Menu Margin Signals
The hero dish is often the weakest margin on the menu.
Every Ounce recomputes plate cost from live invoices, ranks every dish by contribution and volume, and surfaces the moves — re-price, re-cost, push, pull — for you to approve before tomorrow's service.
Menu Margin Signals
Daily
plate cost refresh
The leak
POS reports tell you what sold. Not what was profitable.
Most operators learn the menu's real margin shape only at quarterly review — long after a supplier increase has eaten into the best-selling plate.
- Best-seller quietly running thin margin, hadn't been re-priced in months.
- Supplier price moved before the menu price did.
- Sub-recipes still costed at last quarter's invoice.
- Channel commissions distort effective margin off-prem.
How operators use it
Menu Margin Signals that update with every invoice.
Every Ounce reconciles vendor invoices to recipes, rebuilds plate cost daily, and places every dish on the menu engineering quadrant — Star, Workhorse, Puzzle, Dog — with a suggested action. Every re-price and re-cost waits on operator approval.
- Live plate cost from vendor invoices, not last quarter
- Contribution margin and menu engineering quadrants
- Channel-aware margin for off-prem and delivery mix
- Suggested re-price, re-cost, push or pull, for review
- Tracks margin drift week-over-week so you catch it early
Service timeline
How an owner reviews menu margin every Monday.
- Step 01
Monday 07:00
Owner opens the menu margin board — quadrant view of all dishes.
- Step 02
07:10
A few dishes flagged with margin drift from target.
- Step 03
07:20
Owner approves a re-price on the workhorse and a re-cost on the puzzle.
- Step 04
Tuesday
Print refreshes; new plate costs feed the prep suggestions.
- Step 05
Following Monday
Margin change reported in the Pre-Service Brief.
Connected workflows
Margin moves with prep, supply and channel.
Review the menu before the next print.
Import your menu, recipes and recent supplier invoices — your first margin board is ready in under 15 minutes.
FAQ
Questions operators actually ask.
No. Every Ounce works alongside the restaurant systems you already use and brings their signals into one Pre-Service Brief for operator review.