If I were to start selling my smash burgers what would be a fair price to sell them? I make them with wagyu beef, this burger has cheddar, pepper jack, sautéed onions & bacon on each patty, on a toasted Hawaiian bun. My son keeps telling me to open my own place. What do y’all think?
by AKL_Dolo
30 Comments
Bruh we’re not gonna research your market and write you a business plan
You will lose $1000s if you choose to open your own business.
Hope this helps.
Pricing for a restaurant is more complicated than you’d think. You only have 1 thing that the customer is willing to pay for (the food), but a lot of costs that don’t directly go into the food. Rent, utilities, etc.
So the first step is figuring out food costs. You need to reliably calculate how much that burger is gonna cost every time you make one. Get the recipe down to a science. Exact same amount of beef, bun, toppings, etc. every time.
Then calculate how much each item costs. Average cost of your meat at purchase cost divided by number of servings. Cost of a bottle of ketchup divided by servings, etc.
Add all of that together to get your per burger food cost. Then multiply that by 3 or 4. That is typically considered the minimum cost for the item in order to cover not only food costs, but all of your other expenses as well. That “multiply by” number goes up if you’re in an area with like crazy high rent.
Once you know what you have to charge just to break even, then you can start to decide how much you think people will be willing to pay.
Serious question: can you really taste the wagyu after adding all that other stuff? I mean, it looks amazing, but trying to market and sell that commercially would probably not be feasible at any reasonable scale. Obviously, splurge in your home kitchen, but I think in a restaurant setting you’d be setting up yourself for a loss.
You take your cost per burger (buying in bulk) and multiply it by 3-4x. That’s average per restaurant. That covers food, rent, labor, insurance etc. I owned a small ice cream shop years ago. It’s a delicate balance cause you need to make a profit but if you price it too high no one will buy it. You have to decide if pricing will work for your location.
I think if everyone who made a half decent smash burger opened up a restaurant, the streets would be lined with restaurants. Figure out a business plan. Majority of the posters here can make a great burger
Just because you can cook doesn’t mean you should open a restaurant.
Everyone is piling it on.
I think the burger looks good and probably tastes incredible.
Having said that…keep it at home. Be the hero for parties or cook outs. Offer to make em at family gatherings
Trying to sell them would be a super stressful endeavor that would cost too much.
Find a way to keep doing what you enjoy without risking your butt.
Is the son willing to work in the restaurant for free? Any other family you can count on for free labor?
I don’t think it’s a great idea, everyone and their mother is opening smash burger places right now or adding them to their menus, and nothing about this burger screams unique or separates it from the flood of other places, yes it’s a Hawaiian bun and that’s a little different but it’s not something I personally would care for or go out of my way to get over the twenty other places within 2 miles of me. Your Patties look like they have a great sear on them, but so will most places. You gotta find something that will make your food/place of business either unique, or fill a niche that’s desired. A lot of the more successful smash burger places in my area sell local craft beers and ciders and have great themes or are chill spots to hang at. And some other places offer very unique items on their menu that are either cool fusions, or very personal creations, etc etc. Hope this helps in some way, don’t want it to come off as negative, but a word of caution with some hopefully helpful advice.
Don’t make burgers out of Wagyu.
Looks nice tho ngl
What area? I need to eat one before I can give a good estimate, lol.
For real though, looks amazing and I want one.
Hey just keep cooking amazing tasting food. If you open anything maybe a low-cost stand. A restaurant is a different beast than making food for people you love.
i wanna edit and say that i work with food and my manager posted a memo from his bosses that plainly stated that the food cost at our store is like 6%. We recently were informed that as Q4 comes to a close, we are entering survival mode. So consider the fact that despite only 6% of our revenue going into buying the food (which by the way is like the lowest tier of quality) we are barely staying afloat.
We charge enough money for a la carte food that people seem to come into our store just to bellyache about our prices. All the other stuff we gotta pay for to keep the lights on and doors open adds up. We aren’t even in an awesome spot.
