Restaurant Labor Cost Report

Sales per labor hour, labor cost %, overtime exposure, and prime cost against the 55-60% industry benchmark - by daypart and day of week, with a ranked list of shifts to restructure by labor cost gap.

About this report

The sales side of this report is the same real POS revenue behind the Menu Profitability Report. The source export has no time-of-day on each sale, so this report splits each day's real revenue into Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner and synthesizes a plausible shift schedule (clock-in/out times, hourly wage by role, scheduled vs. actual hours) against it, deterministically - see the Dataset note below.

Dataset

175 days of real sales (2024-01-05 to 2024-12-29), 3954 synthesized shifts across 22 employees. Regenerated fresh on every page load, directly from whatever sales data currently lives in the Menu Profitability report - a fixed seed keeps the same sales data producing the same shift schedule. Food cost % (32.3%) is read live from that report's own item-cost estimates.

69.7%
Prime cost % (target 55.0%-60.0%)
37.4%
Labor cost %
32.3%
Food cost % (from Menu Profitability data)
$41.90
Sales per labor hour
1.6%
Hours worked as overtime

Prime cost % trend

Weekly labor cost % + food cost %, against the 55.0%-60.0% industry benchmark band. Food cost % is held constant week to week (it's a per-item estimate, not a time series); the movement here is driven by labor cost %.

Labor cost % by day of week and daypart

Darker fill = higher labor cost % (relative to the other 20 cells). A red percentage means that cell is over its daypart's own target - see "Shifts to restructure" below for the full ranked list.

BreakfastLunchDinner
Monday 52.0% target 34.0% 38.2% target 29.0% 32.1% target 26.0%
Tuesday 56.4% target 34.0% 43.8% target 29.0% 31.6% target 26.0%
Wednesday 50.8% target 34.0% 37.6% target 29.0% 32.4% target 26.0%
Thursday 55.1% target 34.0% 37.3% target 29.0% 30.4% target 26.0%
Friday 65.1% target 34.0% 50.0% target 29.0% 32.9% target 26.0%
Saturday 49.5% target 34.0% 35.2% target 29.0% 29.2% target 26.0%
Sunday 48.6% target 34.0% 36.9% target 29.0% 30.0% target 26.0%
Lower labor cost % Higher labor cost %

Shifts to restructure

The day-of-week / daypart combinations furthest over their labor cost % target, ranked worst first.

DayDaypartLabor cost %TargetGap Sales / labor hrShiftsNote
Friday Breakfast 65.1% 34.0% +31.1 pts $24.83 132 Friday Breakfast runs 65.1% labor cost (+31.1 pts vs. the 34% target), averaging $25 in sales per labor hour across 132 shifts - consider trimming scheduled headcount or shortening shift length.
Tuesday Breakfast 56.4% 34.0% +22.4 pts $28.67 147 Tuesday Breakfast runs 56.4% labor cost (+22.4 pts vs. the 34% target), averaging $29 in sales per labor hour across 147 shifts - consider trimming scheduled headcount or shortening shift length.
Thursday Breakfast 55.1% 34.0% +21.1 pts $28.60 168 Thursday Breakfast runs 55.1% labor cost (+21.1 pts vs. the 34% target), averaging $29 in sales per labor hour across 168 shifts - consider trimming scheduled headcount or shortening shift length.
Friday Lunch 50.0% 29.0% +21.0 pts $31.98 170 Friday Lunch runs 50.0% labor cost (+21.0 pts vs. the 29% target), averaging $32 in sales per labor hour across 170 shifts - consider trimming scheduled headcount or shortening shift length.
Monday Breakfast 52.0% 34.0% +18.0 pts $30.69 160 Monday Breakfast runs 52.0% labor cost (+18.0 pts vs. the 34% target), averaging $31 in sales per labor hour across 160 shifts - consider trimming scheduled headcount or shortening shift length.
Wednesday Breakfast 50.8% 34.0% +16.8 pts $31.30 139 Wednesday Breakfast runs 50.8% labor cost (+16.8 pts vs. the 34% target), averaging $31 in sales per labor hour across 139 shifts - consider trimming scheduled headcount or shortening shift length.
Saturday Breakfast 49.5% 34.0% +15.5 pts $32.31 143 Saturday Breakfast runs 49.5% labor cost (+15.5 pts vs. the 34% target), averaging $32 in sales per labor hour across 143 shifts - consider trimming scheduled headcount or shortening shift length.
Tuesday Lunch 43.8% 29.0% +14.8 pts $35.43 200 Tuesday Lunch runs 43.8% labor cost (+14.8 pts vs. the 29% target), averaging $35 in sales per labor hour across 200 shifts - consider trimming scheduled headcount or shortening shift length.
Sunday Breakfast 48.6% 34.0% +14.6 pts $33.05 118 Sunday Breakfast runs 48.6% labor cost (+14.6 pts vs. the 34% target), averaging $33 in sales per labor hour across 118 shifts - consider trimming scheduled headcount or shortening shift length.
Monday Lunch 38.2% 29.0% +9.2 pts $41.46 221 Monday Lunch runs 38.2% labor cost (+9.2 pts vs. the 29% target), averaging $41 in sales per labor hour across 221 shifts - consider trimming scheduled headcount or shortening shift length.

