Price to Survive

There’s a fear that only restaurant owners know. It shows up late at night, after the doors are locked, when the chairs are flipped and the hum of the refrigeration is the last sound in the room. It’s not about whether the food is good. You already know the food is good. It’s the quieter question: Are we charging enough?

Too many operators answer that question with wishful thinking.

Pricing, in this business, is rarely treated with the seriousness it deserves. It’s emotional. Personal. Wrapped up in guilt, pride, and the fear that guests might stop coming if the number on the board creeps too high. So we shave margins. We undercut the place down the street. We convince ourselves we’ll “make it up in volume.” And slowly, predictably, we bleed.

Here’s the hard truth: cheap today means broke tomorrow.

Pricing is not about winning a popularity contest. It’s not about being the most affordable option in the neighborhood. Pricing is about survival. Full stop. Your prices must cover every cost you can see—and the ones you can’t yet. They have to withstand slow weeks, broken equipment, rising insurance, inflation that doesn’t ask your permission, and the basic human need to actually live off the business you’re pouring your life into.

If your pricing doesn’t do that, it’s not generous. It’s reckless.

One of the most common mistakes operators make is pricing by comparison. They walk nearby menus, scroll delivery apps, and decide what they should charge based on what others are charging. This is comforting, because it feels logical. It feels safe. But it ignores the only numbers that matter: your numbers.

Your rent is not their rent. Your labor model is not their labor model. Your food costs, debt load, concept, and goals are not interchangeable. Matching their prices doesn’t magically give you their economics. It just gives you their problems—plus your own.

Five Guys understood this from the beginning.

People love to complain about Five Guys prices. They always have. “It’s just a burger.” “I can get this cheaper somewhere else.” And yet, Five Guys keeps expanding, keeps paying its bills, keeps serving a product that tastes exactly like it’s supposed to. They didn’t price to compete. They priced to operate.

Their pricing reflects the cost of quality ingredients, generous portions, labor, real estate, and the very unsexy reality of keeping the lights on across thousands of locations. They didn’t apologize for it. They didn’t hide it. They simply charged what the business required to function and grow.

That clarity is rare—and instructive.

Pricing should start with brutal honesty. What does it actually cost to run your restaurant for a year? Not just food and labor, but repairs, maintenance, licenses, insurance, accounting, marketing, debt service, and the inevitable surprises. Add to that what you need to pay yourself—not someday, not hypothetically, but now. If the business can’t support the owner, it’s not a business. It’s a hobby with overhead.

Once you know that number, pricing becomes less emotional. Less reactive. You’re no longer guessing what guests might tolerate; you’re defining what the operation requires. Everything on the menu has a job to do. Every price has to pull its weight.

Slow weeks are not anomalies. They’re guarantees. Weather changes. Tourism dips. Construction blocks your entrance. A new competitor opens with investor money and unsustainably low prices. If your menu pricing only works when the dining room is full, it doesn’t work at all.

Inflation is the same story. Costs rise quietly, then all at once. Ingredients creep up. Labor follows. If your prices were already tight, there’s nowhere to go but panic. Operators who price to survive build in breathing room. They adjust deliberately instead of desperately.

There’s also growth to consider. Expansion costs money—whether that’s new equipment, more staff, or just the capital required to say yes to opportunity. If your margins are razor-thin, growth becomes a threat instead of a reward. You sell more and somehow have less. That’s not success. That’s a trap.

Guests, contrary to popular belief, understand value. They may not articulate it in spreadsheets, but they feel it. A restaurant that charges appropriately can maintain quality, consistency, and staff who aren’t burned out or resentful. A place that underprices inevitably cuts corners. Portions shrink. Ingredients change. Repairs get delayed. The room starts to look tired. Guests notice—even if they can’t say exactly why.

Five Guys didn’t ask guests to like the price. They asked them to accept it—or go elsewhere. Enough people accepted it to build an empire. That’s not arrogance. That’s discipline.

This doesn’t mean charging blindly or greedily. It means charging responsibly. Transparently. With intention. It means knowing your costs cold and refusing to apologize for needing to make a living.

The restaurant business romanticizes sacrifice, but sacrifice is not a pricing strategy. You can’t will your way through bad math. At some point, the numbers always collect.

So price to survive. Price for the weeks when the room is empty. Price for the fryer that dies on a Saturday night. Price for the future version of yourself who still wants to be doing this five, ten years from now without resentment or exhaustion.

Because a restaurant that can’t support its owner will eventually stop supporting its guests. And no amount of popularity can save a place that never charged enough to stay alive.

Are your prices covering all your food costs and paying you a manageable wage? If not, we can help!

If you are interested in private consulting, do not hesitate to hit the button below.