Giving Away the Store

Throughout the past few months as I assisted in the opening of a new restaurant I've been thinking a lot about the importance of keeping track of costs.  The place I've been working is a small restaurant and we don't have a fancy POS system that tracks everything.  Oh to be so lucky. I've spoken to the managers/owners about tracking costs and they assure me that it's under control.  That's good to hear since I've been doing a little reading and realize that this is an issue that cannot be ignored for any length of time.
I've always heard that it is important to control food cost and have participated in many monthly and yearly inventories. At the end we run the numbers against sales and calculate weather we are in good standing or not.  If the numbers are too high than we discuss ways we can rectify the situation. Often it involves a little menu tweaking and greater thought on how we can limit waste and control purchasing. Monthly inventories are helpful in keeping track of where you are throughout the year but it wasn't until I read about daily costing that the idea really began to gel on ways to really understand where the costs are going and how to keep a firm grip on profit and loss.
Point of sale systems are amazing at gaining this information since you just pull up a report that indicates what was sold on a given day and reconciling it with the actual financials. But what it doesn't tell you is if an item had to be tossed and re-cooked or if the portions were correct or, heaven forbid, a case of pork loin "accidentally" walked out the back door.
Cost control is something that needs to be bought into by the entire staff.  It's easy to explain portion size but what if the cook decides that they're going to give their buddies the "hook-up" on a certain dish.  Sure one time is easily dismissed in their mind but what if the entire staff decided to do it one time or even, as is often the case, every once in a while. After a while the friends begin to get used to the "hook-up" and it is no longer a treat but becomes an expectation.
At one of the restaurants I worked at, one of the cooks used to own his own place and we got into a discussion about this problem. He frankly admitted that while his restaurant was popular he got into the habit of giving items away for friends and that it was one of the factors that hindered his profitability. We were discussing this while we watched with exasperation one of the owners give away almost half of a dessert that had been prepared earlier that afternoon. The explanation was that if the customers tried it they would tell other people how good it was and that would bring in more business. On another occasion a couple of side items were prepared for a special since it was New Years and it was a traditional plate where the owner was from.  Again we shook our heads in shock as the side items were given away with every plate that was sold throughout the day. "That's how we do it where I'm from" was the reasoning behind this atrocity. It was with no real surprise when we were called in a few days later and it was revealed that the establishment would be closing.
Sure it's nice to be able to comp a dish for a few friends once in a while but these extra expenditures need to be tracked and taken into account. Waste needs to be tracked and factored in as well. After all if you have to toss half a case of veggies because they went bad you just increased the case cost 100% and that becomes really pricey in the long run. There are a host of other factors that can increase food cost and I will try to touch on those in the next few posts but for now lets just make sure we're not giving away the store.