Menu margin AI
The hero dish is often the weakest margin on the menu.
MarginKitchen recomputes plate cost from live invoices, ranks every dish by contribution and volume, and flags the moves — re-price, re-cost, push, pull — that protect tomorrow's GP.
Margin map
+4.1pt
menu margin
The leak
POS reports tell you what sold. Not what was profitable.
Most operators learn the menu's real margin shape only at quarterly review — long after a 6% supplier increase has eaten the GP on the best-selling plate.
- Best-seller is quietly running 38% GP, hadn't been re-priced in nine months.
- Supplier price moved before the menu price did.
- Sub-recipes still costed at last quarter's invoice.
- Channel commissions distort effective margin off-prem.
How operators use it
Menu engineering that updates with every invoice.
MarginKitchen reconciles vendor invoices to recipes, rebuilds plate cost daily, and places every dish on the menu engineering quadrant — Star, Workhorse, Puzzle, Dog — with the action that fits.
- Live plate cost from vendor invoices, not last quarter
- Contribution margin and menu engineering quadrants
- Channel-aware GP for off-prem and delivery mix
- Suggested re-price, re-cost, push or pull, with impact
- Tracks margin drift week-over-week so you catch creep early
Service timeline
How an owner uses menu margin every Monday.
- Step 01
Monday 07:00
Owner opens the menu margin board — quadrant view of all dishes.
- Step 02
07:10
Three dishes flagged with GP drift > 5pp from target.
- Step 03
07:20
Owner approves a $1.50 re-price on the workhorse and a re-cost on the puzzle.
- Step 04
Tuesday
Print refreshes; new plate costs feed the prep plan.
- Step 05
Following Monday
GP delta reported in the weekly profit brief.
Connected workflows
Margin moves with prep, supply and channel.
Engineer the menu before the next print.
Import your menu, recipes and recent supplier invoices — your first margin board is ready in under 15 minutes.
FAQ
Questions operators actually ask.
No. MarginKitchen sits on top of the POS, schedule and vendor invoices you already use. We turn that data into the daily decisions a POS won't tell you — what to prep, who to staff, what to re-price, what to 86.