FoodOwner of a 20–60 seat eatery, cooking or managing in person

When I look at my own menu, I want to know which dishes actually make money, so I can drop the ones quietly eating the shop's cash.

Khi tôi nhìn vào thực đơn của mình, tôi muốn biết món nào thật sự đem lại lãi, để bỏ bớt món đang âm thầm ăn vào tiền của quán.

Job context

Who: An owner who prices by doubling ingredient cost
When: When ingredient prices jump, or when revenue looks fine but cash is gone
Trigger: A busier month that ends with less money than the quieter one
Situation: Revenue is counted daily; per-dish cost is counted by nobody
Constraints: No accountant, and every calculation must finish before opening

Does not know a dish's real cost
High
The recipe on paper is one thing; the cook's hand adding more is another.
Root cause: Portions are never re-measured once the dish is on the menu
Ingredient prices move weekly; menu prices do not
High
One price spike turns the best dish into a loss-maker with no signal at all.
Root cause: Changing prices costs a menu reprint and some regulars' goodwill
The best-selling dish may not be the one paying the bills
High
Owners remember which dish leaves the kitchen most, not which leaves the most money.
Root cause: The till counts plates, not margin
Waste never reaches the cost sheet
Medium
Shrinkage disappears into the end-of-shift bin and shows up in no number.
Root cause: Nobody weighs the waste, because weighing costs ten more minutes each night
Dropping a dish risks losing regulars
Medium
The loss-making dish is often the reason a whole group picks this place.
Root cause: Margin is measured per dish; the decision to come is made per table

A solution is not the same thing as a product — a customer can hire a behaviour or a workaround too.

POS with reporting
Product
Knows everything about revenue and almost nothing about cost, because cost must be typed in by hand.
Monthly bookkeeper
Service
Answers the question, but after the month is already over.
A homemade recipe-cost spreadsheet
Workaround
Owners build exactly what the industry lacks, then stop updating it after a few weeks.
Keep it in their head
Behaviour
The commonest method, accurate until the first price jump.
Ask other owners in a trade group
Behaviour
The trade's real learning channel, delivering another shop's numbers.

The till counts plates; the keep-or-drop decision needs margin.
Why existing solutions fail: POS measures what it generates — transactions. Cost lives in market receipts and the cook's hand, neither of which it can reach.
Potential opportunity: Linking purchase receipts to recipes so margin appears by itself instead of being typed in.
Margin is calculated per dish while customers choose per table.
Why existing solutions fail: Every report is ordered by dish because data arrives as receipt lines; no tool asks which tables would stop coming.
Potential opportunity: Reading margin per bill, so a loss-making dish that drags in four profitable ones is seen correctly.