Planning Around Your Schedule

The first thing you have to take into account when you’re trying to decide what to cook is how soon you’re going to be able to get back to check on your cafe and transfer prepared entrees from the stove to the serving counters.  No matter how well planned your menu is, it won’t do you much good if you don’t get back to serve it in time. 

Food that sits on the stove for too long will spoil rather quickly, and this is something you want to avoid at all costs.  Not only will you lose the opportunity to serve this food, and so have to wait longer to replenish your serving counters, you’ll lose the money you spent on the ingredients that went into making is.  You’ll also have to pay to clean up the mess which, while not a hefty sum, starts to loom larger and larger when you’re not making money off of the food you’re preparing.

Maximizing Your Earnings

Another factor to consider when you’re making your decision about what to cook in any given situation is how many servings each preparation of that dish will create.  This is important for a couple of reasons.  One is that you want to be able to make enough food to last until you can get back to your cafe and refill your serving counters.  That way you can continue making money all day and night, which is obviously the ideal situation. 

The other reason this is important is because you need to have an empty serving counter when you’re taking a new dish off the stove.  If you’re simply bringing out more of one of the dishes you’re already serving, you can simply add those new servings to what was left of the old.  However, if you have an entirely new entree coming off the stove, you’ll need to have an empty serving spot available on the counter.  This is a part of the menu planning process that is easily overlooked, but it can lead to a lot of spoiled food if you have entrees ready to come off of the stove but nowhere to put them.

Cost Per Serving

And of course, you want to pay attention to how much you’ll make each time a customer purchases an entree.  Maximizing this number will help you get the highest return per hour because it will mean you’re getting the most out of each customer who walks through the door.  And that, after all, is the goal of any good business owner.