Not a POS connector.
You type or paste your data; the math runs locally. Connecting to Toast, Square, or Lightspeed inverts that flow and breaks the privacy posture. Pulling a sales report manually each month is the price of keeping it client-side.
Free tool · stays in your browser
Stop guessing which dishes pull their weight.
Last verified:
Paste your menu — name, price, food cost, units sold — and get a Stars / Plowhorses / Puzzles / Dogs matrix with one short action per item. The math runs in your browser; nothing uploads.
How we keep your numbers private · What is menu engineering?
Analyse:
Per-category split runs the median within each section so a $38 entrée and a $6 side don't share an x-axis.
Need a worked example first?
| Item | Price | Food cost | Units sold | Category (optional) |
|---|
Revenue mode: type the dollar revenue each item brought in last period. We compute units = revenue ÷ price client-side, so the matrix runs the same math.
Paste a CSV/TSV block or a spreadsheet selection. The first row should be a header — typical column names (Item, Price, Food cost, Units sold, Category) auto-map. Tabs and commas both work; quoted-CSV is supported.
The matrix By category
x-axis: contribution margin per sale (\$). y-axis: share of total covers (%). Median lines split the grid; items at exactly the median fall to the upper-right side.
Method: Kasavana & Smith (1990). Median split — one runaway item won't drag the bar.
Action plan by quadrant
Per-item math
Re-engineer the Plowhorses
Plowhorses are popular but margin-thin. The standard playbook: a 5–10% price tweak or sourcing change. Drag the slider to rehearse before you touch the menu — the input above is unchanged.
Add Plowhorse-quadrant items to rehearse. Run a sample menu above to see this in action.
Export
Heads-up on the share link: unlike the other exports, it carries your menu data inside the URL fragment (#m=). The fragment never reaches our servers, but anyone you forward the link to can rehydrate the same analysis. Send it where you'd email a CSV — not where you'd paste a public link.
The Menu Card PNG is a 1200×1500 image with the matrix + per-quadrant action cards — share it with your chef or partner. The CSV mirrors the input plus computed quadrant. The JSON includes thresholds and full per-item math. The ZIP bundle packages all four (PNG + CSV + JSON + README). Composed in your browser; nothing uploads.
Save this menu analysis to the Workshop so it follows you across devices.
Sign in to saveAdd at least 2 items above to render the matrix. Or click to see how it works on a 12-item Italian fixture.
Plain English
What this does, in four sentences
- You enter your menu. Items, prices, food cost, and units sold over a chosen period — typed in or pasted from a spreadsheet. The data sits in your browser and never leaves it.
- You get a 2×2 matrix. Each item is plotted against the median contribution margin and the median menu-mix share, landing in one of four quadrants: Star, Plowhorse, Puzzle, or Dog.
- You get an action per item. Stars get protected, Plowhorses get re-engineered for cost, Puzzles get re-photographed and repositioned, Dogs get dropped or replaced. The action plan is the deliverable.
- You get four ways to take it with you. The Menu Card is a 1200×1500 PNG you can email or print. The CSV mirrors the per-item math. The JSON is structured for any downstream tool. The ZIP packages all four (PNG + CSV + JSON + README).
It is not a POS connector, a recipe-cost calculator, or a menu-redesign service. More on the limits below.
Lead by example
Your menu data stays in your browser.
No upload, no account, no localStorage writes. Close the tab and the form is empty. Open DevTools → Network and click Add item or Load sample menu — the request list won't grow. The whole math module is plain JavaScript at /tools/menu-engineering/menu-engineering.js; right-click View Page Source and read it.
Same architecture as Brand Suite — see how Brand Suite protects your logo for the same posture, point by point.
Honest framing
What this isn't
Menu Engineering Matrix runs the math on data you already have. It is sharp, but it is one specific tool — not a substitute for the harder work that turns a Dog into a Star.
Not a recipe-cost calculator.
Plated food cost is your input, not your output. Inferring it from ingredient prices + portion sizes is its own legitimately complex problem. Until that tool exists, your chef's plate-cost number is the right input here.
Not a menu redesign.
The Matrix tells you what to act on — re-photograph this Puzzle, drop that Dog, re-cost this Plowhorse. Designing a new menu around that action plan is paid studio work. The output is a brief, not a final.
Not a single-snapshot conclusion.
A Dog at brunch can be a Star at dinner. A summer Plowhorse can become a winter Puzzle. Run the analysis once a quarter, separately for service periods that have meaningfully different traffic. Trend across periods is its own (planned) feature.
What this is: a 30-minute exercise that pays for itself.
Three audiences, three handoffs. Bring the Menu Card to your chef — the four quadrants are the action plan. Bring the CSV to your accountant — the contribution-margin column is what they actually care about. Bring the JSON to a developer building anything on top of your menu data. The Card is the file your non-technical partners can actually use.
When you want a redesign, hire the studio.
A menu redesign turns the action plan into a printed, photographed, on-brand menu. Bring your Menu Card to the kickoff call — that's 30 minutes of the engagement already done.
See Brand & menu identityWhere to go next
Why this tool exists.
Every check this tool runs maps to a specific concept in the Library. Two starting points — one definition, one playbook.
Glossary
Menu engineering
treating each dish as a portfolio decision, not a P&L line
A 50-year-old restaurant analysis (Kasavana & Smith, 1990) that plots every menu item on a 2×2 of contribution margin (\$ per sale) against …
Read the definition GlossaryContribution margin
what one sale of an item adds to covering fixed costs and profit
For a single menu item: sale price minus the variable cost of producing one unit (plated food cost). Reported in dollars (CM \$) and as a pe…
Read the definition GlossaryFood cost
cost of goods sold, as a % of sales
The cost of ingredients, alcohol, and consumables (paper goods, to-go packaging) expressed as a percentage of sales. Target 28–32% for most …
Read the definition GlossaryPrime cost
food cost + labor cost, as a % of sales
Your food cost plus your labor cost, expressed as a percentage of sales. Healthy independents land between 55–65%; above 70% is operationall…
Read the definitionOperator sheets that use this tool — printable, fillable, exports to CSV.
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Recipe Cost Card
Drop in ingredients, AP prices, and yields. Walk away with plate cost, target price at your food-cost goal, and a printable card for the binder.
Open the sheet -
Third-Party Channel P&L
Run the honest math on DoorDash, Uber Eats, or Grubhub. Gross sales minus commission, marketing fees, refunds, packaging, and the labor those orders cost. Settles the argument.
Open the sheet