Hands up those who want to run a fine dining restaurant. The way I view it, these businesses are running a charity for their staff and for the customers. I've seen quite a few hospitality businesses that have allowed their costs to blow-out to the point where they require massive injections of cash to keep them running. If your labour costs are too high, your natural reaction may be to get out your red pen and slash your rosters. Your food and beverage costs are also the result of the management of a number of different issues, and not just the result of your wastage or portion sizes.
Pubs generally have lower prices and rely on low labour costs and high turnover to produce a profit.
The way we tackle a food or beverage cost problem is to follow the flow of product from the time of negotiation with the supplier, through to delivery, storage, preparation, cooking or dispensing, portioning and pricing. I'm not one of those people who advocate having 'loss leaders' on your menus or beverage lists. We get the argument that 'we have to have our old favourites on the menu' quite often. I'm not impressed by this argument. Everything you sell should deliver an appropriate margin.