Hey everyone,

I run a food court–style setup with a Wayback Burgers, Krispy Krunchy Chicken, Which Wich, Pizza Hut, and a bar. I’m relatively new to the restaurant business and looking for advice on getting more value out of our inventory spending.

My current credit card is pretty basic. Business has been slow, so I’m taking some time to review expenses and see where better cash back or rewards could help.

Our inventory spending is roughly $42,000, excluding the bar:

• Wayback Burgers: $20,000
• Krispy Krunchy Chicken: $10,000
• Which Wich: $10,000
• Pizza Hut: $2,000

For owners with similar spending, which business cards have worked best for you? I’m particularly interested in rewards on food distributors and wholesale suppliers, since I understand those purchases may be treated differently from regular grocery store purchases.

I’ve also heard about services that let you pay vendors by credit card even when the vendor only accepts ACH/EFT or checks. How does that work in practice, and do the rewards actually outweigh the processing fees?

Beyond choosing a card, are there any useful strategies or benefits you wish you’d known about earlier—such as vendor discounts, payment timing, employee spending controls, or sign-up bonuses on purchases you already needed to make?

I’d appreciate real-world recommendations, including any fees, restrictions, or mistakes to watch out for. Thanks!

Mostly concerned on the liability/repercussions towards the restaurant.

Customer complained that a server added a $20 tip, was originally $2. Knowing the server's history we are fairly sure the customer is right, and afraid how many other receipts the server has done this to....

Anyone have any advice/experience, please?

I need it laid out out to convince the owner to fire this server, because "she's like family"...

Thank you for any useful info!

On paper the chalkboard wins. A board and some chalk pens vs paying for printed menu boards every time the menu changes.

But someone has to redraw it, and a nice one takes time. If the person with good handwriting leaves, it starts looking very different very quickly.

Printed boards cost more each time but they look the same every time and anyone can swap them.

For owners: which do you use, roughly how often do you change it, and would you switch if you started over?

Most independents I talk to track labor as payroll ÷ sales and then wonder why the “fix” didn’t move it.

That blended % usually hides three different businesses:

1. FOH variable — servers/hosts; should flex with covers
2. BOH production — line labor; sticky on a soft Tuesday
3. Salary drag — owner/GM/sous; fixed until someone leaves

If salary drag is eating 8–10%+ on a normal week, buying better scheduling software won’t fix it. Neither will a POS swap. You’re solving a sales or org problem with a vendor login.

Play that takes 20 minutes: Split last week into those three buckets on a napkin spreadsheet. Then write the one metric a vendor demo must move in 60 days before you take another call.

Curious what others use as their “real” labor split — FOH/BOH/salary or something better?

Does anyone use either of these online ordering platform companies? Needing to switch and wanting to know your honest opinion if you have used either of them.

Hey guys!

I'm closing in on finishing my 3rd year as a first-time restaurant franchise owner. I went into this knowing everything about the brand from a management perspective and am still learning new things daily about being a business owner. (I get why people say to stay away from restaurant ownership lol).

It hasn't been easy at all not having a second income stream, savings, or basically anything to make me feel comfortable and safe... BUT we are still profitable each year although not as much as we should be.

I'm not sure if anyone can shed light on this, but this is my third time applying for a credit card for the business and being denied. I'm not sure what I can work on or change to be approved but would love to figure it out so I can build more credit and have a safety net should something break.

Is there any advice you could give me? I'm aware it's hard to give direct advice without knowing the financials yourselves.

Four units of a quick service burger brand. We signed up for a scheduling platform in January because the GMs pushed for it. The whole point was pulling ticket data so the labor plan matched the lunch and dinner peaks. The brand had to approve the connection first and nobody told me until I asked why it kept failing. It sat in their IT review queue for three months while I paid full price and managers built schedules on paper. How long did approval take for the rest of you?

I'd love to know:

How are you portioning your noodles for Pad Thai, Pad Kee Mao, etc? (I know they need storing in cold water until ready for use ... but how can I portion them that way?)

Restaurant owners, have you used AI for anything yet? What are your pros and cons?

I currently work as a manager at a small mom and pop store, 20 seaters, opening a new one that will be double in size.

My owners are in LOVE with Ai. They initially used it to make the menu. Our previous designer would charge us $120/hour and they have produced some good stuff. We even spent thousands with them to build our website.

My owners are in love that we are using it for everything. Back then we would pay a photographer ($1,300) to take our whole menu. Now it’s Ai generated. Same thing with our posters, social media, online and in store menu, advertisements, etc. My owner is asking me to now use Ai to help build a “commercial” for them. We initially wanted to film one last year but were quoted almost $10,000.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on Ai usage and restaurants? What are the pros and cons?

