A printable order guide, how to build one by vendor, a filled in example with pars, and the routine that stops overbuying.
By Rob Bruni, founder of OpsEdge Hospitality, twenty years running restaurants, bars, clubs and resorts. Updated November 2026.
An order guide is the list of everything you buy from a vendor, with a par for each item, so that placing an order becomes counting and subtracting instead of guessing. Without one, ordering lives in one person's head: the walk in fills with what they are afraid to run out of, cash sits on the shelves, and the order falls apart the week they take a vacation. This guide gives you a restaurant order guide template you can print, a filled in example, and the routine that keeps food cost and inventory in line.
It is one sheet per vendor, or per order, that lists each item in the order it sits on the shelf, the pack size, the price, the par, what is on hand and what to order. Used properly it does four things.
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Item | The product as your kitchen names it, in shelf order |
| Vendor item number | So the order matches the right product and pack |
| Pack and size | Case of 4 by 10 lb, 35 lb jug, 24 count |
| Price | Current price per case or unit, updated from invoices |
| Par | How much you need on hand after the delivery arrives |
| On hand | What you counted today |
| Order | Par minus on hand, rounded up to a full case |
The button prints a one page order guide with those seven columns, 26 rows and a header for the vendor, the rep, the order cutoff and the delivery day. Print one per vendor.
Write the items, pack sizes and pars in once, then photocopy the sheet. Only on hand and order change each time.
This is part of a Tuesday order from a broadline distributor, for delivery on Thursday.
| Item | Pack | Price | Par | On hand | Order |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken breast, boneless | 40 lb case | $94 | 4 | 1.5 | 3 |
| Ground beef, 80/20 | 40 lb case | $148 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Romaine hearts | 24 count case | $34 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Eggs, large | 15 dozen case | $42 | 2 | 0.5 | 2 |
| Heavy cream | 12 quart case | $54 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Fryer oil | 35 lb jug | $38 | 6 | 2 | 4 |
| To go boxes | 200 count case | $46 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Chicken is 2.5 cases short of par, so the order rounds up to 3. Eggs are 1.5 short, so the order is 2. These seven lines come to $982. Totalling the order before you send it is how you catch a week where purchases are running ahead of sales.
Use the same item list and the same order for your inventory count sheet. One list, two jobs.
Example: chicken breast
The par level calculator does this math for any item and rounds the order to full cases.
The Restaurant Inventory and Ordering Guide is a workbook where you walk the walk in once and the order guide, par alerts, budget and vendor sheets are done, with color coded status on every item. The Invoice and Vendor Credit Tracker logs every delivery and every credit a vendor owes you.
See the Inventory and Ordering Guide See the Invoice TrackerOrdering is half of food cost control. The food cost guide covers the other half, and the prep list template applies the same par logic to what the kitchen makes.
An order guide is a list of every item a restaurant buys from a vendor, with the pack size, price and par level for each, used to count what is on hand and work out what to order. It turns ordering into a repeatable routine that any trained manager can run.
The item, the vendor item number, the pack and size, the current price, the par, the amount on hand and the amount to order, with the vendor's contact details, order cutoff and delivery days at the top.
Subtract what is on hand from the par and round up to a full case. If the par for chicken is 4 cases and 1.5 are on hand, order 3.
Multiply average daily usage by the number of days until the next delivery arrives, then add safety stock. Review pars monthly and whenever the menu or the season changes.
It means the order guide and the count sheet list items in the same order they sit on the shelves, so you can walk the storeroom once from top to bottom without flipping pages or backtracking.
It depends on the product and the vendor. Most restaurants order produce, dairy and bread several times a week, proteins and dry goods once or twice a week, and paper, chemicals and liquor weekly or less often.
