of knowing whether the kitchen is doing well.

Supplier prices move the food cost more than any other single cause. A head chef who knows the prices of the kitchen's main ingredients, and how they have changed, can explain a rising food cost at once and act on it.

Keep a short list of the twenty most important ingredients and their current prices, and check it against each month's invoices. A price that has crept up by a tenth over three months is easy to miss without the list.

Dishes that are remade or sent back cost the kitchen twice: the food for the first plate and for the second, and the time to cook both. They also show where the kitchen or the floor is going wrong.

Look at the remakes each week: which dishes, which stations, which reasons. A dish remade often because it arrives cold points to the pass; one remade because it was wrong points to the order or the recipe.

Every menu change is a chance to use the numbers. Before the change, look at which dishes earned their place and which did not; after it, watch the new dishes' sales, ticket times and waste for the first weeks.

A new dish that sells well but slows the line, or one that sells little and wastes a lot, should be adjusted quickly, not left until the next menu.

In a group, each kitchen's numbers can be compared: food cost, ticket times, waste and the dishes that sell. A dish that sells well at one venue and poorly at another, or a kitchen whose waste is far higher than the others', is worth understanding.

Compare like with like. Kitchens with different menus, sizes and guests will have different numbers, and the comparison is a starting point for a conversation, not a verdict.

A head chef's time is the kitchen's most limited resource. The numbers help the chef spend it well: on the station that is slowest, the dish that wastes most, the supplier whose prices have risen, rather than on whatever feels urgent.

Half an hour with the numbers each week often saves hours of firefighting later.

When the numbers improve, tell the team. A falling waste record, faster tickets on Friday or a food cost back on target are the team's achievements as much as the chef's.

A kitchen that sees its improvements recognised keeps improving.

The numbers look back; the forecast looks ahead. Next week's expected covers, from the bookings and last year's same week, turn the menu report's sales mix into a prep list and an order for the suppliers.

A head chef who reads last week's numbers and next week's forecast together plans the kitchen's week rather than reacting to it.

Sometimes a number looks wrong: a food cost that jumps for no reason, a ticket time far faster than the kitchen felt. Check the data before acting. A stock count done on the wrong day, an invoice in the wrong month or tickets bumped late can all distort a figure.

A number that is wrong is worse than no number, because it leads to the wrong decision.

New cooks often affect the numbers: slower tickets on their station, more waste while they learn, portions that drift. Watch their first weeks' figures, kindly, and use them to guide the training. Numbers that improve week by week show a cook who is learning well.

An invented brasserie's head chef starts reading four reports every Tuesday morning. The menu report shows two dishes that sell fewer than ten portions a week each; the waste record shows their prep thrown away most days. Ticket times show the grill slowing every Friday at eight. The food cost report shows a rise of two points over a month, which the chef traces to a supplier's price increase on beef.

The chef removes one slow dish and simplifies the other, cuts their prep, moves a cook to the grill on Friday evenings and agrees a new beef price with a second supplier. Over the next month, waste falls, Friday's slowest tickets improve and the food cost returns to its usual level. The owner and the chef now read the numbers together each month.

In servearound, kitchen analytics show tickets completed, the median prep time and the time within which nine tickets in ten are prepared, the median queue time, the remake rate and the share of tickets on time, a ticket's total time of fifteen minutes or less, each against the previous period, with ticket times by station, by day and hour, where the minutes go and the slowest tickets. The menu report shows units sold, revenue and share of sales for every dish and category over any dates.

servearound holds no stock, recipes or dish costs, so the food cost report, menu engineering by margin, the prep list and the waste record are kept in your own records; inventory tracking is coming. See Analytics.

Four reports weekly: the food cost report, ticket times, the menu report and the prep and waste record.

About half an hour a week.

The cost of food used as a share of food sales, from the stock counts and purchases.

How long the kitchen takes to send each order, by station and by hour.

How each dish sells, its revenue and its share of sales.

Comparing each dish's popularity with its margin, to decide what to keep, change or remove.

It is built from the forecast and sales, and the waste record shows whether it is right.

Yes, as information to improve their work, not as blame.

A head chef runs the kitchen's food, team and costs, and four weekly reports show how it is doing: the food cost report, ticket times, the menu report and the prep and waste record. Read them in half an hour each week, find out why a number moved before acting and write down one or two changes from each.

Use the food cost report to protect the margin, ticket times to find the bottleneck, the menu report and menu engineering to shape the menu, and the prep list and waste record to prepare the right amounts. Share the numbers with the team and the owner, and they become one more way of knowing the kitchen is doing well.