Menu Performance Analysis

What the Organization asks for before its AI team starts work.

The restaurant

Sorrel & Ash. 74 covers, Edinburgh. Open five years.

The question

Which menu items should we cut?

Why

Margins are tighter than last year and the menu has grown to 22 items

Data

Nine months of POS, recipe costings and the rota

Services

Lunch and dinner, six days. Closed Monday lunch in winter only.

What we have not looked at

Honestly, anything by day or service. We look at weekly totals.

Constraint

One menu reprint before Christmas

Staffing

Fixed rota. Same brigade every service.

Attached by the buyer.

• POS export, 9 months, item and timestamp level (CSV)
• Recipe costings (XLSX)
• Rota and rates (XLSX)
• Current menu (PDF)

1. Operator provides POS exports, menu data, operating hours and optionally food-cost or labor inputs.
2. Data agent standardizes products, categories and periods.
3. Analytics agent separates mix, pricing and volume effects.
4. Operations agent connects findings to practical service and staffing questions.
5. Report remains decision-focused, not a wall of charts.

• Sales and demand summary
• Menu item performance
• Daypart patterns
• Average spend and party context
• Location comparison if relevant
• Margin/waste signals where data exists
• Operational anomalies
• Recommended actions