FINANCE: The Recipe Plate Costing Calculator: The Only Tool You Really Need [Sponsored by Orderly]

Recipe plate costing is important. It's what drives the profitability in your menu. BUT, do we really need theoretical food cost driven from the recipe plate costing module in our POS?!?

Yeah, it's overkill... too much time invested... and if we're honest about it... it's not accurate either.

Somewhere we got lost and duped that recipe plate costing should be complicated. It's not. That's why we put together this handy Recipe Plate Costing Calculator. We like to think of it as the "easy button" for recipe plate costing. Get the calculator. Compute your dish cost. Price your menu... and make money.

DID YOU KNOWS…

Don’t Get Burned

38 million fire extinguishers have been recalled, all sold over the past 44 years. The recall crosses 134 different models of Kidde fire extinguishers for nozzle plugging issues. Here’s how to see if your extinguishers need replacing.

#BoycottBean

Some people aren’t happy with Jim Bean because of actress Mila Kunis. Kunis is a spokesperson for the popular bourbon company. On Conan, she talked about how she donates money to women’s healthcare provider Planned Parenthood in VP Mike Pence’s name, ruffling the feathers of some of Pence’s supporters.

Twitter Goes a Full 280

Despite the public outcry to not to do it, Twitter has announced that it will double everyone’s tweet limit to 280 characters. Twitter claims the change is good, saying that its users find it difficult to tweet.

GOOGLE KNOWS HOW LONG

Why it matters to you: Google’s new wait time feature -- blessing or curse?

Is Google a curse or a blessing to our industry? So, often they are both, and the new Google feature that quotes an estimated wait time at over 1 million restaurants is no exception.

To start, it creates one more data point that you, as an operator, need to monitor. For example, if Google is over or under estimating your wait time and guests are using that to make decisions about visiting, they might be working from faulty data. Consequently, they may arrive thinking you have no wait, just be disappointed to find one…or they could avoid your restaurant altogether when in reality you aren’t currently on a wait.

This all plays into the new consumer aversion to actually interacting with people that provide them service. With these on-demand apps that allow guests to order, put their name on a waiting list, or give feedback without ever talking to someone from your location, the distance between you and the guest continues to grow. That’s why it’s more important than ever to create the best experience possible, so guests will visit regardless of the wait time. You can also leverage an app like NextMe or NoWait to make sure guests get accurate wait time info and access to your queue. Either way, just know that you’re being represented on the internet in a lot of ways and it’s up to you, and only you, to manage them.

THE OTHER MUSK

Why it matters to you: Being Elon Musk’s brother can’t be easy.

Who is Kimbal Musk? If you said Elon Musk’s brother, you are only half right. He is also a man with a plan to disrupt the casual dining segment of our industry. His current restaurants -- The Kitchen, Next Door, and Hedge Row -- are all about brining great food and passion to the dining experience. Each is an example of his newly minted category “urban casual” dining. His thinking is that people want high energy when they go out, even if they live in less energetic suburban areas. Musk asserts that the urban affectation will work in any demographic as long as it’s executed well.

To that end, he also asserts that he has no trouble staffing for the same reason his restaurants succeed -- Millennials. Musk contends that most operators struggle to attract Millennials as both staff and customers because they aren’t delivering any feeling of purpose.

“People say Millennials are the entitled generation, but what I see is an impassioned generation,” Musk said. His restaurants deliver exactly what Millennials want. While we don’t know if his grand vision will be realized, but if he’s anything like his brother, we won’t