RESTAURANT AI MANAGERNEW

Menu Engineering Software: Know Which Dishes to Keep, Fix, Push or Cut

Menu engineering sorts every dish by two things — how well it sells and how much gross profit it makes — into stars, plowhorses, puzzles and dogs, so you know which to keep, rework, promote or take off. Restaurant AI Manager does it from live figures: each dish’s cost comes from what you paid this week and its sales come from your POS, so the picture moves when a supplier price or the mix moves, not once a year in a spreadsheet.

Stars, plowhorses, puzzles and dogs from live GP and sales
Dishes to look at, ranked by pounds per week
Supplier price rises traced to the dishes they hit
An allergen matrix built from the same recipes

Try it live as owner See Restaurant AI Manager →

Built on Open Pantry ordering — free, and used by 5,000+ venues

Restaurant AI Manager menu engineering for one venue over the last four weeks: each dish plotted by GP per dish against share of dishes sold, sorted into Winners (stars), Crowd-pleasers (plowhorses), Hidden gems (puzzles) and Rethink (dogs), dishes over their food-cost target ringed in red, with a next step for each group

Recommended by:

Built for hospitality venues of every kindRestaurants Cafes Bars Pubs Quick service Catering Production kitchens Fine dining

The menu was engineered once. Then the prices moved.

The menu engineering spreadsheet was done at launch and never touched again

The best seller is assumed to be the best earner

A salmon price rise eats the margin on three dishes and nobody connects them

POS button names never quite match the recipe names

Repricing means guessing which dish guests will notice

The allergen sheet lives in a folder and is out of date the day a recipe changes

From what you paid and what you sold to what to change

Every dish is costed from what you pay

Dishes come from your costed recipes, costed at the prices on your supplier invoices and deliveries — so the cost of a dish is this week’s cost, not the one from when the menu was written.

POS sales are matched to dishes

Each POS menu item is matched to its recipe automatically, with a High, Check or Unsure label so you confirm the doubtful ones. Sales that do not match yet are held, not lost, and counted once they are matched.

Each dish lands in its quadrant

With cost and sales side by side, every dish is placed as a star, plowhorse, puzzle or dog, and the dishes worth a look are ranked by what they cost you in pounds per week.

You decide, and it drafts the change

Each suggestion has a one-tap next step that opens a draft — a price change, a recipe rework. Nothing changes until a person approves it.

Try it live as owner

No sign-up — a demo restaurant group with a guide that shows you around

Dishes to look at, ranked in pounds

The menu overview leads with the figures an owner would ask for: menu GP, how many dishes are over their food-cost target, how much GP supplier price rises are costing each week, and what getting those dishes back to target would be worth. Below that, the dishes to look at are ranked by pounds per week, not alphabetically. In the demo group, a salmon dish tops the list after a salmon fillet price rise from the fish supplier.

Menu GP and dishes over target, for one venue or all
GP lost to price rises and the value of getting back to target
Food and drinks shown separately

Menu engineering overview in Restaurant AI Manager: dishes to look at ranked by pounds lost per week, each showing the ingredient price rise behind it and how far the dish is over its food-cost target

Stars, plowhorses, puzzles and dogs

Every dish carries its price, cost, food cost against target, how many sell a week and the GP it earns a week. From those, each one is placed in a quadrant: stars sell well and earn well, plowhorses sell well but earn too little, puzzles earn well but do not sell, and dogs do neither. A plowhorse usually wants a recipe or portion fix, a puzzle wants a better spot on the menu, and a dog is a candidate to come off. On screen they are called Winners, Crowd-pleasers, Hidden gems and Rethink, each with its next step, and dishes over their food-cost target are ringed in red.

Price, cost, food cost %, sold per week and GP per week on every dish
Sort by needs a look or most sold
Compare the same dish across your venues

Restaurant dish list with price, cost, food cost percentage and points over target, number sold per week, gross profit per week and POS matched status for each dish across a restaurant group

Price rises reach the menu before month end

Price trends show how what you pay has moved, taken from every delivery you check off, per kilo, litre or each. The overall line is weighted by what you actually spend, and the biggest rises are listed. When one of them lands in a dish, the menu overview shows the dish, the ingredient and the weekly cost — so a supplier price rise becomes a menu decision this week, not a surprise in the accounts.

What everything you buy costs over 3, 6 or 12 months
Biggest rises and falls by what they cost you a month
Price rises linked to the dishes they hit

Restaurant price trends chart in Restaurant AI Manager: an index of everything the venue buys weighted by spend over six months, with the biggest rises and falls listed below

An allergen matrix from the same recipes

Because every dish is built from its recipe, the allergen matrix comes from the same place: every dish against every allergen recorded in its recipe, with a printable sheet for guests. Where a recipe has no allergens set up, it shows “needs checking” rather than guessing, so the gaps are visible before service.

