Restaurant Menu Pricing & Profitability

Menu pricing isn’t just “adding a markup.” It’s the system that keeps your restaurant healthy: covering costs, protecting margin during supplier changes, and making your best dishes easier to choose. A profitable menu balances food cost, portion logic, smart price positioning, and menu engineering—so you earn more without raising prices blindly.

Start with the foundation: Food Cost Percentage Explained (and what to aim for). When you understand food cost % (and what a realistic target looks like for your type of restaurant), you stop guessing—and you can spot problems fast: a dish that’s popular but bleeding money, portions that drift, or a price that’s too low for the prep time.

Once you know your numbers, move to the real craft of pricing: How to Price a Dish: Cost + Margin + Psychology. This is where you combine ingredient cost, labor reality, and a margin goal—but also the psychology of price anchors, “good/better/best” structure, and how guests read a menu. The goal isn’t to be expensive; it’s to be clear and confident so customers feel comfortable ordering higher-margin choices.

A lot of restaurants try to fix profitability by tweaking prices, but the biggest wins often come from consistency. That’s why Portion Control: The Hidden Key to Better Profit matters so much. Even small variations—extra fries, heavier scoops, “generous” pours—compound into big monthly losses. Portion control isn’t about being stingy; it’s about making every plate match your intended cost, quality, and guest experience.

Next, create margin-friendly offers that customers actually love. Done right, bundles increase average order value and simplify decisions. How to Build a Profitable Combo / Meal Deal shows how to choose the right items, set the right discount (if any), and avoid the classic trap: a “deal” that sells a lot but quietly destroys profit.

If you’re not sure where your menu is leaking money, you’re not alone. Many restaurants repeat the same costly patterns: pricing based on competitors, ignoring prep time, undercharging for add-ons, or keeping dead items too long. The Most Common Pricing Mistakes Restaurants Make helps you audit your menu quickly and fix the highest-impact issues first—without needing complex spreadsheets.

Finally, put it all together with menu engineering—so your best items get seen and ordered. Engineering Your “Star” Items (high profit + high sales) focuses on the winners: dishes that customers already love and that you earn well on. With better placement, naming, descriptions, photos, and smart category structure, you can increase sales of these “stars” without changing the kitchen or adding new items.