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How many covers a day to break even?

Most owners know their rent but not their break-even. Enter your fixed costs, average spend and variable cost — see the revenue and covers per day you need to clear every cost. Confidential.

01

Break-even revenue

The monthly sales you need just to cover every cost — before a dirham of profit.

02

Covers per day

Translated into guests per day, so the target is something a floor can actually run to.

03

Margin of safety

How far above (or below) break-even you are today — the buffer that keeps you solvent.

What a launch inherits

We don't trade on logos. We show you the numbers.

One named, documented engagement — published with the client's consent — then the method we hold every engagement to. Other outcomes stay confidential until we walk you through them.

For a launch, this is the method you start with instead of retrofit: the same purchasing, portioning and menu-pricing controls that recovered fifteen points of food cost at Parco are installed from day one — so a new opening holds its margin from the first week of trading.

Parco Group

Multi-outlet restaurant group · Jebel Ali, Dubai

Named & consented · cleared 2026-07-05
Food cost

44% 29%

−15 pts · 120 days
Average daily sales

AED 6,000 AED 14,000

+133% · 9 months

At Parco Group's Jebel Ali operation, food cost was running at 44% — margin lost on every cover. Over a 120-day reset, GGB rebuilt purchasing, portioning, menu pricing and waste control and brought food cost to 29%. With margin under control, the focus moved to the top line: across nine months, average daily sales rose from AED 6,000 to AED 14,000 — the same kitchen and team, under disciplined P&L control.

Abdul Haseeb

Executive Director, Parco Group

“Highly recommended, we have signed retainership for all our restaurants including Parco, Sameer, Rolls and Tea, Nakshatra and others.” — Abdul Haseeb, Executive Director, Parco Group
Read the full Parco Group case study →

The four axes we hold every engagement to

Food cost %

Theoretical vs actual, by item and by outlet — usually the fastest margin to recover.

Quantified per engagement

Labour vs sales

Productivity per shift measured against revenue, not a blanket headcount cut.

Quantified per engagement

Delivery economics

Channel mix and menu pricing rebuilt around real aggregator commission.

Quantified per engagement

Payback

Every intervention measured against the capital and the time it takes to return.

Quantified per engagement
See how we measure results Ask for a result relevant to you →

Questions

What is break-even for a restaurant?
The point where revenue exactly covers fixed and variable costs — no profit, no loss. Below it you are funding the business from reserves; above it, the contribution on each cover becomes profit.
How accurate is this estimate?
It is indicative, from your inputs, using a 30-day month. A full model uses real trading days, daypart mix, ramp-up and seasonality — but this gets you the order of magnitude fast.
What counts as a fixed vs variable cost?
Fixed costs do not move with sales (rent, salaried staff, utilities, overheads). Variable costs scale with each sale (food, packaging, delivery commission). The split is what drives the contribution margin.
Why does break-even matter before I sign a lease?
Because the rent you commit to sets the fixed cost the whole model has to clear every month. Knowing the covers-per-day target before you sign is the cheapest risk check there is.
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