Business financial model file
Restaurant Financial Model
Connect a restaurant's opening investment and monthly payroll to the covers its kitchen and dining room can actually serve.
Opening investment and working cash
The original case is one leased 50-seat venue with no separate delivery line. Installed kitchen, ventilation and dining-room spending are cash uses before opening; the budget is not a US restaurant startup average or a quote for a particular city.
| Cash use | $ |
|---|---|
| CAPEX: Installed kitchen equipment | 70,000 |
| CAPEX: Premises, ventilation and services | 90,000 |
| CAPEX: Dining furniture and POS | 35,000 |
| Pre-opening: Plans, permits and professional setup | 12,000 |
| Pre-opening: Pre-opening payroll/training | 15,000 |
| Pre-opening: Opening promotion | 5,000 |
| Refundable deposit / tied-up cash | 12,000 |
| Opening stock / initial working inputs | 8,000 |
| Reserve: 2 selected fixed-cost months | 68,052 |
| Selected opening cash total | 315,052 |
CAPEX totals $195,000, pre-opening expense $32,000 and working cash $88,052. The deposit and opening stock tie up cash; they are not added again as monthly rent or consumed inputs. The reserve is a chosen fixed-cost buffer, not proof of full funding. Obtain actual installed/tax-inclusive quotes and dated opening payments.
Monthly fixed and variable OPEX
Cooks are budgeted at two 160-hour roles at $25/hour, front-of-house at three 120-hour roles at $18, and manager wages at $4,000/month; each adds an assumed 20% employer allowance. That original allowance and the rent need actual local terms. Payroll is not deducted a second time from the cover contribution.
| Commitment | $ per month |
|---|---|
| Two cooks: loaded roster | 9,600 |
| Three front-of-house roles: loaded roster | 7,776 |
| Manager: loaded budget | 4,800 |
| Rent/common charges | 6,000 |
| Base utilities | 1,800 |
| Insurance | 700 |
| Cleaning/pest/waste | 900 |
| Software | 300 |
| Maintenance | 600 |
| Marketing | 900 |
| Accounting/admin | 400 |
| Recurring fees | 250 |
| Total selected fixed cash | 34,026 |
| Item | $ per unit |
|---|---|
| Net collected selling value | 38 |
| Food/beverage consumption per cover | 11.4 |
| Linen and service consumables per cover | 1.2 |
| Percentage-only fee allocation (3%) | 1.14 |
| Contribution before scheduled payroll/fixed OPEX | 24.26 |
The percentage fee is an aggregate allocation, with no fixed per-payment charge assumed. Unit contribution is not owner income: the full listed monthly roster and overhead still need coverage.
Capacity, break-even and a lower-sales case
Twenty-six trading days with 50 seats and 1.6 paid turns/day permit 2,080 covers; the assumed kitchen limit is 2,340. The plan is 70 covers/day, or 1,820/month. Average turns do not prove a feasible dinner service, and a third-party delivery order may consume kitchen time needed for dine-in covers.
For this fixed mix and commitment, whole-unit cash break-even is 1,403 paid covers per month: ($34,026) ÷ $24.26, rounded up. The aggregate capacity is 2,080 units; it does not establish customer demand or a workable daily sequence.
| Paid units | Net sales $ | Selected result $ |
|---|---|---|
| 1,400 | 53,200 | -62 |
| 1,403 | 53,314 | 10.78 |
| 1,820 (planned) | 69,160 | 10,127.20 |
| 2,080 | 79,040 | 16,434.80 |
The 1,400-cover case keeps the same staffing commitment. The existing channel example below isolates deliveries that displace dine-in demand; add channel fees and the changed kitchen constraint before adopting a delivery-led volume plan.
Practical KPI definitions
Define average check as net food/beverage sales divided by paid covers, not reservations. Measure seat turns as paid covers divided by seats per service period, food usage including waste as a share of food sales, and kitchen tickets completed within the promised interval. None of the illustrative ratios is an industry target.
All sales exclude sales tax and tips. Financing, income tax, owner distributions and replacement capital are excluded; replenishment and collections occur within the month for this illustration.
Method context: SBA business planning. All case prices, wages, cost ratios, reserve and capacity inputs above are original planning assumptions.
What the model covers
The official FinModelsLab listing describes an editable Excel model. Planned daily weekday covers are converted into monthly demand, valued at separate midweek and weekend checks and allocated across categories. Editable costs, salaries, staffing levels and dated capital spending support profit and loss, monthly and annual cash projections, break-even results and dashboard charts.
Qualify the channel before raising sales
Our original dinner case adds twelve deliveries but loses six dine-in covers. Sales rise $156 while the selected result falls $80 after extra kitchen labor. With the same order economics, losing just two dine-in covers would already make the added channel negative.
Translate genuinely additional demand into cover and roster assumptions. Check the busiest kitchen interval, dine-in substitution and channel settlement dates before opening the offer. The Restaurant planning guide develops the original worked case.
Planning guide