Financial control, menu costing, and people operations for restaurants.
From high-cover Nairobi brasseries to independent casual dining, we establish gross margins per dish, daily revenue reconciliations, kitchen inventory controls, and front-of-house staffing.
Where Operations Falter
Hospitality businesses generate hundreds of daily transactions across food, beverage, and labour. When systems are informal, profits quietly disappear through three common gaps:
Uncosted plates eroding kitchen margins
Rising food inflation and ingredient volatility mean standard menu prices quietly slip beneath healthy 65–70% target gross margins. Without gram-level recipe costing, busy dining rooms generate volume without profit.
Stock shrinkage and unrecorded spoilage
Store rooms without daily bin cards or par levels leak cash through unauthorized prep snacking, unrecorded waste, and untracked supplier invoice variances.
High kitchen turnover and staffing instability
Chefs de partie and service captains leaving without notice disrupts service consistency and drives up emergency recruitment costs.
How Cerullo Resolves It
We do not deliver theoretical slide decks. We install operational controls, verify your recipe costs on site, and manage monthly finance and staffing:
Gram-level dish costing and menu engineering
We calculate raw ingredient costs per plate, factor in prep yields and oil waste, and categorize dishes into Stars, Workhorses, Puzzles, and Dogs to maximize total contribution margin.
POS-to-bank daily reconciliations
Every shift's Z-report is audited against M-Pesa paybills, PDQ card slips, and cash deposits to catch discrepancies within 24 hours rather than at month-end.
Vetted hospitality recruitment & retention reviews
We recruit and test culinary talent through practical knife trials and tastings, backed by structured retention reviews.
Operational Deliverables
What we build, establish, and hand over to your management team:
- Recipe cost cards & yield tests for all core menu items
- Daily POS-to-bank audit workflow and variance tracker
- Weekly key ingredient stock sheets (meat, seafood, dairy, liquor)
- Monthly outlet P&L with prime cost (COGS + labour) tracking
- Kitchen brigade and front-of-house shift rosters
Looking for vetted culinary or management talent?
Our recruitment practice sources, screens, and places Head Chefs, Restaurant Managers, Sous Chefs, and floor staff.
FAQ
Common Questions
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Need an answer now?
WhatsApp usHow often should restaurant menu costing be updated?
In Kenya's current economic climate, high-velocity protein and dairy ingredients fluctuate monthly. We establish dynamic master ingredient sheets so when beef fillet or cooking oil prices shift, your plate margins recalculate automatically.
Can you help identify where our kitchen is losing stock?
Yes. We conduct on-site store room audits, establish secure receiving procedures, implement standardized waste logs, and set par levels to highlight variances before they become chronic shrinkage.