What Is a Good Food Cost Percentage?

The short answer: 28 to 32 percent for most restaurants. The real answer: it depends entirely on your concept, service model, check average, and cost structure. A 35 percent food cost that would sink a fast-casual sandwich shop might be perfectly acceptable for a fine dining restaurant doing $120 average checks with a strong wine program. Context is everything.

Here are specific benchmarks by restaurant type, what drives the differences, and how to figure out the right target for your operation.

Benchmarks by Restaurant Type

Restaurant Type	Target Food Cost %	Why
Fine Dining	28 – 35%	High check average offsets premium ingredients. Wine margins help.
Full Service / Casual	28 – 32%	Balanced model. Most operators target 30% as the sweet spot.
Fast Casual	25 – 30%	Lower check sizes demand tighter food costs.
QSR / Fast Food	24 – 28%	Volume-driven. Standardized recipes keep costs predictable.
Pizza	20 – 26%	Flour, sauce, cheese are cheap in bulk. Highest markup category.
Bar / Tavern	18 – 24%	Beverage markup is enormous. A $2.50 cocktail pour sells for $14.
Food Truck	26 – 32%	Lower overhead, but limited menu limits cross-utilization.
Catering	28 – 35%	Volume purchasing helps, but custom menus add variability.

Why Your Number Might Be Different

These benchmarks are starting points, not rules. Several factors can push your ideal target higher or lower:

Labor costs. If you operate in a high-minimum-wage market ($18 to $20/hour), your combined food and labor (“prime cost”) needs to stay under 60 to 65 percent. That might mean targeting 26% food cost to give yourself room on labor.
Rent. A restaurant paying $25,000/month in rent needs higher contribution margins per plate than one paying $8,000. Higher rent pushes your ideal food cost down.
Beverage mix. If 35% of your revenue comes from beverages at 18% cost, your food can run 34% and your blended cost will still be about 28%. A strong bar program gives you more flexibility on food.
Average check. A $90 check can tolerate higher food cost percentages because the dollar contribution per guest is still large. At $14 average check, every percentage point matters significantly more.

The most useful exercise is to work backward from your profit target. Determine what net profit you need, subtract all fixed costs, and what remains is your budget for food and labor combined. That gives you your real food cost target — not an industry average. Our food cost guide walks through this process step by step.

What to Do If You Are Over Target

If your food cost percentage is consistently above your target, there are only four possible causes: your prices are too low, your portions are too large, you are wasting too much, or your suppliers are too expensive. Usually it is a combination.

Start by running a menu engineering analysis to identify which items are dragging your average up. Then check our 10 proven methods to reduce food cost for specific, actionable strategies. Often, addressing just two or three problem items — a Plowhorse burger and a couple of Dogs — can move your overall number by two to three points. On a restaurant doing $500,000 in annual food sales, that is $10,000 to $15,000 straight to the bottom line.

Find Out Where You Stand

Enter your menu items and see your food cost percentages compared against industry benchmarks. Know instantly which items are on target and which need attention.

Calculate Your Margins