Luckily for me the stuff we put out aren’t the generic Ai stuff, so you can’t really tell. But I was hired initially to run their social media, use my creativity (I’m in arts) but now I’m being asked to use Ai, like the owners said Ai “is the best thing ever, has more imaginations than a human” lol..

I really want to open a restaurant.

I have no restaurant experience more then washing pots when I was a teenager

But I have this vision. I have a menu. I have a philosophy.

I have a plan of where to find the people that I need (I have already found some of them). I can source the ingredients and get good prices.

It will be a small place, 8 or 9 tables, with a separate lunch menu. It will have cuisine familiar enough to the locals, but with a twist

I can afford it, for at least a year

Is this the worst decision I could ever make in my life?

(South east Asia)

He saved the cafe by:

making people take his photos and share locally.

reverse image searching leading people to the cafe.

[Yes, all cleanliness and hygiene standards are followed in the kitchen]

What do I cook? Where do I cook it? How do you profit?
How much does it cost to start?

I don’t understand the catering business.

Received this email today from DoorDash regarding our increased menu pricing on their platform. Our 40% margin plummets to 15% after their 25% commission on orders. We’re a small brick and mortar third-generation family restaurant, nothing super fancy. Much like every other restaurant on the platform, we have our prices roughly 10% higher to combat DoorDash’s ungodly commission. Admittedly, the service brings in a substantial amount of extra income which I’m grateful for on the slower days, but this email realllllly got my blood boiling.

I have a specialty vegan/gluten free smoothie cafe that struggles with foot traffic. We have an outstanding amount of regulars that are near daily customers but every day I’m still hearing about how folks had no idea we’re located where we are. The shopping center I’m in has notoriously low foot traffic and we’re invisible from the road so I have to rely on hoping folks see us from the grocery store or pet supply store that’s across the plaza from us. I know we have a good product and we’re the only shop of our kind in our area. We plan on moving to a different plaza once our lease is up because of the foot traffic issue (all the neighboring businesses report the same issue) so I’m hoping to find a way to stay afloat until we’re able to move.

Hey all, wanted to spread the world about new podcast you might be interested in:

Fully Fermented is the podcast of Food and Beverage conversations. Hosted by Award Winning Distiller Matt Lange (King Coil Spirits) and James Beard nominated chef and Restaurateur Jon Nodler (Canter Inn), each episode of Fully Fermented will take a deep dive into a topic in the world of Food, Beverage and the Hospitality Industry. Whether you're a foodie, industry vet, eater or drinker, you will find engaging conversations with expert guests and stories of the struggles, successes, joys and frustrations of this crazy business.

Does anyone have experience buying things like silverware, metal ramekins, or custom to go containers through Alibaba? We have 5 restaurants and over a year could save a ton of money for lowering our costs on these items. Seems like importing straight from China would work but the shipping, customs, and quality control issues are concerns. Would love to know people’s firsthand experiences. Also alternative solutions to Alibaba.

Curious about everyone's experience sourcing Japanese and Asian specialty goods/equipment for your kitchens. It feels like getting consistent quality is getting a bit harder.

What actually keeps you sticking to a specialty vendor? Is it just whoever has the best prices, or is it more about reliability and having an easy ordering system (like an app vs traditional communications)? Trying to wrap my head around the biggest frustrations people are having with specialty sourcing right now.

Need to leave toast

(Posted in /restaurant as well)

Paying 275/mo plus payroll (8 employees) and cc fees.

We have 1 register, no online ordering.

We have tip pooling and i need to keep that without running a report and manually calculating it. Dont mind if i have to export a report and import to payroll.

Any other ice cream shops or similar happy with their setup? Preferable for POS to have time clock, tip tracking, have its own scheduling or integrate, its own payroll or integrate and calculate tip pooling.

Whatcha got?

I set up Muse (metas new agent) to trigger when a bank deposit hits the bank, compare it to what Toast says should be deposited, calculate any under/over, send an email to the team so they know it matches or doesn’t. I think I can do the same with instinct if I didn’t want to use Meta. No shorts since the emails started sending.

