Double the Value of Your Restaurant P&L with One New Column

One of the smartest (and most successful) operators I know always looks at his numbers this way.

On every financial report, whether it's daily, weekly or his monthly restaurant P&L, there is a column with each number on the report expressed as an amount per guest (per cover).

For example, if one of his restaurants served 2,500 guests last week and generated $4,000 in beverage sales, beverage sales would be $1.60 per guest. If hourly labor costs totaled $6,500, labor cost would be $2.60 per guest.

There is a huge benefit in doing this: What if beverage sales per guest had been running close to $2.00 per guest or his other two restaurants consistently sold more beverages per guest?

Beverage sales per guest of just $1.60 might indicate a training issue, service problem or even unrecorded sales (theft of cash). These potential problems would probably be missed if the owner was just looking at total beverage sales of $4,000.

"Sales can be up 10%, but if labor cost per guest rises by 50 cents, profitability is moving in the wrong direction."
- Author Unknown

Same thing with hourly labor cost per guest. Rather than just show hourly labor cost as a percentage of sales, labor cost per guest can be way more revealing and a much better way to compare the labor productivity and scheduling practices of his managers in his three restaurants.

Cost per guest is also helpful when comparing other restaurant P&L expenses such as paper, tableware, restaurant supplies, linen and other services that should fluctuate up or down depending on the number of customers served.

Looking at your sales and expenses on a "per guest" basis can provide extremely valuable insights into how your restaurant (or restaurants) is actually performing and what areas of your business need attention.

A restaurant P&L tells you what happened. Adding an amount per guest column tells you why. This simple but powerful shift transforms your financial reports into a true management tool, revealing hidden inefficiencies in labor, sales, and expenses that percentage-based analysis often misses. Explore the resources below to learn how to strengthen your restaurant P&L, benchmark performance, and turn financial data into actionable insight.

Related Resources

How to Make Your Profit & Loss Statement One of Your Most Important Management Tools: Learn how to interpret your numbers for real operational insight and use them to drive performance improvements.

The Restaurant Owner’s Financial Management Scorecard: This scorecard helps operators benchmark their restaurant P&L results (like labor, food cost, and amount per guest) against industry standards to identify areas for growth.

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The RestaurantOwner.com Team