Wednesday, November 4, 2026 · For people who sign the checks Calculators · About
Menu & Margin
Open a restaurant and improve how it runs—checklists, operations tools, and free calculators for independent owners

By Menu & Margin editorial team · Published · Updated

Back of house

Back of house tools

Kitchen and storeroom systems: inventory, food cost, KDS, supplier ordering, recipe costing, and food safety logs.

What is back of house here?

Back-of-house keeps the kitchen honest: inventory and food cost, KDS, supplier ordering, recipe costing, and food safety logs. Process first; software second.

How to cut food cost this month

  1. Close four weeks of food cost with the same formula: (beg + purchases − end) ÷ food sales.
  2. Tag waste daily (spoil, cook error, trim, comp).
  3. Recount the top three spend SKUs mid-week.
  4. Lock recipes / portion weights for the five highest-volume plates.
  5. Only then evaluate invoice-capture or inventory platforms.

Walkthrough: Running better → Food cost too high · Food cost calculator.

Kitchen display (KDS)

  1. Map stations on a whiteboard before demos: grill, sauté, fry, pantry, expo.
  2. Time ten real rush tickets; cut or pre-batch the three slowest plates before buying screens.
  3. Bump rules: expo owns the window; no bumping blind.
  4. Align POS routing so tickets don’t dump on one printer—see ticket-time triage.

Ordering, recipe costing, food safety logs

  1. Ordering: set pars from actual usage, not last year’s standing order; refuse short-dated product at receiving.
  2. Recipe costing: include yield and trim; re-cost when invoice unit prices move on the top spend SKUs.
  3. Food safety: match the fields your inspector already asks for on paper (cooler temps, cooling logs, corrective action)—digitize the same fields, don’t invent new ones.
  4. Waste: one week of tagged dumps (spoil / cook error / trim / comp) before buying inventory software—see inventory waste triage.

Tool picks

Inventory software comparison MarketMan, Toast/xtraCHEF, MarginEdge, BlueCart, Lightspeed. Prime cost calculator Food + labor together. Inventory waste triage Diagnose spoil vs. prep vs. theft unknown.

Frequently asked questions

Should I buy inventory software before fixing food cost?
No. Close four weeks of food cost, tag waste, and recount top spend SKUs first. Software amplifies a weekly count process—it does not replace one.

Product pages

MarketManInventory & purchasing MarginEdgeInvoices & food cost BlueCartOrdering & inventory xtraCHEF by ToastToast inventory module

Toast Inventory (affiliate)

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Other vendors (non-affiliate)