Restaurant P&L Template: Free Download for Google Sheets and Excel

A restaurant profit and loss statement is the most important financial document you run. It tells you whether your operation is actually making money — and more importantly, which part of the cost structure is preventing it when it isn't.

Most restaurant P&L templates floating around online are either designed for accountants (full of categories that don't map to restaurant operations) or so simplified they don't actually tell you anything. This one is built specifically for restaurant owners.

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Below you'll find the full template structure with benchmark percentages — so you know not just what to fill in, but what each number should look like.

What Goes on a Restaurant P&L

A restaurant P&L has five major sections: Revenue, Cost of Goods Sold, Labor Costs, Operating Expenses, and Net Income. Here's the full structure with industry benchmarks for a full-service operation:

Line Item	Example ($)	% of Revenue	Target Range
REVENUE
Food Sales	$88,000	73.3%	—
Beverage Sales	$28,000	23.3%	—
Other Revenue	$4,000	3.3%	—
Total Revenue	$120,000	100%	—
COST OF GOODS SOLD
Food Cost	$28,600	30.2%	28–32%
Beverage Cost	$6,200	22.1%	18–24%
Total COGS	$34,800	29.0%	27–33%
Gross Profit	$85,200	71.0%	—
LABOR COSTS
Hourly Wages (BOH)	$14,400	12.0%	—
Hourly Wages (FOH)	$9,600	8.0%	—
Management Salaries	$5,500	4.6%	—
Payroll Taxes & Benefits	$4,200	3.5%	—
Total Labor	$33,700	28.1%	28–35%
Prime Cost (COGS + Labor)	$68,500	57.1%	<60–65%
OPERATING EXPENSES
Rent & Occupancy	$9,600	8.0%	6–10%
Utilities	$4,200	3.5%	3–5%
Repairs & Maintenance	$1,800	1.5%	1–2%
Marketing & Advertising	$2,400	2.0%	1–3%
Supplies (non-food)	$1,500	1.3%	1–2%
Insurance	$1,200	1.0%	1–2%
Credit Card Fees	$960	0.8%	0.5–1%
Professional Fees (accounting, legal)	$800	0.7%	0.5–1%
Miscellaneous	$600	0.5%	—
Total Operating Expenses	$23,060	19.2%	15–25%
Net Income	$28,640	23.9%	5–10%

Note: This example is for illustration. A 23.9% net margin is above typical — it assumes no debt service, depreciation, or owner draws. Real-world net margins for most restaurant operations run 5–10% after all costs.

P&L Percentage Benchmarks by Line Item

The percentages matter more than the dollar amounts. A restaurant doing $80,000/month and one doing $300,000/month have completely different absolute cost structures — but both should be aiming for similar percentages.

Line Item	Full Service	Fast Casual	Fine Dining
Food Cost	28–32%	25–30%	32–38%
Beverage Cost	18–24%	15–20%	22–28%
Labor Cost	28–35%	25–30%	32–38%
Prime Cost	55–65%	50–58%	60–70%
Rent	6–10%	6–10%	5–8%
Utilities	3–5%	3–5%	2–4%
Net Income	5–10%	6–10%	8–15%

If any line is outside its target range, investigate why before assuming it's a problem. Rent at 11% might be fine if you're in a premium location that drives covers. Food cost at 34% might be acceptable if your check average and margin mix justify it. Context matters — but knowing the targets gives you a baseline for the question.

Weekly vs. Monthly P&L

The template includes both a monthly view and a weekly flash report. Here's when to use each:

Monthly P&L

The full-detail version. This is what you give your accountant, what goes into QuickBooks, what you review with your CPA at quarter end. It includes every line item, ties to your bank statements, and captures everything that happened in the month — including one-time costs, accruals, and month-end adjustments.

Weekly Flash Report

A simplified version you can run every Monday for the prior week. It only needs five numbers: revenue, food cost, beverage cost, labor cost, and prime cost. You can calculate it from your POS report and payroll summary in about 15 minutes. The whole point is to see problems early enough to fix them — not to be accounting-grade accurate.

If your weekly prime cost is trending above 65%, you have a problem developing. If it's under 60%, you're on track. That's the decision you need the weekly number for.

How to Read Your Restaurant P&L

Running the P&L is only useful if you know what to look for. Here's the order of operations:

1. Start with prime cost

Before you look at anything else, check prime cost. If it's healthy (under 60–62% for full service), you're likely profitable. If it's not, everything else is secondary to fixing it.

2. Drill into the culprit

If prime cost is high, is it food cost, labor, or both? Look at each separately. A 70% prime cost with 32% food and 38% labor is a scheduling problem. The same 70% with 40% food and 30% labor is a purchasing/waste problem. They have completely different solutions.

3. Compare to your own prior months

Industry benchmarks are useful starting points. Your own history is more useful. If your rent was 7% for two years and jumped to 10%, something changed — either revenue dropped or costs increased. Run the comparison before you run to benchmarks.

4. Watch for trend lines, not one-time events

A single bad month is usually a single bad event. Three consecutive months trending in the wrong direction is a structural problem. Distinguish between variance (normal) and drift (needs intervention).

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Prime Cost Formula for Restaurants The most important number on your P&L — and how to track it weekly.

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Restaurant Food Cost Percentage Formula, benchmarks, and how to lower it when it spikes.

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Restaurant Labor Cost Percentage Formula, benchmarks by restaurant type, and the tactics that actually move the number.

Beyond the Spreadsheet

A P&L template gets you started. But filling it in manually every month — pulling invoices, reconciling bank statements, calculating COGS from inventory counts — takes hours. And it only happens once a month, which means problems have already compounded by the time you see them.

Portioned connects your invoices, POS data, payroll exports, and bank statements — and generates your P&L automatically. You can ask "what was food cost last week?" or "how's prime cost trending?" and get a direct answer from your actual data, not a report you have to interpret.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should be on a restaurant P&L statement?

A complete restaurant P&L includes: Total Revenue (food, beverage, other), Cost of Goods Sold (food cost, beverage cost), Gross Profit, Labor Costs (wages, payroll taxes, benefits), Operating Expenses (rent, utilities, repairs, marketing, supplies, insurance, credit card fees), and Net Income. Most operators also track Prime Cost (COGS + Labor) as a highlighted line because it's the most actionable metric.

What is a good net profit margin for a restaurant?

5–10% is healthy for most restaurant types. Fine dining can reach 10–15% due to higher check averages. Below 3% is precarious. The restaurant industry average is roughly 3–9% depending on segment. Note that "net profit" in everyday conversation often means before owner compensation — true net after all draws is typically lower.

Should I use a weekly or monthly restaurant P&L?

Both. Weekly flash reports catch operational problems in time to fix them — a food cost spike, a labor overrun. Monthly P&Ls give you the complete picture for accounting and tax purposes. The discipline operators build a simple weekly habit and a thorough monthly close.

What percentage should each P&L line item be?

For full-service restaurants: food cost 28–32%, beverage cost 18–24%, labor 28–35%, rent 6–10%, utilities 3–5%, marketing 1–3%, net income 5–10%. Prime cost (food + labor) should stay below 60–65%.