Common questions,
straight answers

High-cost, high-velocity items (proteins, seafood, dairy) should be counted daily or every two days. Dry goods and packaged items can be counted weekly.

A full physical count should happen at minimum weekly for accurate food cost reporting — and at consistent intervals (same day each week) so your variance data is actually comparable. With software that tracks theoretical depletion against your counts, you can catch shrinkage and waste in real time instead of discovering it at month-end.

The best restaurant inventory software is the one your team will actually use. That rules out $300/month platforms with 8-week onboarding and implementation teams — they're built for enterprise chains, not independent operators.

For single-location or small multi-unit restaurants, you want something that connects to your menu, tracks ingredient depletion automatically, and tells you when to reorder before you run out. Mise is built specifically for this: $79/month, no POS hardware required, live the same day.

Evaluating POS-based tools? See how Mise compares to Toast →

Par level is the minimum quantity of an ingredient you want on hand at any time — the floor before you need to reorder. It's not a fixed number; it should reflect your actual usage velocity, delivery schedule, and storage capacity.

A busy Friday night has a different par for chicken breast than a Tuesday lunch. Most operators set par once and forget it, which is why they constantly over-order perishables. Dynamic par levels — calculated from real depletion history — mean your orders match actual demand.

You reorder when current stock minus expected usage before your next delivery drops below your safety stock. The formula:

Reorder Point = (Avg daily usage × Lead time in days) + Safety stock

In practice, most operators reorder when something "looks low" — which means they're either chronically over-stocked or occasionally running out mid-service. Mise calculates reorder points from your actual usage history and sends alerts when you genuinely need to order.

Restaurant overordering comes from guessing instead of calculating. The fix: base every order on actual depletion data — how much of each ingredient did you use per day over the last 7–14 days? Add safety stock. Subtract what's on hand. That's your order quantity.

This sounds obvious, but pulling real depletion data without software takes hours. Most operators don't have it, so they estimate. Estimates run high because running out mid-service is catastrophic and over-ordering is just expensive.

Target food cost varies by concept:

Fine dining: 28–32%
Casual dining: 28–35%
Fast casual: 25–35%
Bar / beverage-heavy: 18–28%

What matters more than the benchmark is variance from your own target. A restaurant consistently hitting 34% is healthier than one swinging between 28% and 42%. If you don't know your actual food cost percentage to the decimal right now, you're flying blind.

Food cost % = (COGS ÷ Revenue) × 100
COGS = Opening inventory + Purchases − Closing inventory

The problem: manual inventory counts are time-consuming and error-prone, so most operators only do this monthly — by which point the damage is done. Real-time food cost tracking uses recipe-level costing (ingredient cost per dish × units sold) to give you a running actual vs. theoretical variance every day, so you catch problems in hours, not weeks.

High food cost almost always traces back to one or more of:

1. Over-ordering and spoilage — buying more than you can use before it expires
2. Portion inconsistency — kitchen staff eyeballing instead of weighing
3. Theft or unrecorded consumption — staff meals, bar pours, unlogged waste
4. Unabsorbed price increases — vendor prices went up, menu pricing didn't follow
5. Mispriced menu items — items sold below their actual ingredient cost

The fastest way to diagnose: pull a theoretical vs. actual variance report by ingredient. Items with large variances are where your money is going.

The biggest drivers of restaurant food waste are over-ordering, poor rotation (FIFO failures), and portion inconsistency. Start by tracking what you actually throw away, by category, for two weeks. Most operators are shocked.

Then set par levels based on actual usage data, not intuition. Order against depletion history. And enforce FIFO with labeled containers. The operators with the lowest waste share one trait: they have data, and they act on it the same week, not the same quarter.

Industry estimates put restaurant food waste at 4–10% of food purchased, with the average full-service restaurant wasting roughly $2,000–$6,000 per month.

That range hides enormous variance. Operators who track inventory closely can cut waste to under 2%. Those running on intuition regularly see 8–12%. The difference is almost entirely data. You can't manage what you can't measure.

Mise is restaurant inventory software that tracks what you have, calculates what you're using, and tells you when to reorder before you run out.

Setup takes about 10 minutes: enter your menu items and ingredient costs. Mise tracks depletion as you log sales and inventory counts, calculates your actual food cost versus theoretical, and sends reorder alerts based on real usage patterns — not guesswork. No POS hardware required. No implementation team. You're live the same day.

See an interactive demo →

$79/month per location. No contracts, no setup fees, no per-user charges, no hardware required.

Operators who use it typically recover that cost in the first week from reduced over-ordering and waste alone. There's a free interactive demo — no email required.

Considering enterprise alternatives? See how Mise compares to Restaurant365 →

Direct POS integrations are on the roadmap. Today, Mise works without any POS connection — you log sales counts directly, which takes under 2 minutes at the end of each shift.

For many operators, this is actually preferable to a POS integration that requires IT configuration and ongoing maintenance. The core value (accurate inventory, real food cost, reorder alerts) works fully without POS sync.