Most restaurant owners don't realize they're bleeding money on every plate they serve. Your kitchen team spends countless hours prepping, cutting, and portioning before service begins. Yet this labor cost rarely makes it into your dish pricing calculations.
What are mise-en-place costs?
Mise-en-place costs represent every dollar you spend on labor before serving your first customer. This includes:
- Cutting and washing vegetables
- Portioning and marinating meat
- Making and portioning sauces
- Preparing garnishes
- Setting everything up at workstations
This preparation time costs real money, but most operators completely ignore it in their dish costing.
The hidden impact on your margin
A chef earns between $22-28 per hour on average. If they spend 2 hours prepping for 50 covers, you're looking at $1.20 per guest just for preparation. Seems small? Over a full year, this oversight can cost you $18,000+ in lost margin.
💡 Example:
Bistro with 80 covers per day, 6 days per week:
- Chef salary: $25/hour
- Mise-en-place time: 2.5 hours per day
- Costs per day: $62.50
- Costs per cover: $62.50 ÷ 80 = $0.78
Annual impact: $0.78 × 80 × 6 × 52 = $19,469
How do you calculate mise-en-place costs per cover?
The math is straightforward, but you need to capture every element:
Mise-en-place costs per cover = (Total preparation labor costs ÷ Number of covers)
Calculating labor costs
Track all hours spent on prep work before your first guest walks in:
- Chef: main preparation and complex tasks
- Sous chef: assisting and simple prep
- Commis: cutting vegetables, cleaning
- Kitchen helper: washing, setting up
⚠️ Note:
Calculate using total hourly costs including benefits and taxes. For a chef at $22/hour gross, you're actually paying around $30/hour in total labor costs.
Practical calculation step by step
💡 Example calculation:
Restaurant with 60 covers on a weekday:
- Chef (2 hours × $30): $60
- Sous chef (1.5 hours × $24): $36
- Commis (1 hour × $18): $18
Total mise-en-place costs: $114
Per cover: $114 ÷ 60 = $1.90
Seasons and varying volumes
Your prep costs per cover swing wildly between busy and slow periods. On a quiet Monday with 30 covers you might pay $3.50+ per guest for preparation. But on a packed Saturday with 120 covers that could drop to $0.95.
Smart operators calculate averages over weekly or monthly periods rather than obsessing over daily fluctuations.
Charging mise-en-place costs in your menu price
After managing kitchen operations for nearly a decade, I've seen restaurants fail to account for $1.50-2.00 per cover in prep costs. With a 30% food cost target, you need your selling price to be $5-7 higher to cover these expenses:
$1.50 ÷ 0.30 = $5.00 extra selling price needed
💡 In practice:
Ignoring mise-en-place costs destroys your margin:
- Expected margin: 65% (after 30% food cost, 5% other costs)
- Actual margin: 55% (after mise-en-place costs)
- Difference: 10 percentage points less profit
More efficient mise-en-place = lower costs
Most kitchens can slash their prep time by 40-50% through:
- Better planning: what can you prep a day ahead?
- Right tools: sharp knives and proper cutting equipment
- Smart purchasing: pre-cut vegetables when labor costs exceed savings
- Standardization: consistent methods reduce thinking time
Tools like KitchenNmbrs help you track prep time per dish, so you'll know exactly which menu items demand heavy preparation versus those that don't.
How do you calculate mise-en-place costs per cover? (step by step)
Add up all preparation time
Note how many hours each employee spends on mise-en-place. Add up chef, sous chef, commis and kitchen helpers. Do this for an average day, not the busiest or quietest.
Calculate total labor costs
Multiply each employee's hours by their total hourly wage (including social contributions). Add all costs together for the total mise-en-place costs for that day.
Divide by number of covers
Divide the total mise-en-place costs by the number of covers for that day. This gives you the mise-en-place costs per guest that you need to factor into your menu price.
✨ Pro tip
Track your team's prep time for exactly 14 days and calculate the true cost per cover. Most operators discover they're missing $25,000+ annually by not factoring these costs into their menu pricing.
Calculate this yourself?
In the KitchenNmbrs app you can do this in just a few clicks. 7 days free, no credit card.
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Frequently asked questions
Do I need to calculate mise-en-place costs separately per dish?
You could, but it's incredibly time-consuming. Most successful operators calculate an average per cover and build this into all dishes. Complex items require more prep, but simpler dishes balance this out.
What about mise-en-place that lasts multiple days?
Spread the costs across however many days you benefit from that prep work. Make sauce on Monday for three service days? Charge one-third of that labor time to each day.
Are mise-en-place costs higher in fine dining?
Absolutely. Fine dining restaurants often spend 3-4 hours daily on mise-en-place for just 40-60 covers. This can cost $3-5 per cover, which explains why fine dining menu prices run so much higher.
Should I include cleaning work as well?
Only ingredient prep cleaning counts - washing vegetables, cleaning fish, trimming meat. General kitchen sanitation falls under operational costs, not mise-en-place.
📚 Sources consulted
- EU Verordening 852/2004 — Levensmiddelenhygiëne (2004) — Official source
- EU Verordening 853/2004 — Hygiënevoorschriften voor levensmiddelen van dierlijke oorsprong (2004) — Official source
- EU Verordening 1169/2011 — Voedselinformatie aan consumenten (2011) — Official source
- NVWA — Hygiënecode voor de horeca (2024) — Official source
- NVWA — Allergenen in voedsel (2024) — Official source
- Codex Alimentarius — International Food Standards (2024) — Official source
- FSA — Safer food, better business (HACCP) (2024) — Official source
- BVL — Lebensmittelhygiene (HACCP) (2024) — Official source
- Warenwetbesluit Bereiding en behandeling van levensmiddelen (2024) — Official source
- WHO — Foodborne diseases estimates (2024) — Official source
Food Standards Agency (FSA) — https://www.food.gov.uk
The HACCP standards shown in this application are for informational purposes only. KitchenNmbrs does not guarantee that displayed values are current or complete. Always consult the FSA or your local authority for the latest regulations.
Written by
Jeffrey Smit
Founder & CEO of KitchenNmbrs
Jeffrey Smit built KitchenNmbrs from 8 years of hands-on experience as kitchen manager at 1NUL8 Group in Rotterdam. His mission: give every restaurant owner control over food cost.
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