[Party Elephant]

Originally Posted by btimbit

Appetizers are usually a good money maker, same with desserts like you said.

Add-ons are also a big money maker as far as cost/profit goes. That steak might not make much money, but add mushrooms and shrimp onto that and now it's a different story as those things are cheap. Say the steak was $30, and the profit was $2. Add 6oz of mushrooms to that (Cost $3, profit $2.75) and now that 30/2 steak becomes a $33 steak with $4.75 of profit. Doesn't seem like much but if you look at it in percentages it adds up quick.

Drinks are definitely the biggest though, say a place did $10k in food sales in a night, the drink sales could easily double or triple that. And that's just the sales before costs, so keep in mind that of that 10k in food, maybe 1-2k is profit. But of the say 20 in drinks, a good 10-11k of that would be profit.

What makes this more interesting is the manpower, development and training required to make that food vs just showing a bartender how to pour wine.

That's why they say the best advice to anyone looking to open a restaurant for profit, is to open a bar instead.

Make it a bar with VLTs and those will make more than your food and beverage combined!