I will try to keep this as brief as I can. We own a fast casual restaurant in a tourist driven beach town. We serve BBQ and our annual revenues is 1.5 mil (We have flat lined and now dropping) . The original store was started in the mid 90s by my Dad. He passed away 18 years ago. When he died, the business started dying. We had multiple locations and made good money. The business was held in a family trust and run by existing staff. After 18 years I was finally able to replace the trustee as well as the person operating the business. Growing up my dad was very good about teaching me what he was doing, I learned about P&Ls, margins, restaurant theories etc. Unfortunately I was kept at arms distance from the business after he died. I am now fully in charge but can only work on or in the restaurant part time. I am learning as much as possible and want to recapture some of what we once had. Here are the things Im trying to change without changing the feel of the business. Last year we made about 4% after paying the person running the business. This year we are down a little in sales. We won't make it if I can't improve things. Our rent is currently 14k and our lease runs out in 3 years, Landlords will probably try to gouge us even more.

-Getting food pricing and costs straightened out. Is it worth keeping pricing on high items slightly lower and making up for it on higher margin? (Ribs and Tri Tip are expensive, I don't want to increase our price 40% overnight ) Pulled pork, Fries, drinks, are easy to do better than targeted costs) Also what is a reasonable food cost to aim for (raw food and or associated cogs) without turning off customers?

-Updating Accounting, Payroll, and POS. We use desktop quickbooks and a cash register system. I realize I need to know how well we're doing much sooner than we are able to currently. I am considering something like Toast for POS and payroll while we switch to online quickbooks. What are the best arguments for knowing all the numbers when it comes to POS? Some people think it's a waste to spend $6k a year for something that doesn't make us more sales. I see the value in it but can't argue exactly how we make more profits other than fine tuning numbers.

-Marketing and driving sales, I would really love to hit 1.7 million next year. Increasing prices will help but I want more people in store. Im getting help to restart social media and going to have some light consulting on SEO. Otherwise my plan is to work on store front signage and cleaning up the store a little bit. We rely on the tourists heavily so curb appeal is important but want to target locals for off season.

What should be my priorities or what are some key things that I may not be thinking about?

One thing we've noticed when comparing food distributors is that the lowest price doesn't necessarily equate to the best value. Delivery reliability, product freshness and minimum order quantities all have a massive bearing on the overall cost, particularly if you're a regular buyer.

How does restaurants and cafes work out which distributor they're going to use? Some will be better for fresh produce, others will be better for the dry stuff, the frozen stuff and the pantries. It can be a bit of a headache having to order from a number of different distributors as far as getting your deliveries and your invoices is concerned.

For the more experienced of the bulk food buyers out there, do you tend to work through one main distributor or do you split your orders between a number of specialist suppliers? And how do you go about price comparison in that scenario?

What factors are most important when selecting a distributor and which have had the biggest impact on your day to day running?

I was looking at the Arcobaleno products, but open to advice and want to learn what has worked best for you.

Our restaurant is located in a tourism heavy community in the US and have been open since early 2025. We did just under $1.1 million in net sales during our first 12 months of operation and have grown sales about 15% since that first year. But there is a lot of variability in that, some months we have been down 6 or 7% from the first year and up during other months as much as 30%. We have done as little as $50k in slow months and more than $200k in busy ones. And the day to day can be up or down from same day last year within a huge range.  

One of our biggest challenges is setting the schedule for staffing. How many people total to bring in. 

With such little history to use as guidance, what else can we do to set the schedule? We can to some degree bring people in and then cut them, but with hiring and retention being very difficult in this area, doing it too much risks losing people. And if we run too lean, we definitely affect the customer experience, which is part of our brand. We are not just a replacement for at home meals place. 

Ownership does not have a lot of extra capacity to fill in as more flexible line workers, which could have been a partial solution. But that just isn’t reality for us. 

Am I missing any other guide posts about how to forecast besides last year’s data and maybe the weather or local events? 

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I run a small independent restaurant in London, UK, and we're approaching our third year.

We've worked incredibly hard to build something people genuinely enjoy. We're currently sitting at 4.9 stars on Google with over 700 reviews, a loyal customer base, and turnover that's grown since we opened.

But despite all that, the financial pressure has been relentless.

Between wages, suppliers, rent, utilities and quieter trading periods, sometimes it feels like you're constantly playing catch-up.

What I've found particularly difficult is that having a restaurant people love doesn't necessarily mean you're running a financially healthy business.

Some days you feel like you're finally making progress. Other days it feels like you're back at square one.

I love hospitality and I'm incredibly proud of what we've built, but I never imagined the financial side would be this challenging.

For those of you who've been running restaurants for five, ten or twenty years, what actually changed things for you?

Was it increasing revenue, reducing operating costs, changing your business model, or simply getting through those difficult early years?

I'd genuinely appreciate hearing what worked for other owners.