Efficiency by daypart

DaypartRevenueLabor hrsSales/labor hrLabor cost %
Breakfast $135,218.90 4521.8 $29.90 53.5%
Lunch $256,241.24 6390.0 $40.10 39.2%
Dinner $419,004.28 8429.9 $49.70 31.0%

Efficiency by day of week

DayRevenueLabor hrsSales/labor hrLabor cost %
Monday $127,892.49 3066.6 $41.71 37.6%
Tuesday $102,254.27 2623.5 $38.98 40.2%
Wednesday $103,783.14 2514.9 $41.27 37.6%
Thursday $119,400.38 2876.2 $41.51 37.4%
Friday $90,175.55 2415.4 $37.33 42.8%
Saturday $150,692.45 3269.7 $46.09 33.8%
Sunday $116,266.15 2575.5 $45.14 34.8%

Overtime exposure by role

83 of 3954 shifts (2.1%) include overtime hours; total OT premium cost $2,133.30.

RoleOT hoursOT premium $Share of shifts w/ OT
Server 192.2 $1,312.80 3.6%
Host 58.3 $390.48 2.7%
Dishwasher 51.3 $363.70 2.2%
Cook 7.5 $66.32 0.3%
Shift Manager 0.0 $0.00 0.0%

Schedule vs. actual variance

1543 shifts ran over their scheduled hours, 1264 ran under, out of 3954 total.

DaypartScheduled hrsActual hrsVariance
Breakfast 4467.4 4521.8 +54.4 hrs (+1.2%)
Lunch 6331.2 6390.0 +58.8 hrs (+0.9%)
Dinner 8351.6 8429.9 +78.2 hrs (+0.9%)

Metric definitions

Sales per labor hour
Revenue divided by actual (clocked) labor hours, for a given daypart, day of week, or heatmap cell - higher is more efficient.
Labor cost %
Labor cost (regular + overtime pay) divided by revenue, same grain as sales per labor hour.
Food cost %
A simple COGS estimate: total estimated plate cost divided by total revenue, read live from the Menu Profitability report's own item-cost data (falls back to a configured default if no menu data has been imported).
Prime cost %
Labor cost % + food cost % - the standard combined benchmark, with a 55-60% target band for a full-service restaurant.
Overtime exposure
Hours and dollars paid at the overtime premium once an employee crosses the weekly hours threshold, by role.
Schedule variance
Actual clocked hours minus scheduled hours - positive means shifts are running long, negative means early clock-outs or no-shows.