Sample result
Off-Peak Hours Campaign Builder for Restaurants
The owner asked this:"From three to six in the afternoon my dining room goes still: it seats 60 and at four there are two tables occupied, with half the team still on shift. I only post on Instagram and WhatsApp."
① The 3 to 6 window
Tuesday to Friday, 3:00 to 6:00 in the afternoon. The window comes out of a subtraction, not a hunch: from the open day (11:30 to 22:00) you erase Tuesday-to-Friday lunch and Sunday midday, which already collect on their own. Two hollows were ruled out of what was left. The weeknight is slow, true, but the whole menu is already open at that hour: the problem there is demand, not product, and putting a hook price on the table at seven means discounting dinner. The morning asks for new payroll from scratch, and the entire argument here is that the shift is already paid.
| Row | What the window says |
|---|---|
| Hours chosen | Tuesday to Friday, 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. · 17 days a month. Saturday and Sunday stay out of the first month: at 3:00 there are still lunch tables seated. |
| Audience | Nearby offices ordering for the team, whoever picks the children up between 3:00 and 4:00, and the freelancer who was going to be sitting there with a laptop anyway. |
| Reason to sit down | This is not lunch hunger: it is the middle of the afternoon. Something hot and savoury, eaten in half an hour, that does not weigh at seven. |
| Current sales | 4 tickets a day per location at 39,000 COP: 156,000 COP daily and 4,992,000 COP over the last 8 weeks. Three of those four come in through the delivery platform; the dining room brings one. |
| Turnover | The afternoon table stays 55 minutes against the 38 of lunch, assumed until you count it for two weeks. |
Against the 74 tickets the location takes on a normal day, those three hours contribute four. It is not a bad window: it is a window nobody has tried to charge for. Illustrative figures, built from the data you gave.
② Bridge menu: four afternoon items
Four items, all derived from the midday menu, none priced outside the 28,000 to 72,000 COP range. The afternoon lives on the floor of that range: below 28,000 there is no menu, and above 34,000 there is no afternoon.
| Item | Price | Cost | Margin | Pick-up minutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bandeja de la tarde: beans, chicharrón, arepa and egg, no soup | 28,000 COP | 8,700 COP | 19,300 COP | 6 |
| Sancocho de tres carnes, afternoon cup | 30,000 COP | 9,300 COP | 20,700 COP | 5 |
| Picada de la casa, for two | 34,000 COP | 10,800 COP | 23,200 COP | 7 |
| Brevas con quesito with a pot of coffee for the table | 28,000 COP | 8,800 COP | 19,200 COP | 4 |
All four were costed on a standard recipe card and land between 31.0% and 31.8% food cost; the weighted mix comes to 31.3%, under the 32% ceiling a promoted item can carry. The house 34% is a different number: it is the average of the full menu and it still rules the margin of a normal visit.
The hook and what it gives up. Bandeja de la tarde is half a portion of Bandeja de la casa, which sells on the menu at 42,000 COP with 13,400 of cost and leaves 28,600 of margin. The afternoon version leaves 19,300: it gives up 9,300 COP per unit. That is why it exists only between 3:00 and 6:00, and at 12:30 it is neither ordered nor served.
The trout does not cross, and that is a finding. Trucha al ajillo sells on the menu at 52,000 COP with a cost of 19,900: 38.3% food cost. Bringing it under 32% would mean charging 62,200 COP at four in the afternoon, or serving 90 grams that reach the table looking like a sample. The problem there is not the offer, it is the menu price: the three star dishes together average 34.9% and the trout is what pushes them up.
The mise en place does not touch the night either. The beans and the sancocho broth are already cooked in the morning and there is enough; the picada and the brevas are prepped at 2:30 on the cold table, with stock of their own.
③ The math at the margin
Four of this location's nine operations people are already inside between 3:00 and 6:00: two in the kitchen prepping dinner, one on the till and delivery, one on the floor. That shift already weighs inside the 28% labour cost, so the four o'clock table does not pay for it again. That is the whole argument, and it is why the only thing added is this:
| Item | COP per day | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen assistant who leaves at 3:00 today and would stay until 6:00 | 33,000 | Assumed until you check it against the real payroll |
| Power for griddle, fryer and dining room, three hours | 9,000 | Assumed |
| Waste from the afternoon mise en place that does not carry into dinner | 12,000 | Assumed |
| Opening the window | 54,000 |
On the assumed mix —3 bandejas, 3 cups, 2 picadas and 2 desserts per 10 items— each item sells at 29,800 COP and costs 9,320: 20,480 of margin, less 1,100 for dishwashing, napkin and packaging. That leaves 19,380 COP net per item.
Break-even: 3 items across the three hours. One an hour pays for the whole window. It comes out this low because the shift is already paid, and precisely for that reason it is not the number that decides.
The number that decides is 4 items per hour, 12 a day: 232,560 COP of contribution less the 54,000 of opening leaves 178,560 COP a day per location. Below that the afternoon is taking hands away from dinner prep, and closing it is cheaper.
The afternoon pays 29,800 COP per person against the 48,000 COP average check: 18,200 less, and that is fine, because that peso does not pay payroll twice. At 17 days and two locations it is 12,158,400 COP of new sales and 6,071,040 COP of contribution a month; on today's 8% operating margin, the arithmetic leaves the month at 10.3% without moving a single menu price. Illustrative figures, built from the data you gave.
The full example has 2 more part(s): you see them inside the library, with your account.