Most chefs don't want to sit behind a laptop.
Yet we expect them to deliver numbers as if they work full-time in an office.
Why KitchenNmbrs exists
KitchenNmbrs didn't start at a boardroom table. It started in the kitchen.
The same situation kept coming up. An entrepreneur sends a message or calls at lunchtime:
"Can you help me with the price of this dish?"
Not because that entrepreneur is unintelligent. But because when you're in the middle of mise en place, you don't have time to fiddle with Excel, manuals and complex software. You simply want to know:
What this dish actually costs
What I need to charge at minimum
And whether I'll actually make anything on it
The busier hospitality got, the more often that question came up. At some point there were simply too many restaurants without oversight and too little time to help everyone personally. That's where the frustration came from. Not with the people, but with the system.
Why is there so much expensive software, when so few hospitality entrepreneurs can actually work with it?
What was going wrong in practice
In many kitchens we saw the same pattern:
menu prices set by gut feeling
margins that should "roughly" be right
calculations spread across loose notebooks
HACCP as a stack of papers mostly getting in the way
There are plenty of platforms that look sleek. With dashboards, tables and exports. But honestly: most chefs aren't waiting for that at all.
They don't want to click through ten tabs to calculate one price. They want one clear answer, ideally before the dish even goes on the menu.
The idea behind KitchenNmbrs
KitchenNmbrs is built on one simple principle:
No fuss. No manuals.
Just clarity.
An app on your phone, no laptop needed. Built for real kitchen practice.
You calculate cost prices and food cost in about sixty seconds.
You immediately see which selling price you need to hit your margin.
Your recipes and menus stay automatically linked to current prices.
You'll also be able to log your HACCP tasks digitally, without paperwork.
Everything is mobile first. Because the real decisions aren't made in an office, but at the cutting board, at the screen, or in the middle of service.
Who we work for
KitchenNmbrs is made for entrepreneurs who work in the kitchen themselves or are closely involved:
It shouldn't be the case that only the biggest players, with the most time and staff, can protect their margins. Everyone in hospitality deserves that chance. Even if you're small. Even if you're in rough waters.
Hospitality runs on people who give their best every day. Who put everything into their business. The numbers should support that effort, not break it.
What we believe in
We build KitchenNmbrs with a few clear principles in mind:
Numbers must be simple
A dish is profitable or it isn't. You should be able to see that at a glance.
A tool, not a monster
Software only has value if you can use it without explanation on a busy evening.
Respect for the craft
We speak the language of the kitchen. Direct, honest and without embellishment.
Everyone must be able to calculate their right to exist
As a well-known hospitality entrepreneur once said:
"If you don't know the minimum you need to charge for a dish, you have no right to exist."
That sentence hangs like an invisible poster above everything we build.
What you can expect from us
KitchenNmbrs is not a toy and not a pretty picture for show.
It's meant as a tool you use every week:
to test new dishes
to calculate menu changes
to finally include food waste and trim loss in your margins
to stay in control instead of being shocked by the numbers after the fact
No bells and whistles. No ten modules you never log into.
Just a tool that works.
For kitchens where people work hard.
For entrepreneurs like you, who take their craft seriously and want to give their business a future.