Every dish against every allergen that must be declared
Printable guest sheet for front of house
“Needs checking” instead of a guess

Restaurant allergen matrix showing each dish against the allergens recorded in each recipe, including gluten, crustacean, fish, egg, milk, peanut, tree nuts and sesame, with dishes that still need their allergens checked flagged

What the menu figures come from

Your costed recipesSupplier invoices and deliveries checked offPOS sales, whichever POS you useWaste recordsEvery venue in the group

Built by the team venues already order with

Christian Abbot

“Open Pantry has created exactly what the restaurant industry needs. Something very easy to use that doesn’t require any upkeep. Their menu costing feature is fantastic and simple enough that any chef or bar manager can use it. I think restaurants that are serious about growing their profit & managing their costs need to consider Open Pantry.”

Group Executive Chef, Australian Venue Company

Chefs Love Open Pantry

Junior Malvern crew x

Thank you OPEN PANTRY, we used to have to use 6 apps to get access to ordering from our suppliers, the fact we can do it all in one has saved an incredible amount of time & effort! We love you!

Tom Pearson

We’ve been using Open Pantry for a few months now and it’s been an absolute lifesaver. We’re short staffed so being able to place all of our orders with all of our suppliers in the one spot is a massive help.

James Evans

So glad this service exists. Has made it so easy for my manager & chefs to order & all payments are settled in one go. The recurring orders & pantry lists are amazing time savers!!

Why not do menu engineering in a spreadsheet?

A spreadsheet can do the maths, but only on the numbers someone typed in, on the day they typed them. By the next supplier price rise the costs are wrong, and by the next menu change the sales mix is wrong too. Menu engineering on live figures keeps every dish’s cost and sales current, ties each change to the ingredient that caused it, and turns the answer into a draft price or recipe change instead of another tab.

Open Pantry for restaurants in the United Kingdom

UK restaurants, cafés and pubs use Open Pantry to order from all their suppliers in one place and keep food costs in view.

Plans priced in: GBP — see UK pricing
Accounting sync: Xero and QuickBooks Online

Can restaurants in the United Kingdom use Open Pantry?

Yes. Restaurants, cafés and pubs in the United Kingdom use Open Pantry to order from all their suppliers in one place, track what they buy and keep food costs in view. Paid plans are priced in GBP.

Is ordering on Open Pantry free for restaurants?

Yes. The ordering package is free, with unlimited suppliers and orders. Paid plans add menu costing, inventory and reporting, and are priced in GBP.

Menu engineering — questions operators ask

What is menu engineering and how does it work in a restaurant?＋

Menu engineering looks at every dish on two measures — how many you sell and how much gross profit each one makes — and sorts them into four groups so you know what to keep, rework, promote or remove. Restaurant AI Manager does it from live costs and POS sales rather than a one-off spreadsheet.

What is the difference between a star, plowhorse, puzzle and dog?＋

Stars sell well and earn well, so keep them as they are. Plowhorses sell well but earn too little, so look at the recipe, portion or price. Puzzles earn well but do not sell, so give them a better spot or description, and dogs do neither and are candidates to come off the menu.

How often should a restaurant redo its menu engineering analysis?＋

With live figures there is nothing to redo: each dish’s cost moves when your supplier prices move, and its sales update as they come in from the POS. A weekly look at the ranked list is usually enough, with changes made when a dish moves quadrant or drifts over its food-cost target.

Where does the menu engineering software get my sales figures from?＋

From your POS. It works with every POS — whichever till you use, the day’s sales come in and are matched to your recipes, so each dish’s sales and GP reflect what actually sold.

What happens to POS items that do not match a recipe?＋

POS menu items are matched to recipes automatically, each with a High, Check or Unsure label so you confirm the doubtful ones. Sales that are not matched yet are held rather than lost, and are counted back to the right dates once they are matched.

Will the software change my menu prices automatically?＋

No. It ranks the dishes worth changing in pounds per week and drafts a price or recipe change when you tap the suggestion. Nothing changes on your menu until a person approves it.

Can I compare the same dish across all of our venues?＋

Yes. Dishes can be linked across venues, and the menu views work for one venue or the whole group. You can see where the same dish earns more or less.

Does the menu engineering tool include an allergen matrix for front of house?＋

Yes. The allergen matrix shows every dish against every allergen recorded in its recipe, built from the same recipes, with a printable sheet for guests. Dishes without allergens set up show as needing checking rather than a guess.

Find the plowhorses on a demo menu