Menu engineering matrix calculator
Drop in every dish on your menu — units sold, menu price, food cost per plate — and the matrix sorts each item into one of four quadrants: Star, Plowhorse, Puzzle, or Dog. Each quadrant gets a one-line action recommendation you can hand to your chef and floor manager. Print the A4 report or export CSV. Free, no signup.
Menu items
Matrix
Action plan
| Item | Qty | CM ₹ | CM % | Mix % | Class | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Paneer Butter Masala Main | 320 | 172 | 71.7% | 15.2% | Star | Promote — keep visible, do not change the price/recipe. |
Veg Biryani Main | 280 | 158 | 71.8% | 13.3% | Star | Promote — keep visible, do not change the price/recipe. |
Garlic Naan Snack | 540 | 46 | 76.7% | 25.7% | Plowhorse | Test small price increase or reduce portion size. |
Masala Papad Snack | 420 | 48 | 80.0% | 20.0% | Plowhorse | Test small price increase or reduce portion size. |
Chicken Tikka Starter | 210 | 225 | 70.3% | 10.0% | Puzzle | Re-engineer placement — feature on menu, train servers to upsell. |
Dal Makhani Main | 180 | 162 | 77.1% | 8.6% | Puzzle | Re-engineer placement — feature on menu, train servers to upsell. |
Gulab Jamun (2 pc) Dessert | 95 | 58 | 72.5% | 4.5% | Dog | Remove or reposition unless strategic. |
Fresh Lime Soda Beverage | 60 | 72 | 80.0% | 2.9% | Dog | Remove or reposition unless strategic. |
Quadrants are computed against the average contribution margin and average sales share of the items above. Add or remove rows to re-calc live. Data persists in your browser only.
How the matrix classifies items
Two axes do all the work. The vertical axis is contribution margin — menu price minus food cost per plate, in rupees. The horizontal axis is popularity — what share of total units sold this dish accounts for. Take the averages of both and you have a 2×2:
- Star — high contribution margin and high popularity. Your menu's workhorses.
- Plowhorse — low CM, high popularity. Guests love it, you barely make money on it.
- Puzzle — high CM, low popularity. Profitable but nobody's ordering it.
- Dog — low CM, low popularity. Earning its place on the menu only if it has strategic value (a vegetarian must-have, a kids' pacifier, a chef's signature).
What to do with each quadrant
- Stars: protect them. Keep visible — top-right of the menu page, in the suggested-by-staff list. Do not change the recipe, do not move the price. The damage from breaking a star is bigger than the gain from optimising it.
- Plowhorses: a 5–8% price test or a small portion-size reduction usually moves them into Star territory without denting popularity. Run the test on one item at a time, watch covers for two weeks.
- Puzzles: placement and storytelling. Move them to the "chef recommends" box, photograph them for the digital menu, train servers to suggest them. Don't cut the price — that breaks the margin you built the quadrant on.
- Dogs: remove unless strategic. Every dog you keep is a SKU your kitchen has to mise-en-place for, which slows tickets on the items that actually pay rent.
Where this fits
- Menu engineering matrix — India playbook — the full operator guide behind the four quadrants
- Restaurant unit economics — India guide — where contribution margin sits in the full P&L
- Food cost percentage targets — India — the band your average food cost should land in before menu engineering can help
- Food cost percentage calculator — sanity-check the per-plate food cost before feeding it into this matrix
- Prime cost calculator — once the menu mix is right, prime cost tells you whether the bigger operating band is in shape