Where prime cost, food, pour and labor should land for your concept, how to set 2027 targets from your actuals, and what each point is worth.
By Rob Bruni, founder of OpsEdge Hospitality, twenty years running restaurants, bars, clubs and resorts. Updated November 2026.
Free printable: Weekly Prime Cost Close checklist (PDF)
Most restaurants track plenty of numbers and manage almost none of them. For 2027, pick four: prime cost, food cost, pour cost and labor cost. Between them they cover roughly 60 percent of every dollar you take in, and each one has a clear owner and a weekly routine. This guide shows where each number should land for your concept, how to set a target from last year's actuals that your team will believe, what each point is worth in dollars, and how to track all four through the year.
A KPI target only works if someone looks at it every week and can do something about it. Forty numbers on a dashboard guarantees nobody does. These four are worth the attention because they are the biggest controllable costs in the business, they move week to week, and each one maps to a person: the chef owns food cost, the bar manager owns pour cost, the general manager owns labor, and prime cost is the scoreboard for all three.
Everything else (sales per labor hour, comps, variance, check average) is a supporting number. It explains why one of the four moved. It is not a target on its own.
Prime cost is cost of goods plus fully loaded labor, as a percent of total sales. It is the one number that tells you whether the operation can make money. The prime cost guide covers it in detail.
Food cost is cost of food sold divided by food sales. Pricing, portions, waste and purchasing all show up here (food cost guide).
Pour cost is cost of beverage sold divided by beverage sales. Track it in total and by category, because spirits, draft and wine run very different numbers (pour cost guide).
Labor cost is hourly wages, salaries, payroll taxes, benefits and workers' compensation as a percent of total sales. Always use the fully loaded number. Leaving out the burden or the salaried managers flatters it by several points (labor cost guide).
These are the ranges from our benchmarks page. Use them as a sense check, not as your target.
| KPI | Quick service / fast casual | Full service | Bar or beverage-led | Fine dining / club |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prime cost | 55 to 60% | 60 to 65% | 50 to 55% | 62 to 68% |
| Food cost (of food sales) | 28 to 32% | 28 to 34% | 28 to 34% | 30 to 36% |
| Beverage cost (of beverage sales) | 18 to 24% | 18 to 24% | 18 to 22% | 22 to 28% |
| Labor, fully loaded | 25 to 30% | 30 to 35% | 25 to 30% | 33 to 38% |
Start from your own actuals, not the benchmark. Pull the last twelve months of each number from your P&L, using a clean year-end inventory (the year-end count guide covers how). That is your baseline.
Compare to the range for your concept. If you are already inside the range, the target is to hold it or tighten it by half a point. If you are above it, that is where the money is.
Close the gap one or two points a year. A food cost target five points below last year with no plan behind it gets missed by March and ignored by April. Two points with a written plan gets hit. The exception is a structural change, such as a new menu, a new labor model or closing a losing daypart, which can move a number further.
Write down how you will get there. Every target needs two or three specific actions next to it: recost and reprice the menu, set pars and order to them, re-spec the cocktail list, build the schedule to the forecast. A target without actions is a wish.
Put the target in the budget. The targets become the cost lines in your 2027 budget, so the monthly P&L can be measured against them.
Take a 120-seat full service restaurant the size of the one in our budget guide, doing about $2.6 million a year with 74 percent food and 26 percent beverage. In 2026 its food and pour cost ran at the top of the full service range and its labor ran above it. The 2027 targets close each gap by two points.
| KPI | 2026 actual | 2027 target | Worth a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food cost (of food sales) | 33.0% | 31.0% | $38,793 |
| Pour cost (of beverage sales) | 24.0% | 22.0% | $13,630 |
| Labor, fully loaded (of total sales) | 35.5% | 33.5% | $52,423 |
| Prime cost (of total sales) | 66.2% | 62.2% | $104,845 |
Two points on each line, each with a plan behind it, is worth about $104,845 a year at this volume, and prime cost moves from 66.2 percent, above the full service range, to 62.2 percent, inside it. None of the three targets needs a heroic change. The food cost plan is a menu recost and weekly counts. The pour cost plan is jiggers, a recosted cocktail list and a weekly bar count. The labor plan is building the schedule to the sales forecast and cutting one manager's overlap shift. Run your own numbers with the free prime cost calculator.
The F&B KPI Cheat Sheet poster puts seventeen numbers on one wall, with the formula and healthy range for each: the big three, pour cost by category, labor, comps and voids, and the revenue metrics. Hang it in the office or the training room so every manager is working from the same targets. To turn the targets into a monthly plan, the 2027 Restaurant Budget Workbook carries them through a full P&L.
See the KPI Cheat Sheet poster 2027 Budget WorkbookFree calculator
Enter your annual sales, your current numbers and your 2027 targets. It shows what each target is worth in dollars a year and where prime cost lands. The example restaurant above is loaded.
Worth a year assumes sales hold. Every target needs a plan and an owner behind it, not just a number.
When one of the four moves, these tell you why. Track them, but do not give them their own targets until the big four are under control.
The full list, with ranges by concept, is on the benchmarks page, and every term is defined in the glossary.
Free printable
The Monday routine and worksheet we use to close the week: which numbers to pull, in what order, and the target bands to compare against. Two printable pages.
Here it is. We also sent a confirmation to your inbox.
Download the PDFPrime cost, food cost, pour cost (beverage cost) and fully loaded labor cost. Together they cover the largest controllable costs in the business and each has a clear owner. Supporting numbers such as sales per labor hour, comps and voids and actual versus theoretical variance explain why the four move.
Most full service restaurants run 60 to 65 percent of sales. Quick service and fast casual typically run 55 to 60, bar-led concepts 50 to 55, and fine dining and clubs 62 to 68. Set your own target from last year's actual and close any gap one or two points a year.
Start from your last twelve months of actual food cost, compare it to the range for your concept, and set a target no more than one or two points better unless you are making a structural change such as a new menu. Write down the two or three actions that will get you there.
Prime cost and its three parts weekly, the full P&L monthly against budget, and the targets themselves reviewed quarterly. Weekly tracking gives you time to fix the month you are in.
One percent of your annual food sales. On $1.9 million in food sales, each point of food cost is worth about $19,000 a year, which is why a two-point improvement with a plan behind it is usually the most valuable target a kitchen can set.
