These two examples show how important it is for a restaurant that is considering expansion to consider the size of the labor pool when looking at locations. In most restaurants there are approximately one hundred jobs that must be filled and the refilled approximately every three to six months. When a customer walks into a restaurant they are looking for one thing. That one thing they are looking for is not the atmosphere or the service, they have a basic need to fulfill and that need is to feed themselves. If people are truly looking for atmosphere and service then how has McDonald's managed to serve billions of us.
Food is therefore the root of any restaurant.
The trouble is that if food costs get too high, profits are few and far between. A restaurant needs to be able to keep the cost of the food at thirty percent or below. This percentage must include all food costs from what the consumer will receive on their plate, the food items used in preparation of the menu items, spoilage, and employee related shrinkage. The first and obvious item is the food the consumer receives on their plate. This food costs a certain amount of money to the restaurant and hopefully that is less than thirty percent of what the customer is paying for their meal.