Most restaurant owners price their menu based on food cost percentage. The standard advice is "keep it around 30%." But that number is hiding something important.

Your best-selling dish might have a great food cost ratio — and still be losing you money.

Here's why: a $12 pasta with 25% food cost makes you $9 gross. A $28 steak with 40% food cost makes you $16.80 gross. The pasta "looks" better on paper, but every time a customer orders it instead of the steak, you leave $7.80 on the table.

Now multiply that across 200 covers a night.

The fix isn't raising prices randomly. It's understanding which dishes actually drive profit per seat, per hour — and designing your menu layout to nudge customers toward them.

This is exactly what we built TableIQ to solve. Digital menus that adapt, paired with analytics that show you what's actually making you money (and what's quietly draining it).

If you run an independent restaurant and want to stop guessing, this is for you.