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wrote:
> How do you go about deciding what to charge for food/menu items in a
> cafe? It was a no brainer to decide on prices for bottles of water,
> juice, pop, etc. but now my husband is getting ready to open up the cafe
> part of the place and we're stuck on how to set prices. I assume you
> figure out what each item costs to make, then decide on a price, but
> what if your costs differ from month-to-month? Like, let's say chicken
> wings are 99 cents a pound this month, but next month they're $1.39 a
> pound. Is there a set formula for figuring this stuff out?
>

Find a distributor.

I once worked for a cafe owner, who failed miserably, within months of
buying a previously highly profitable cafe.

We'd had a basic but popular and profitable menu of simple egg dishes,
muffins, bagels, coffees & teas in the mornings and whatever I wanted to
make for a breakfast special with seasonal ingredients. Lunch was just
deli sandwiches made with high quality meats & cheeses on good breads,
and lobster rolls. We had no dinner menu, just the sandwiches available
and 40 flavors of ice cream.

The main problems we

Only buying things from wholesalers that could not be had at the
supermarket.

Running out of products on busy weekends due to short-sightedness. It's
Maine, 4th of July weekend is phenomenonly busy, great idea buy half the
usual stock.

Stocking up to excess on perishable items when they were on sale.
Bananas 20 cents a pound....even though there is only one menu item that
uses bananas buy 100 pounds.

Catering to the tastes of his family rather than the established client
base. Maybe one likes muffins from a cheap-o mix with those fake
blueberry colored dots, baked in muffin-top pans. The clients didn't
agree, they like the 12 dozen real muffins that I had previously turned
out 5 mornings a week for three years. And they liked those with
freshly brewed coffee, not with the old coffee that said owner was too
cheap to dump out. Fresh locally made bagels were changed to Lender's.
No one wanted to pay $1.75 for a lenders bagel with a tiny amount of
lite cream cheese. Full fat cream cheese was no longer an offering. At
the time 6 lender's bagels and 8 ounces of cream cheese could be had in
the stupidmarket for about $2. Eggs were nearly removed from the
breakfast menu, only egg white omelettes and egg beaters scrambled eggs
were offered. Lobstah rolls made with fat free mayo were a huge flop
too...that alone amounted to a gross loss of close to $500 a day.

Changed from the quasi-local Green Mountain Coffee Roasters beans, to
Folgers. That move alone, saving $0.02 a cup, cut sales by 2/3's.

Quality, quality, quality and prices similar to those of local cafes.

Jessica