Without doing any research into where you live or how much it’s gonna cost to be ordering wagyu beef I doubt you’d fare much better than us, and I work at an established chain revered for their “good food”
there’s almost no money in food especially if you’re serving up wagyu beef burgers. Your son sounds like he was raised right though
Save money, don’t bother with wagyu. There’s really no point for ground meat. Everything else sounds fire.
Hate to burst your bubble dude, and I’m sure your burgers are amazing.
If you have to ask that question here, you are nowhere near able to open a restaurant.
Again, I’m sure your burgers are awesome, but running a restaurant or even food truck is a way different endeavor than just making good food.
Restaurant Math: 30% cost of goods sold. Take a grand total of what it costs you, just in product, to make them, and then multiply that number by 3.5
If it costs you 3 to make it, then 10.5. Voila.
86 the wagyu and just get a decent ground beef, maybe your own blend?
Cheese is barely melted.
Offer a steak sandwich. Use trimmings combined with chuck and short ribs for your own in house burger grind. Have prices reflect food cost. Use the 25×4 or 30/30/30/10 budget/profit template. On average though, 12-15 bucks seems like a national average, aside from large cities, where you can take on additional costs without much pushback. Better ingredients justify higher prices, but try to be honest and keep that standard.
Get rid of the bacon. No need for Sweet bread bun. Wagyu is just a waste. I’d still smash that if you made me one, but I doubt I’d spend money on it. Your bottom line rule for selling food is charge three times the amount you spent to make it. Good luck
Don’t bother with wagyu beef as stated above. Get a few vendors to bring in two different grinds each. Cook those with just salt and pepper on the grill and have a blind tasting. That’s the best way I’ve found to come to an objective decision. Then work your price point. There’s nothing wrong with having an exotic option. But your core burger needs to be your confidence builder. A basic burger for a good price. From there people will be more comfortable with trying the more expensive option. Your bread selection is just as important, if not more than the meat you use. A good grill blend of spices goes really far with mediocre meat.
Gordon Ramsay’s rule of thumb was to take the ingredient costs and multiply it by 3. Though that was like 15 years ago and things may have changed now.
No, don’t open a restaurant. Or a food truck. Just be the amazing dad at the backyard bbq. It’s by far the worst business to open.
This looks solid!
$89.99
As a chef, dont do it. Something like 70% of restaurants fail within the first year. Are there many burger places where you live? What’s the cost of average rent for a restaurant space? Then there is insurance, employees, equipment. Speaking of equipment it will break down at the worst time possible, your walkin cooler/ freezer/ low boys. Employee hiring and training is huge, you have any restaurant managment experience? Employee retention is also very hard post covid. You want to serve Alcohol? That costs money and time, also your insurance just went up. Do you know your local health code laws? You most likely need to go through a state sanctioned food handlers program. Don’t want to deal with all of that and hire a chef? Good luck navigating that, people lie on their resumes and you have a high possibility of hiring an asshole who is going to destroy your business reputation and potentially even leave you up to fines or lawsuits from how they keep the kitchen or how they treat your employees. If you have never been in any kind of upper managment with a successful restaurant DO NOT DO THIS. You have a better chance winning the lottery i fucking promise.
Bro
Whats your COGS?
Then you gotta do a mark up which is usually 33%
That’s how you price your items.
Instead of a restaurant, consider opening a mobile stand that can be set up at street fairs, festivals, etc. You’d need everything to cook, some larger coolers, and a pop up tent but costs would be low. Once you start there and develop a following, you can start to cater private events as well and expand the menu. This burger right here, in southern California at a mobile stand at some sort of event would be about a $14 burger unless it’s at a pricier music festival or sporting event, in which case it’d be closer to $19-$22.
Looks amazing. Maybe consider doing some parties or smaller size gatherings to see how it feels to cook for more people. Can always go a route like a food truck or trailer.
If you don’t have at least a decode in restaurant management under your belt, stay away.