STOP blaming “slow weeks” for your high food costs. Your food cost percentage isn’t just about sales, it’s about usage. Here’s the math most restaurant owners miss: Food Cost % = (Usage / Sales) × 100 Usage = Beginning Inventory Purchases − Ending Inventory So if your team keeps using $3,000 worth of food while sales drop from $10,000 to $8,000, your food cost just jumped from 30% to 37.5%. 💡That’s not a sales problem. That’s an inventory control problem. Tighten your counts. Enforce portion co