Sample result
Profitable Promotion Builder for Restaurants
The owner asked this:"I want to move Tuesday and Wednesday nights, which never get past 24 covers per location. I was thinking of a two-for-one on the house Bandeja, in the dining room and on delivery: can you run the math before I send the poster to print?"
① The math before the poster
Family: a traffic promotion. The whole visit pays for it, not the unit, so the math runs per cover and not per loose dish.
The floor, before any copy is written: a sale of 48,000 COP with a 34% food cost leaves 31,680 COP of contribution margin. That number is the lock.
Re-costed with invoices from the last 30 days and the portion weighed over three services —assumed until you check it against your own costing sheet— your three star dishes come out like this: house Bandeja, 42,000 at a cost of 15,960 (38%); three-meat Sancocho, 38,000 at a cost of 15,580 (41%); Trucha al ajillo, 46,000 at a cost of 13,800 (30%). Two do not clear the house costing ceiling of 32% maximum. The trout wins, and it is not the best seller: it is the one that leaves the most margin.
| Item | Without promotion | With promotion | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dish (Trucha al ajillo) | 46,000 COP | 36,000 COP | −10,000 COP |
| Drink that goes with it | 6,000 COP | 6,000 COP | 0 |
| Sale per cover | 52,000 COP | 42,000 COP | −10,000 COP |
| Food cost | 15,600 COP | 15,600 COP | 0 |
| Contribution margin | 36,400 COP | 26,400 COP | −10,000 COP |
| Dish food cost | 30% | 38.3% | +8.3 points |
Cutting 10,000 off 46,000 reads like a 22% discount and is 31% of the margin: that is why the math is done on margin and not on price. Two ideas were dropped: the two-for-one on the Bandeja, which concedes 21,000 per cover and would ask for 79 covers per service where 45 fit; and 20% off the whole menu, which nobody can decline and which discounts the very dish that already sells itself.
Break-even: 37 extra covers per week, 148 across the four weeks. It comes from the worst case: that the 96 covers who already come on Tuesday and Wednesday nights —24 per location— all switch to the trout. They concede 960,000 COP a week and every extra cover gives back 26,400. That is 10 per location per night, from 24 to 34, with the shift comfortable up to 45: it fits. If only 4 in 10 switch, break-even drops to 15. Illustrative figures, built from the data you gave.
② Margin conceded against volume
The matrix crosses the only two things that decide: how much margin each cover concedes and how many extra covers it takes to give it back. Units are read as a percentage of your 214,000,000 COP month.
| Fits in the shift | Does not fit | |
|---|---|---|
| Concedes up to 10,000 per cover | It runs. Trout at 36,000 on Tuesday and Wednesday nights: 37 extra covers a week, 148 in four weeks, 2.9% of the month's sales. Ten per location per night, from 24 to 34. | Move it to another slot. The same discount at Tuesday-to-Friday lunch: the baseline there is 416 covers a week, it concedes 4,160,000 and would ask for 158 more —72 covers per lunch where 52 fit today—, 12.4% of the month. Promoting into a queue gives away margin that was already there. |
| Concedes more than 10,000 per cover | Decided knowing the cost. Trial trout at 30,000 on your own delivery, first order only, 14-day deadline: it leaves 16,900 and concedes 14,780 against the floor. The second purchase pays for it —32,900 through that same channel—, so it needs 45 of every 100 to come back. Capped at 40 units: 591,200 COP, 0.28% of the month. | It does not run. Two-for-one on the house Bandeja: it concedes 21,000 per cover, 69% of the margin. It would ask for 219 extra covers a week, 79 per service where 45 fit; 11.1% of the month's sales, on two nights. |
The judgement, declared and arguable: the only promotion approved without paying its way is the trial one, and it is approved with a cap and a date. The honest concession: half the guests almost never come back, so that quadrant is signed knowing it buys new customers, not this month's till.
③ The mechanic, on one sheet
It gets printed and taped up in the kitchen and at the till of both locations. Nothing written here is decided during service.
| Section | What the sheet says |
|---|---|
| Name | Tuesdays and Wednesdays, trout at 36,000. |
| What it includes | Trucha al ajillo, the full menu plate, at 36,000 COP instead of 46,000. The drink is charged separately and at the usual price. |
| Days and hours | Tuesday and Wednesday, 6:00 to 9:30 p.m. Never at Tuesday-to-Friday lunch or Sunday midday: those slots already fill, and there the discount gives away margin that was already there. |
| Channels | Dining room, no commission, leaves 26,400 per cover. Own delivery, with 3,500 of dispatch, leaves 22,900 and takes a 42,000 minimum order. The delivery platform stays out: with 24% commission and 1,200 of packaging the same cover would leave 15,120, 43% less than in the room. |
| Limit | One per guest, not combinable with the set lunch or any other promotion; a cap of 40 units per location per night, which is the shift ceiling minus the service slack. |
| Validity | From Tuesday the 1st to Wednesday the 23rd of September. Eight nights, and it switches itself off. With no closing date, in 60 days this stops being a promotion: it is the price of the trout. |
| Written target | 37 extra covers per week, 148 in total. |
The two lines the server says in ten seconds (read as written):
On Tuesdays and Wednesdays we have the Trucha al ajillo at 36,000 until 9:30 at night.
One per person, in the dining room or on our own delivery, and it runs until 23 September.
The full example has 2 more part(s): you see them inside the library, with your account.