More profit from the kitchen and crew you already have
AI can't cook your food or run your floor — good people do, and they're hard to find and keep. Level is the operating layer that makes scarce kitchen and front-of-house labor produce more gross profit per hour: it connects your POS, scheduling, and books, then surfaces the weekly actions that protect prime cost and stop cash leaking through waste, comps, and overstaffing.
The Restaurants Problem
Most restaurant owners know their revenue. Few know their gross profit per labor hour.
Prime cost (food + labor) should land at 60-65% of revenue. But most operators check it monthly — by then the damage is done. A 2-point drift on $2M revenue costs $40K per year. We've seen restaurants running 72% prime cost who thought they were at 64% because they weren't accounting for comps, waste, and overtime correctly. Level's agents watch it weekly and flag the drift before it compounds.
Food cost looks simple on paper — 28-35% is the target. In reality, it shifts daily with vendor price changes, portion drift, and waste that nobody tracks. A full-service restaurant doing $1.5M in revenue loses $30K-$75K per year to untracked food waste alone — cash that never makes it to the bottom line. The operators who win catch it weekly, not monthly.
Labor scheduling is a margin problem disguised as an operations problem. QSR runs ~25% labor, casual 25-30%, fine dining 30-35% — but the real number is gross profit per labor hour. Overstaffing a slow Tuesday wastes your best people; understaffing a busy Friday wastes revenue. Most POS reports never show you the mismatch. Level does, and tells you which shifts to fix.
Analyzed with the CLEAR Framework
Cash · Labor · Earnings · Accounts · Risk — the five pillars we evaluate for every restaurant.
Restaurants Industry Benchmarks
How do the best restaurant restaurants perform? Data from our analysis of 2,200+ contractors.
Net Profit Margin
3-9%
Full-service: 3-5%. Fast-casual: 6-9%. Fine dining: 6-10%.
Food Cost %
28-35%
Target range. Above 35% consistently = pricing or waste problem.
Labor Cost %
25-35%
QSR: ~25%. Casual: 25-30%. Fine dining: 30-35%.
Prime Cost
60-65%
Food + labor combined. Above 65% erodes all profit margin.
Revenue per Sq Ft
$250+
Break-even: $150-250. Profitable operations: $250+.
Revenue per Seat
~$25
Industry benchmark. Varies by concept and market.
What Level Does for Restaurants Restaurants
Gross Profit Per Labor Hour
The core metric: how much margin each scheduled hour actually produces, by daypart, station, and location. Level connects your POS and payroll so you can see which shifts and which people turn into profit — and which ones quietly burn it.
Prime Cost Agents & Alerts
AI agents combine your POS data with actual labor cost — overtime, comps, and benefits included — and watch prime cost weekly. You get an alert when it drifts above target, not a quarterly surprise after the cash is gone.
Food Cost & Waste Leakage
We track food cost by menu category, flag high-waste items, and compare theoretical to actual. You'll see exactly where margin leaks — portioning, vendor pricing, theft, or over-ordering — and the dollar cost of each.
Labor Yield & Scheduling
We map labor hours against revenue by day and daypart, then surface where you're overstaffed, where you're understaffed, and the exact dollar impact of fixing each shift — so your scarce skilled crew works where the margin is.
Menu Engineering & Pricing
Not every menu item earns its place. We analyze contribution margin by item, popularity vs. profitability, and menu mix to identify which items to promote, reprice, or retire. A 3% improvement in menu margin on $1M food revenue = $30K straight to the bottom line.
Cash Flow Forecasting
Restaurants operate on daily cash cycles with weekly vendor payments and biweekly payroll. We build rolling cash forecasts that account for seasonality, catering revenue, gift card redemption patterns, and planned capital expenditures.
Multi-Unit & Expansion Modeling
Opening location #2 (or #20)? We model unit economics, buildout costs, time to breakeven, and the cash runway you need. We've analyzed restaurant groups from single-location to 50+ units — the financial model changes dramatically at each stage.
Bookkeeper, your CPA — vs. Level
| Capability | Bookkeeper | CPA | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record transactions | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| File taxes | — | ✓ | — |
| Prime cost tracking | — | — | ✓ |
| Cash flow forecasting | — | — | ✓ |
| Benchmark against industry | — | — | ✓ |
| Monthly strategy calls | — | — | ✓ |
| Food cost & waste analysis | — | — | ✓ |
| Labor optimization modeling | — | — | ✓ |
| Menu engineering & pricing | — | — | ✓ |
| Understands restaurant operations | Rarely | Rarely | ✓ |
Your bookkeeper records the past. Your CPA files taxes. Level is the operating layer in between — it connects the work to the money and shows you how to make more from the people you already have.
We connect to the tools you already use
15-minute setup. Read-only access. Your data stays secure.
Restaurants Insights
Data-driven articles for restaurants who want to see the numbers.
Restaurant Prime Cost: The Only Number That Matters
How to calculate true prime cost, benchmarks by concept type, and the Tuesday morning tracking ritual.
Read more
Restaurant Profit Margins by Type (2026)
Fine dining 3-5%, casual 5-7%, fast casual 6-9%, ghost kitchens 10-30%. What drives the gap.
Read more
Cash Flow Forecasting for Seasonal Restaurants
13-week cash flow model, the 3 seasonal traps, and how to build a reserve that survives winter.
Read more
From clients
What restaurant operators say after working with us.
“We're 4 units doing $8M and prime cost was 'around 64%' depending on who you asked. Sam built weekly prime cost reporting that combined Toast and our payroll system. Real number was 69% — food cost drift on two units. Tightened portioning and renegotiated produce. Down to 62% in 90 days, that's $400K of recovered margin.”
“Independent full-service, $1.8M, and food cost was at 36%. I knew we had waste but I couldn't quantify it. Sam ran a theoretical-vs-actual food cost analysis by category. Proteins were 7 points over. Adjusted portioning and built in a daily 'waste log' — got food cost to 30% in two months. That's $108K to the bottom line.”
“Catering side was where I thought we were making money — turned out it was the dining room subsidizing catering, not the other way around. Sam ran the contribution margin by line of business. Repriced catering up 18%, lost two clients, the rest stuck. Net margin up 5 points in one quarter.”
Simple pricing
Three tiers, one ladder.
From $99/mo
Simple Audit
Clean data plus a monthly read on margin per hour and trapped cash. Same flat rate for catch-up.
From $1,500/mo
Scale
The full operating layer — AI agents, weekly actions, and benchmarks to grow margin per hour.
Custom
Platform / Multi-Office
Multi-branch benchmarking and scorecards for PE-backed and multi-location groups.
Book a call
Book a free 15-min Restaurants audit.
We'll review your restaurant numbers, benchmark them, and tell you what to fix first. No commitment.
Or have us reach out instead.
Drop your info and Level will review your restaurant numbers within a few hours. Free audit included.
No commitment. Real numbers, not generic advice.